Shooting someone else's injured buck - etiquette question

[Dan-o]

I'd be careful about being judgmental toward the OP myself.
It's not like we're watching video of it here.

Who knows if they even had a chance to flag the first shooter down. 

I can envision seeing the first shooter pop over a distant ridge, think he's going to trail/track his buck, have him disappear and never be seen again.

Good job recovering the buck. 

[dilleytech]

1st lead in the animal owns it.  If you can’t locate the shooter to help  him recover the animal then no choice but to tag it to avoid waste at risk of original shooter showing up with buddies to search for it and claim it. 

You likely did the right thing.

Definitely not 😂

[Nate p]

Let me start by saying that I believe everything the OP did was morally and ethically correct in my opinion and finding myself in that situation I probably would have done the same thing.

That being said I have also noticed a trend lately of other hunters flocking to the sound of shots. This year my 9 year old shot his first buck and within 5 minutes of the shot we had people coming out of the woodwork and looking over the landings down to were we had shot from. We ended up having to relocate to a road above the deer to haul it out and ran into a hunter on the landing we were going to pull from. I walked up to this hunter and stated that we needed access to the landing for the retrieval of a deer we just shot and didn't want to seem like we were stepping on his toes. He stated he heard the shot and was investigating the area because of this???

Years ago i had a bull elk that we had shot from about 500 yards away. We watched a individual look at us on the ridge with his binoculars and start running to the valley we were shooting into. The bull was still alive but mortally wounded and we were still actively trying to dispatch the animal when this guy came up and shot the bull as he lay dying. He started processing the elk until we showed up at the site and he stated he was just doing us a favor by putting it down and processing it.

This behavior is crossing that moral line in my opinion. It seems that guys are trying to take advantage of the law how it reads being that the animal belongs to the person who delivers the final kill shot. I personally find no sport in chasing down other peoples wounded game in the hopes I can take home some meat.

OP's situation is different in the fact that he watched the original shooter attempt recovery and then give up and walk away but this in my opinion is a grey area as well because I have been in situations before where I wasn't confident in my shot placement and have walked away from an animal for hours to give them time to expire before trying to blood trail for risk of pushing them further. Just my

[Rugergunsite308]

I have had this situation occur more while archery hunting than with rifles. In our elk camp we go by the rule of first blood generally. With archery, we wait for animals bleed out more often than one does when rifles are used. If there is a bad hit, then you back out and come back hours later or even the next day. The saving grace is that other hunters don't generally hear your bow shot.

One of our guys did that and followed the trail the next morning to find other hunters carving up his bull. Not a happy day in camp because the other hunters had tagged it and were very abrasive about "finders keeper, loser's weepers".

On the flip side, I hit a cow one year high in the "no man's land" and spent all evening looking for it. The next day we all went out and followed blood until it petered out. After a while, everyone else started hunting away while my dad and I kept looking with a growing pit in my stomach. When over the radio came the call that one of the other members in camp had shot a cow a few hundred yards away. My dad got there before me and noticed a hole where I said I hit the elk, in addition to the holes where our buddy hit the elk. As I approached my Dad confronted me and told me this was most likely the elk I hit, and if I wanted to claim it, he would back me up since we generally follow the first blood rule. He also said that our buddy was really excited about shooting the elk. I new instantly that I didn't care about our first blood rule. The biggest satisfaction and relief I felt was knowing the cow wasn't wounded and lost. I didn't feel like I earned that elk.
So as I approached the elk, we were all able to celebrate together and work together on butchering and packing my buddy's elk.

I guess I didn't clear anything up. Just be courteous and leave the ego's at home.

[fmlyarcher]

I was hunting exotics in TX with a couple buddies that are brothers.  One brother shot a corsican ram but couldn't find it.  A few hours later the other brother sees a group of corsicans, sneaks in, and there's a ram that's limping pretty good.  He thinks "It's my brothers, I'll shoot it to finish it for him since he couldn't find it" which he does...then recovers it and finds that the only arrow hole in it is his.  It was a ram that just had a good limp.  He ended up having to pay for it, and it wasn't very big, or anything that he wanted to shoot.  He tried to do a good thing for his brother and had to pay for it!  haha!

[Fidelk]

So the hunters that shot this deer came looking for it,OP saw where the deer went and didn't point the shooter at least in the right direction?Then,when shooter leaves puts a tag on it?Not much of a hunt and even less of a sportsman in my opinion.

That's kinda what I was thinking,you sit there silently and wait for the guy to leave.
Then your hero for putting the animal down.
If your waving at the guy, pointing into the draw,guy turns and leaves.
Then I guess you did the right thing.
Maybe he didn't want to ruin your hunt,was unsure the buck went down there.

I also agree ,only solid good is the deer was not wasted or suffering.


It reminds me of a story about a Hunter who shot a buck in the throat.
Then the buck got it's throat silt by another hunter and tagged.

In the first highlighted quote......in my experience, if you are on public land and shoot an animal, you are now in a race to recover what you just shot. People will leave their camp knowing that they might get lucky and have an opportunity to kill an animal that is dying from another hunter's shot and we all know that a mortally wounded animal can take some time to expire. Given that, not sure how much moral or legal responsibility another hunter would have to help out "the competition". The competition that would steal your dying animal in a heart beat.

