What Would YOU Do & Why ?

[SpearitLake]

Regardless if you hunt Archery, Muzzle Loader or Rifle season what would you do if you shot your intended game and for whatever reason you could not recover your game.

For arguments sake lets say that 75% of all wounded Deer / Elk don't survive after being shot.

Lets also say that you did your very best at tracking your wounded animal but just couldn't find it.

Do you continue to hunt the remainder of your season or do you hang it up until next year?

[SpokaneSlayer]

Funny you should mention this.  I just shot a deer last night and I feel I have done everything I can to recover him.  I'm going to keep hunting as this will be my last deer season for at least 3 yrs.  I'm military and just got orders overseas.  I thought about hanging it up though.

[cohoho]

Have tag soup.....    It is still in all right harvested, and going to die.... Unless it is animal like Black Bear where two tags are authorized.  Friend lost his goat (AK, Kenai Pennsula, Glacier area) over a 1000-1500 cliff, ball of mangled and battered fur, bones and meat, horns were totalled too, got in two days later once he worked out logistics to recover it..  Reported it as "Lethally Wounded, NOT Recovered"

[cackle]

keep hunting

[GoldTip]

Well for one, if I have done absolutley everything I can to recover that animal, then I know there is probably a 80% chance that the animal lived and I did not make a mortal wound, and that the animal I wounded falls into your 25% survival rate.  In that case I am not going to hang up my tag and eat tag soup.  I am going to accept that hunting is not a perfect game, and that sometimes everything was not as I saw it, or as it seemed, and the shot was back or high or forward or whatever, and it happens.  I will continue to hunt knowing that I have hunted for long enough to know, that sometimes mortally wounded animals will get away, and sometimes animals that appeared mortally wounded are not hurt badly at all.  And that I have done everything in my power to assure a clean and quick kill of my intended quarry, and I will continue to hunt.

[SpearitLake]

Funny you should mention this.  I just shot a deer last night and I feel I have done everything I can to recover him.  I'm going to keep hunting as this will be my last deer season for at least 3 yrs.  I'm military and just got orders overseas.  I thought about hanging it up though.

I want you to know that I appreciate you for your service to this Great Country of ours. I pray that God will order your steps and keep you and those your are with safe from all harm. I served 9 1/2 years in the USAF and my wife is still serving in the reserves.

Thats gotta be a tough one loosing that animal like that, I have yet to cross that bridge and would not honestly know just what I would do until it happens to me. Good luck the rest of your season and if I may add I believe this experience will make you a better hunter.

[Bean Counter]

Fortunately I haven't been there yet, but I would notch the tag and learn my lesson.  The only exception would be if someone else got the animal and they tagged it.  In which case I'd probably call the game warden on them, then go back afield.

[cackle]

my buddy shot a buck a few years back that seemed competly healty till he gutted it and it had an arrow stuck 6 or 8 inches into its rib cage completly covered in scar tissue

[DWB]

Happened to my brother this year.  I was fortunate enough to tag mine on opening day, so he went back up with his son the next night.  He had a pass through shot at 38 yards, a lot of blood.  He called me at 10 PM after he had tracked for an hour and half (he waited almost an hour before starting to track).  I met up with him and we tracked the blood until 2 AM.  I still can not believe how much blood that deer lost and we could not find it.  He went back up the next day and the blood trail just tapered off?  Guess he hit it low and maybe not even in the diaphram; only way I can figure it with that much blood and no animal.  Unfortunate, but it happens.  It's all in the placement of the arrow.  He is still out hunting, and I would be too at this point.

On to elk for me this weekend!

-Dan

[demontang]

I would probly keep hunt if there was any time left to hunt after I'm done looking. I have seen people tag animals that they didnt shot.

[clemons14e]

this is my first year hunting in a state that only lets you get one deer and first time elk hunting. in the past i have lost deer that i thought was hit good but could not find even with 5 other guys helping i went on to hunt more even though i felt bad that i hit a deer and could not find it but i did learn not to take a shot if i was not 100% i would take the deer down. now with ducks if it gose down and i cant find it its counted as part of my limit but thats a personal thing. with deer and elk if i hit one and i honestly look for it in my mind and i cant find it then i will hunt more .