Who DOESN'T field dress their deer??

I dont always feild dress my deer.depends how far from home i am.if im ten min from the house ill get it home then skin it first,clean all the hair off the meat then gut it.makes it alot cleaner.kinda like processing livestock.

You did the right thing IMO. I know a lot of guys who would not have even thought about giving that kid their best buck ever. You probably just made a life-long hunter out of him and the sport of hunting is desperate for young hunters. Either that or he will be spoiled for the rest of his time hunting. I've never experienced that personally. Had I made a terrible shot on a nice buck when I was younger, hunting with my old man, and someone else ended up dropping it, my dad would have not let me even think about taking possession of it. Hard lessons are never learned easy. Hopefully that kid's father emphasized with extreme importance (in your presence) that he was very lucky to be hunting with someone so gracious......and ended it with him and the kid shaking your hand with every bit of gratitude in their body. But, that's just the way I see it.

VA

Shows good spotsmanship. I dont know what id of done, i was always told the final shot is the kill shot. If it didnt look fatal i honestly would of kept it. If his shot was fatal i think id of let him have it.

x2 well said

Shows good spotsmanship. I dont know what id of done, i was always told the final shot is the kill shot. If it didnt look fatal i honestly would of kept it. If his shot was fatal i think id of let him have it.
__________________precisely

I agree that you did the right thing...

That said, I do not know why anyone would want a deer that they did not kill themselves...If I had been the kid's father I would not have taken the deer and would have had a long father-to-son explaining why...

I think not field dressing deer is a Southern "thing" (not meant as a jab or insult), I never saw it until I hunted in Georgia & Texas.

Thats exactly what happened

If that's the case, then I'm 100% certain you did the right thing. Good on you. I'm sure it hurts, but doing something like that has to have some kind of payback. Things happen for a reason….