Finding your lost buck after time .......

RuttNutt' s Buck REALLY got me thinking .... again.

I remember a thread where a hunter came upon a buck he shot ...I think, weeks later ... he tagged that buck...

Christine's and Deb's thread about the head they found and gave to a hunter that claimed he shot it....

RuttNutt's buck, shot a month previous .. and found now ....

Heck, even Drenman's Buck he shot the day before and went and recovered it after work with almost all eaten by the yotes.....

Dren's buck was recovered the next day .... so I can see that would differentiate him from the previous examples .... tho it was bittersweet..had the yotes not got to him, the meat would have been fine...



So is there something to celebrate in the first 4 examples? I have thought this but have not posted anything ... I wonder how I would feel if this happened to me .....

Other thoughts on it ... I have lost a few deer in my career ... and losing a doe bothers me as much as losing a buck ....

I don't know ... just some random thoughts .. what do you guys think? WOULD YOU STILL CONSIDER THIS A SUCCESSFUL HUNT...where you displayed the horns? tag the animal?

Let's have a discussion knowing people are different and that there is no right or wrong answer, as hunting is a personal thing, therefore it is VERY subjective....

 

Well i made a bad shot on a 6 point this year and i stopped hunting out of disgust in myself, but 3-4 days later i saw the same deer walking in a field and watched it for a while and it showed no signs of serious injury so i continued hunting. So i guess if i knew i made a bad shot that ended up being fatal on a deer and couldn't recover it then i would stop for the year, that's a tough one as we're only allowed 1 buck and no does here in Maine.

 

I am talking about recovering the animal days or weeks later ....

 

Not the same for me, it would be very bitter sweet. If i would somehow come across a buck i shot after i stopped searching for it, it wouldn't be the same as a clean kill. I'd take the rack but there's no way I'm mounting it in any way or showing it off as a kill.

 

sorry misread it

 

Happened to me in 2008 (27 or so days after the shot, I found him).

Anything to celebrate? No. Did it help to clear things up/answer some un-answered questions? Yeah.

No offense (sincerely).....but, I don't care how others handle this. You'll never know until the time comes. I searched for 3 days (with help), which was all I was allowed to do (the buck ran onto an adjacent property). I called in a tracking dog (which didn't work out). I just didn't find him, until much later.

IMO, we hear of these situations very sporadically. I'm guessing most members here (and there's nothing wrong with this) would never post that they had shot a deer, until they recovered it. Doesn't mean more aren't lost than we ever hear about.

And yes...I tagged the buck.

 

No offense taken .. and I agree .. I have NO idea how I would act or what I would do....

 

Found my elk in New Mexico 52 hours after I shot him this year. It was bitter sweet to find him. Happy I did, but bummed that I had lost all the meat. It was a one lung hit and how that dude went up hill after going down the mountain 2 miles is beyond me.

Note: This was a muzzleloader hunt, but no matter the weapon the feeling would have still been the same.

 

Dan ... were you guys out looking for him when you found him?

 

Not finding any animal I shoot is a bit depressive to me. (Any animal)

This happened to me on the first animal I shot with my bow. 1st year. 1st week. 1st deer. 1st buck. 1st animal I had ever drawn back on with a bow. Smallish 6 or 8 point I believe. I searched as much as I could for a week or more. Had I only found the horns and carcass, all it would have done was let me know the animal "did die" from my arrow. As for the horns, they would have been a trinket, a memory, of a hunt that went awry. I could look at them in no other way. Everything that led up to the shot, well that would have been the memory of a great bowhunt. jmho

 

I can't say we celebrated finding my buck but we still enjoyed it. My situation was tough because I had to work the next morning, no choice. I knew there was a very good chance the coyotes would find the deer before we did so it really wasn't a crushing blow to find it in that condition, it is part of nature. I tagged the deer and moved on. I will fill my freezer yet this year with a doe.

I've been on a pheasant hunting trip this weekend and have found 3 different buck carcasses two from this year and one from last that was a real stud. There is very little bow hunting around here so chances are they were from rifle hunts, it happens to everyone.

I did post on my team thread that I had one down, I was excited and wanted to share. Right or wrong is for you to decide, I would probably do it again.

 

Like I said, you shot him, backed out, (right decision) went back as soon as you could, and you recovered the animal .... the yotes are what changed a 100% complete celebration for you ... tho we all celebrate a great hunt and buck for you ...

Like I said, your situation was different in that you were able to recover the animal ..... yotes or no ... it was still a successful hunt..

 

PT, so you are saying that a successful hunt equals a carcass found? I don't get it.

 

Happened to me this year.

After putting my time in and getting information on a buck from a friend, I devised a plan and went after him. I shot the buck and he ended up crashing not more than about 100yards from my stand. He fell in some really thick stuff. We looked for 2 days. We walked mere feet from where he lay, but, it was soooo thick, I could hid a motorcycle, so, we didnt find him.

The next day, I went back alone and found him.

I celebrated. It was a successful hunt. I made a good shot on the deer, but, the terrain and ground cover hindered a timely recovery.

I brought the deer to a taxidermist and I will have my kill on display in my home, and, be proud to share the story.

 

Wouldn't you say that? If you shot something and didn't recover it, would you consider that "success"???


****Disclaimer**** I am in NO WAY implying that the men above did not make evert effort to recover their deer ... I absolutely believe they did

 

DT .... no one would argue that ..... so what are you talking about? Please read the original post ...

 

I have not experienced a lost deer yet, so i can't speak from experience (not that I am some great shot, but I have only shot 2 deer and had clean misses on a few, i am certain it will eventually happen) i would think the amount of time between shot and recovery would play a major role in my reaction to the recovery. Within a weak I would probably feel pretty good about the kill, probably even the same season.If it were the next spring or more i would not feel any sort of celebration, probably more of a disgusting sick feeling.i know i will be flamed for this but it would depend if it were a doe or if it were a buck I wanted to mount. Lets face it, I don't spend the money i do to go to the midwest to only shoot a doe, i am going for the chance at a wall hanger.

 

Well, the day I shot the guide, a buddy of mine and myself were looking. After that day, I told the guide to go with my buddy and brother to try to get them elk and I would continue looking, as I knew he was dead and I was done hunting. The second day it was me and another guy. The day I found him, I was alone. I decided found one track going up and out of that canyon and decided to look in the next canyon over......3/4 of a mile away. When I got to the top of the ride I could see magpies and ravens going in and out of some bushes.

The one thing that completed that hunt for me and took some of the sting away was not giving up on finding him. I knew he was dead and I knew I couldn't stop looking.

 

Success to me, is shooting the animal, finding the animal, and either myself or someone consuming said animal. If yotes get it, its them, and not me, that was successful. If that animal is not found and used for food, he is a wasted animal to the hunter. To the coyotes??? Nah, not so much. But then, I am not into feeding the wildlife. Especially yotes.

This is no disrespect to anyone else's "success", just part of the way I believe hunting should be.

 

I guess it would depend if I actually quit looking for it or not. I looked for the big 10s rack I shot for months after season ended, found several others in the process that ment nothing. It would not make me think less of the rack because I didn't find it right away.
Sure I would have felt bad because I lost the meat, But I dont care what a 170" buck weighs, its a package deal.

In Ruttnutts case, He did not have permission to search the property next door and was going to ask after rifle season.