When do ethics out weigh the law

Quote:

Originally Posted by brent

The big problem was you were pushing the deer. As soon as you start jumping a wounded deer, the chances of finding it are getting pretty slim.

A lot depends on the wound. A friend once shot at a massive buck. The bullet deflected off a branch, resulting in a wound high on a front leg. The buck went for a long ways, and eventually tired so it bedded frequently. The intervals between beddings shortened where it would only run a couple of hundred yards. At that point, I knew we would catch up to it. My friend got another bullet into it as it crossed a logging trail. Don’t get me wrong, it was a long tracking job. I think the buck went almost 2 miles. I’m certain however, based on the nature of the wound, we would have lost that buck had we not pursued relentlessly,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam Menard

A lot depends on the wound. A friend once shot at a massive buck. The bullet deflected off a branch, resulting in a wound high on a front leg. The buck went for a long ways, and eventually tired so it bedded frequently. The intervals between beddings shortened where it would only run a couple of hundred yards. At that point, I knew we would catch up to it. My friend got another bullet into it as it crossed a logging trail. Don’t get me wrong, it was a long tracking job. I think the buck went almost 2 miles. I’m certain however, based on the nature of the wound, we would have lost that buck had we not pursued relentlessly,

I concur with that. It's happened twice to me, once on a 8 pointer that picked up my movement as I raised the rifle to shoot and resulted in a non fatal wound. Not a lot of blood but me and two buds managed to track it to a pond where we lost the sign. Buds gave up but I was determined as hell and after a half hour of circling the pond found a couple of faint pink spots that led into a field and that was it. Another guy had a beagle so we got hold of him and he came to help with his two young lads. Even the dog lost the trail a couple of times and we managed to find it again but it was a long trail. Then we started seeing a couple of small patches of blood on the ground where the buck had laid down and once we heard it take off ahead of us. Finally one of the spots had tons of blood in it and I knew right away the wound had opened up big time and we would find it. Sure enough within 100 yard we came up to him and still had to finish the job. Without the dog to track and push that deer we never would have retrieved it. Plus they were calling for rain overnite so even going back with the dog the next day would have been useless. Speaking of that dog one of the crazier things I've seen was when we finally came up to the dead buck the only thing that beagle wanted to do was try and rip the sack off that buck, he was relentless lol. Scotty had to tie him off after he let him have his reward for a job well done. I have no idea if that's a normal thing, this dog wasn't even a real deer dog or trained tracker but it was still a beagle and he had helped find deer before. It's just one of those things that I'll never forget
The second time it happened I had hunted and scouted this private property once before and had found what I thought would be a great spot for an evening sit. The next weekend with 4" of new snow we go back with a bud who was still new to deer hunting, so I offered the spot to him. So go figure a 10 point comes out to him perfect at 75 yds max. :) Well doesn't Jim get buck fever and not make the best shot as it turned out. I click on the radio and he says he shot at a big deer and it took off. So I ask him if the tail was up or down and it's like, "fuk smitty I'm not sure", I just start laughing. I'm not that far away so I sit for a bit and then still hunt a field edge back to him and show up 15 minutes later, he's still vibrating lol. We wait for a bit longer and walk down to where he shot and yes there is blood but not a lot. Here's where this story differs from the other one. Earlier in the week a couple of local guys had gone up to this property and Pat shoots a doe from a platform blind overlooking a field. They follow the blood for a while until it got dark and for whatever reason he decides to go back the next morning. They found what was left of it a hundred feet away after the coyotes had a feast overnite. Plus we had fresh snow so it was an easy decision for me to try and follow and push it. You can learn a lot from tracking deer. That buck took us into a heavy thick mixed evergreens that I didn't even know was there and it was heavy with deer tracks. There was only the odd drop of blood and we lost the track in all the traffic at one point and had to go back to a known point and redo it. It's getting dark by this point. Long story short, we followed the track to this 6' high page wire fence where this buck ended up jumping it like nothing I guess, a couple of other guys heading back to camp saw it booting across in front of them and heading across this big field. Eventually we managed to find where it entered the bush again and a while later found it expired. Again blood trail gets heavy at the end. Real nice deer for Jim, his best for sure. Bottom line was that we kept pushing it, and again it worked. Hunter 1 Yotes 0

Cheers

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam Menard

A lot depends on the wound. A friend once shot at a massive buck. The bullet deflected off a branch, resulting in a wound high on a front leg. The buck went for a long ways, and eventually tired so it bedded frequently. The intervals between beddings shortened where it would only run a couple of hundred yards. At that point, I knew we would catch up to it. My friend got another bullet into it as it crossed a logging trail. Don’t get me wrong, it was a long tracking job. I think the buck went almost 2 miles. I’m certain however, based on the nature of the wound, we would have lost that buck had we not pursued relentlessly,

How could you tell where the bullet hit at the time of the shot?