In the second highlighted quote.......this has been discussed several times around the campfire at our elk camp........any killing of big game animals must be done by legal means.......killing an animal by slitting its throat with a knife is not "legal means".....neither is your spear or a curare tipped dart fired from your blow gun. It wouldn't even be legal to pull out your snub nose .38 and shoot it in the head.

[Ridgeratt]

Back in the early 80's. My father and I were hunting the Blues in Lick Creek. I had just bought a new 338 and was telling my father about how this was the greatest thing since creamy peanut butter. He said if I thought it was so good to hit the stump across the canyon. So I got snuggled into it and sent one across the canyon. The stump just exploded and the next thing we knew we had several people on the ridge. They asked what we were shooting at. My Father said that "I" had taken a shot at a spike. He said it ran to the bottom of the canyon. The people across the canyon took off on a dead run into the bottom. He just giggled and we carried on with our hunt.
That was over 40 years ago and it has just gotten worse.

[OutHouse]

This is a really interesting and thought provoking thread!

If I shot a wounded animal and the hunter caught up with me, I would give it to him/her, unless they claimed that I was the rightful owner because I put it down. I like the spirit of hunters helping other hunters.

This issue came up with family member who was dying to get a deer with a new rifle. He shoots the deer, the deer beds down next to where it was hit. He's just watching the deer, but won't shoot it again. At that time, my old man had my scope rifle and so I am bee bopping around with an old open sight Mosin Nagant. I hike up just a bit and can see all this unfolding after I hear the shot.

Deer gets up and starts to walk down hill with a noticeable low and back shot with dark blood on its side, but not much. My mind instantly tells me, liver shot and not a good one. Buck appears to be moving just fine. My family member still won't take a second shot. I leveled my rifle and shot it broadside about 80 yards away.

Family member is irritated with me, says I made the bad shot, and should not have shot at all. Found both bullets just inside the fur on the opposite side of the bullet's entry. My bullet was 30 cal, his a 270. It was very clear that he made the bad shot and that mine went right through the boiler room.

To this day, he gets pissy if the subject comes up, but he agrees he was in the wrong. There was no question between us that it was his deer.

[Fidelk]

To this day, he gets pissy if the subject comes up, but he agrees he was in the wrong. There was no question between us that it was his deer.

For fun.....mail him (anonymously) the page out of the hunting regs (relevant portion high-lighted in yellow) that says the shooter who actually kills the animal is legally entitled to keep it

[Fidelk]

This is a really interesting and thought provoking thread!

It really is, good learning opportunity. I learned a lot from another recent thread that discussed having a loaded magazine in a vehicle (but not inserted into the rifle) and whether that was a violation. A few weeks later that came up as a buddy and I were driving up to where we hunt elk.

[Rainier10]

Shot a deer at swakane two hours before dark. Archery season. Hit the front knee, KO’d that leg, found a big chunk of bone, two inches long. Followed the blood trail straight down and side hill at times. It kept trying to turn uphill but then it would go straight down.  Lost blood at dark.

Went back the next day and here comes a limping deer but much smaller than the one I shot. Did I remember wrong? My buddy got eyes on the limping deer. That’s not him too small. What to do? If someone else just hit that deer and is blood trailing it’s their deer and I still need to find mine.

Jump him 30 minutes later big boy. Can’t get a shot, follow him over a ridge and meet two other hunters. Did you just see a limper come by? Yep, big buck, we took a running shot but missed. Okay thanks.

Go over the next ridge back towards where I saw the smaller limper. Three guys on the hill in the brush. Hike over to see if they saw the buck come by and they are gutting the big buck I had hit.

Thanks for knocking him down, I wish I would have hit him better. At least I know he is dead and can go look for another one.

What are you talking about we shot this deer this morning. Uh no I shot it yesterday and have been following it. Sorry but no we dhot this and followed it to here and finished it off.

Oh I saw a smaller buck come through limping. Smaller antlers and no eye guards. His buddy says hey now that you mention it this buck has 3” eye guards and I don’t remember the one you shot having eye guards.

Well there are three of you, tag this one and go look for the one you actually hit this morning.

Shooter says this is the one I hit this morning. Now I’m getting pissed. Ok well then where is the front leg? We already cut it off. Just one lower leg and you left the other three? Yep.  I hike downhill grab the leg. Whatcha doing with that? I pull the bone fragment out of my pocket from the day before and line it up with the leg they threw away.

Why would I have a piece of bone in my pocket from a deer you shot just a little bit ago?

They all knew I had shot that buck, they killed it’s theirs just don’t say I didn’t shoot it first and at least go after the deer you originally shot.

[hunter399]

I know this topic had me looking for an injured animal today.
Found some blood,while taking my wife hunting.
Couldn't figure it out , anybody ever find blood from a doe in heat.
It was strange, hopefully not the buck my wife has been looking for.

So I'm saying this topic sucks.,sure hope I'm not finding this again.

[Tball77]

Kneecap injury isn’t survivable.  That’s not even something to question as it runs by.  You did great by harvesting him.