collapse

Advertisement


Author Topic: if you shoot a deer in the last minutes of daylight  (Read 12046 times)

Offline Colville

  • Non-Hunting Topics
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Longhunter
  • *****
  • Join Date: Mar 2007
  • Posts: 689
  • Location: Snohomish
Re: if you shoot a deer in the last minutes of daylight
« Reply #60 on: September 16, 2018, 10:25:33 AM »
For Rifle this is simple.  If it's down, where do you have to be? You are hunting, what could possibly be making you wait for tomorrow?  I suppose it's possible to have such an inclement weather situation that you'd bail, AFTER gutting the animal.  Otherwise, who cares that it's dark?  Get on your headlamp and do your job, embrace the suck and get it done. At the barest minimum, gutted.  I can't see why a deer would ever be so difficult that you'd need to wait to bone or  quarter.

If it's rifle and you think you've made a marginal shot...  Unless the "margin" is that you hit a leg extremity, the vast majority of rifle shots, even to the guts, are fatal in the very near term.  Give them 1/2 hour and pursue. If you actually bump them, fine back out and consider tomorrow.  How many stories about bad shots do you hear where the animal was dead inside 100 yards?  Might some of them have been down but not out, maybe... but if they chose to lay down that close to where they were hit, they were in a very bad way and likely died quickly.  Risk bumping them to find out, after a bit of a wait.

Archery is another animal.  Especially in early seasons, I'd risk bumping them after a wait over waiting till tomorrow get recover my rotten animal. In late seasons with cold temps and a 100% gut shot, I might think on that a while longer.

Ultimately, I think there's far more risk to losing recovery of your animal to waiting than there is to giving a little time and taking on the pursuit.  Once found, I can't find any excuse for not gutting, and as said earlier by grade, why take an easy job and make it a brutal one with rigor, frozen hide etc.


Offline Justdecent

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Tracker
  • **
  • Join Date: Mar 2018
  • Posts: 25
  • Location: SW Washington
Re: if you shoot a deer in the last minutes of daylight
« Reply #61 on: September 25, 2018, 03:40:23 PM »
Heard a story last year about a “huntress” waiting to gut a buck until the next day so she could get a good picture and the meat was ruined the next day. I don’t know the whole story but if that’s true, disgraceful.

Offline buggy

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Hunter
  • ***
  • Join Date: Jun 2015
  • Posts: 178
  • Location: Washington
Re: if you shoot a deer in the last minutes of daylight
« Reply #62 on: September 25, 2018, 07:32:14 PM »
I agree. If the animal is down there is no reason to wait til morning unless there are life threatening circumstances involved.

Offline dboots

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Pilgrim
  • *
  • Join Date: Apr 2018
  • Posts: 3
  • Location: Western
Re: if you shoot a deer in the last minutes of daylight
« Reply #63 on: September 26, 2018, 12:01:43 AM »
I'll always get it done that night. Minimize that chance of anything happening that would waste any meat

Offline fishnfur

  • Non-Hunting Topics
  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Frontiersman
  • *****
  • Join Date: Nov 2014
  • Posts: 3805
  • Location: longview
Re: if you shoot a deer in the last minutes of daylight
« Reply #64 on: September 26, 2018, 12:33:05 AM »
 :beatdeadhorse:   
“When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.”  - Will Rogers

Offline sticky

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Scout
  • ****
  • Join Date: Aug 2010
  • Posts: 291
  • Location: Mossyrock
Re: if you shoot a deer in the last minutes of daylight
« Reply #65 on: September 30, 2018, 08:44:27 PM »
In the hanging room before in bed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

-Abraham Lincoln

 


* Advertisement

* Recent Topics

2027 Pink Run Destroyed by bigtex
[Today at 06:55:55 PM]


My Kansas 2025 Buck by buglebuster
[Today at 06:55:33 PM]


Idaho Trapping Journal 2025/26 by Kingofthemountain83
[Today at 06:23:27 PM]


Leopard Cur Pups by Kingofthemountain83
[Today at 06:20:45 PM]


Tease 'l' by Brute
[Today at 04:54:35 PM]


GO 2025 15th Annual Hunting-Washington Christmas Gift Exchange by rainshadow1
[Today at 02:43:46 PM]


Winthrop wolves by timberfaller
[Today at 01:55:09 PM]


This Jeff Davis guy. by Tbar
[Today at 01:41:33 PM]


Smith-Reynolds American Legion Post #14 Fall Raffle by passman65
[Today at 01:09:26 PM]


Lion Down - the Savor of Success by Sliverslinger
[Today at 11:43:23 AM]


Idaho on the verge of outlawing by idaho guy
[Today at 11:37:19 AM]


Report Wolf Sightings Here - Hunting-Washington Wolf Count 158+ by Pygmy
[Today at 10:12:05 AM]


Where can one find hides from hunters? by HighlandLofts
[Today at 09:57:59 AM]


In the background by nwwanderer
[Today at 06:44:34 AM]


Swakane by redi
[Yesterday at 11:27:02 PM]


MOA or MRAD, & Why? by Magnum_Willys
[Yesterday at 09:57:59 PM]


Pics from this year 2025 by Kingofthemountain83
[Yesterday at 09:36:06 PM]


2025 elk success thread!! by jstone
[Yesterday at 09:14:54 PM]


2025 blacktail rut thread by Crunchy
[Yesterday at 08:12:33 PM]


Trap Check Time by TeacherMan
[Yesterday at 07:33:16 PM]

SimplePortal 2.3.7 © 2008-2025, SimplePortal