Yeah another one of these threads. I want to preface this with the fact that I'm just curious what you all would've done in this situation because it's all done and over with and I'm at peace with the outcome.

It's opening day of wisconsin's rifle season today, and it had just started snowing (3" predicted) when a nice little 5 pointer stepped into my shooting lane. I had to wait a couple minutes for a clear shot and when I finally had one and flinched a little at the shot. The deer took off and it spooked like it was started stumbling. I decided to give it 15 minutes before picking up the track because I thought I had a good shoulder shot and didn't wanna lose the track in the quickly falling snow.

When I picked up the trail, there was pretty good blood, but it wasn't pouring out. I tracked him into a small swamp and am pretty sure I kicked him up. At that point I should've backed out, but at that point it was already too late. I heard a shot in the direction he ran and I just kept tracking him. I was still getting some blood spots with every step, but the snow was falling and he wasn't slowing down.

Turns out when I kicked him out of the swamp he limped right over to my good buddy's stand and he dropped it with a shot to the neck/chest at 30 yards.

I've been lucky enough to tag my first two deer with a bow this year and he hadn't gotten any yet, and since I didn't mortally wound it that I could tell even though I had blood all the way to him, I knew I had to call it his deer. I helped him gut and drag it out of the woods and am glad to have a great story for years!

What would you guys have done?

Same thing. Leaves your tag open for something bigger and better (hopefully). Plus, if you already have two deer in the freezer and your friend doesn't have any it's another good reason to let him have it.

It's his, he killed it.

you did the right thing

you did the right thing plus if he is a good friend why let a deer get in the way of a good friendship

You were right, he killed it, it's his.
-Jake

It was still on it's feet so I would call it his deer. If it were just a finishing off shot then I would think that it should be yours. Not worth losing a friend over in either situation. Glad you worked it out.


Mitch

That's pretty well what we would have done here in Missouri,if we don't put a mortal wound on the Deer we're Hunting and it runs past another Hunter and he puts it down then its basically his Deer....now if I was to put a finishing shot on a severely wounded Deer I would rather give it to the Hunter that first shot it.


It pretty well comes down to doing the right thing and helping each other out....sometimes it deosn't always work out as well and pleasant as mentioned if a Big Ol Buck is involved!