No Bucks, but scored 10 Bonus Points!

[donimator]

My wife and I spent opening weekend in the Sinlahekin looking for a good muley.

Day 1-  Hiked her all over on opening day (14 miles) and found a good buck.  Got my wife all setup with my back pack as a rest and settled in for the shot.  It was an obvious large widish deer with 2 points per side.  Did the 45min stare down at 200 yds trying to put a 3rd point on him. When he finally turned and I was able to spot the 3rd point, he dashed over the hill with no shot.  Bummer!  Would have been my wife's first deer.  She got the full buck fever experience and all.

Day 2- Took it easy and did around 6miles in the morning.  Kicked up a nice 2pt white tail, but he didn't cooperate.  Spend the evening overlooking a hill just out of camp that we see deer all the time. Same hill that I got one opening day last year.  It has become her favorite spot to glass.  As we are sitting there, I hear a shot from just up the draw.  I peak my head over the hill to see a deer staring at an approaching hunter at about 50yrds.  Deer wobbles and falls over in the grass.  As the deer is flopping around, I see him take the 2nd shot.  He then gets about 15ft from the deer, turns around and begins to walk back to his truck up the hill.  I thought that is strange.  I thought maybe he needs to go get his tag or knife, or call a friend.  But something inside me said go get his license plate number.  I never could see the antlers.  We drove up the road and wrote down his license plate number and headed back to camp for the night.

Day 3- The next morning, we went to check it out and the deer was still there! And Alive! I could clearly see one side of the antlers at that point and see only two points.  Then we drove up to the Sinlahekin Headquarters and reported the incident.  The manager followed us back and dispatched the buck.  Sure enough, it was clearly a large 2pt buck.  The manager gave the license plate number to the game warden and they tracked in down in Conconully.  After a short interview he confessed.  I heard that part from others camped around me. The warden visited our camp while we were gone and left his card. 

Day 4- We do a short hunt and see nothing, pack up and head on out.  Once back into Omak, I called the warden and got the full story from him.  The hunter did confess. They charged him with shooting and not tagging a game animal, wasteful use of a game animal?, hunting out of season, etc, etc.  They also took his rifle and is license.  After the warden thanked me for calling it in he said I would be rewarded with 10 Bonus points!  The entire time reporting this and everything, bonus points never even crossed my mind.  I guess I thought of the incident as a mistake and not poaching.  It crossed my mind for one second that what if that was me.  Part of me feels a little bad for the guy if it was an honest mistake, but then I think about day 1 of our hunt.  We sat for 45min waiting to confirm the deer had 3pts on it.  We didn't get that deer because of that.  I will never pull the trigger on an animal unless 100% sure.  He should have done the same. 

Hopefully next year I draw the Quality tag with those bonus points.  But for the rest of this year, my wife and I are giving it our all to fill our late season White Tail Buck Special permits in the Sinlahekin!

[DOUBLELUNG]

Good on you for calling it in.

[Big game archer]

 

[h20hunter]

Nice job all the way around.

[quadrafire]

Good Job dominator.
Be prepared to be called an nosey SOB before this thread is done. Seems not all share the view that this is the appropriate thing to do

[washelkhunter]

Well done! You deserve the reward! If he had recovered the deer and properly taken care of it, run it down, and then turned it over to the wdfw, and admit his error he'd of probably only lost his tag and or maybe recd a citation, but he did'nt. Honest mistakes are just that; however his actions are a clear display of a lack of character.

[Yelper Guy]

It' the ethical thing to do.

[GurrCentral]

Great job!! If it was an honest mistake he should have reported it himself instead of just leaving it...and especially not leave it to suffer.  Use those points well!

[JJB11B]

I am glad you called it in, Hope they fry him for cruelty to animals for not dispatching the thing. What a POS! hope he never hunts again

[Curly]

Him not finishing the buck off is the worst part of that story.  That's terrible to have the deer suffer like that.

Good for you for reporting it.

[JohnVH]

Him not finishing the buck off is the worst part of that story.  That's terrible to have the deer suffer like that.

Amen! people suck, I had the cross hairs on a 2pt monday morning, never could make it grow a 3rd point!

Good job getting the plate!  Last year hiking around my dad came across a dead 2pt, Id assume someone shot without making sure it was legal 

[mkcj]

 

[Bob33]

Well done. I hope you draw a nice permit with the extra points.

[3nails]

Well done! You deserve the reward! If he had recovered the deer and properly taken care of it, run it down, and then turned it over to the wdfw, and admit his error he'd of probably only lost his tag and or maybe recd a citation, but he did'nt. Honest mistakes are just that; however his actions are a clear display of a lack of character.

  Yup!

[donimator]

The warden was super surprised the deer was still alive.  When they skinned it out, they found one of his shots had hit the back bone and it was mangled.  The other shot was in the gut.  I feel horrible for not going back to check on the deer earlier that night.  I would have known sooner. I did ask the warden if I ever see anything like this again, is it OK to finish the animal off.  And he confirmed what I thought.  While it is morally ethical to put down a suffering animal, you risk compromising the crime scene by doing so.  I never even thought of it as a crime scene until he said that.  More foot prints, bullet holes, etc all compromise it.