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

Excellent write up Will.

 

Will...while I agree 100% with your post, I dont see the relevance to hthe original post... and yeah, a guy like you thows tons of coin into your sport....I would love to experience what you have.....

 

So many variables...hard to really answer the question for every situation. But do I celebrate any animal found - regardless of condition of carcass - in a small way Yes! Do I want to share a beer with buddies like I do on days I drop an animal in sight - No. Would a hunt seem successful on the day I shoot and not find animal - No! Would I display a buck if I found it 4 months after the shot - Yes and never hide the facts from others. I have only found other's kills after the fact - none of my own...but I will say anytime I find any animal/carcass, buck, doe, coyote, beaver, raccoon...it don't matter - there's a small celebration internally just for the "discovery" and for Thanking God that at that moment I'm outdoors - much closer to the circle of life than when I'm sitting at my desk

Big Picture - none of it really matters in the scheme of this planet - for me and my kids I just want us to always try as hard as we can - including finding wounded game.

 

Tony,

For you, it seems like there's a devalued sense of accomplishment when something you've hunted is found later. For me, this isn't the case. It boils down to your expectations verses mine. When I take to the woods, I've learned to expect "nothing" (I tend to have more fun that way). When I get "something", be it simply a great expereince, I'm successful. That something can come farther down the road than "right now". When that something happens, I celebrate heartily.

What do you think the expectations of NY's Departmant of Wildlife were when they allowed you to purchase all those doe tags? Do you think they expected you to fill the freezer. Maybe? Peel the onion though. Do you think they have a problem with too many deer? Do you think they care if one gets killed and isn't rendered freezer meat. How many times has an officer checked your freezer? Sure, the ultimate goal is to use the resoure to the highest degree, if possible. But sometimes that doesn't happen. The designed goal was to remove an over burden of deer. We do not live in a perfect world nor can we controll all the circumstances. Because of this, I feel there is no reason to diminish hunting's ultimate goal..."to come face to face with those things wild". "A bird in hand (even if it's two weeks old-a start, a finish), is worth two in the bush".

That's how I feel.

 

Thanks for another couple excellent posts Will. Both of which are 100% relevant to the post.

 

So ..... you would feel a hunt was successful no matter how the outcome? Just trying to understand, Will .. would you feel your hunt was a successful one if you found the animals carcass 3 weeks after you shot it? Now I am talking about feeling the same way as if you saw him go down?

 

Tony, it seems as if you are looking for a specific answer. Tell us exactly what you want to hear.

 

"you would feel a hunt was successful no matter how the outcome?"

Yes, because I am doing what I truly love to do, face nature.

"Will .. would you feel your hunt was a successful one if you found the animals carcass 3 weeks after you shot it?"

Yes...

In either case (in sight verses three weeks later), I would feel "I got him-I outwitted him!" that's worthy of celebration whenever. I hunted to get him, I did that.

Again, my expectations may be less than yours.

 

Fair enough, Will ...... Dan, pretty much what I am getting...I WANT to hear the individuals thoughts ....which I am getting...and Dan .... WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU EATING? :D

 

I shot a 10 a couple years back that I did not recover until the next morning. Meat was still good thank goodness. For me, I think it would be different if all I had to show for was a set of horns. It sure would bring closure, knowing why I didn't recover the animal that day or what caused the animal to not die (poor hit, etc.), but I wouldn't feel good about it as I would for a same day kill and recovery.

Thats the thing about hunting though. You show me a guy who says he never lost an animal and he's either lying or hasn't been hunting long enough. It happens to the best hunters out there from time to time. It's an unfortunate part of hunting.

If a hunter does everything in his power to recover that animal and exhaust all resources available to him/her, there is no need to hang your head. We all make mistakes and sooner or later something like this happens.

 

This is a pretty interesting thread. Lots of honesty and interesting thought, without having gotten out of hand. I've held off posting because I'm not exactly sure how to put my thoughts into words.
Jeff & Tembry both articulated sentiment that rang true to me.

The 1st bow buck I ever killed was a late recovery. The difference between that & finding it in a timely fashion was a matter of a few feet, or perhaps just happening to walk by at a different angle & be able to see fur on the ground. There is nothing like the feeling of placing your hands on the deer/animal right then & there, but whether its 3 days or 3 months later, finding the animal still means something to me and is better than not finding it at all. It goes into my meaningless tally of animals taken.

 

Gotcha....I just thought Will's answer was pretty clear. I guess its because I feel pretty much the same way.

Its a Pop-Tart baby!

 

Interesting topic for sure. I hunt for many reasons but I guess the main three are :
1. I just love hunting. The traditions, the outdoors, the challenges, the list could go on.
2. Wild game, venison, turkey, duck, dove, etc. Love filling the freezer with it.
3. The comradery I feel with my close hunting friends & family is a bond that's hard to
put into words.

That being said, I most definitely consider myself unsuccessful if I go out to take an animal and for whatever reason I make a bad shot, or lose a tough trail, or whatever the circumstances are if the end result is me not finding an animal I shot and wounded, that situation sucks and is unsat. Would I get some sense of closure if the animal was a buck and I found the rack days, weeks, or months, later? Not really, because more often than not you don't need closure, you know what the end result is. That deer went off into the woods somewhere and suffered and slowly died and the only ones who will benefit from it are the scavengers and I definitely don't hunt to feed them.

Not many are out looking for that doe they wounded weeks, months later, looking for the carcass to get some "closure", but the antlers that's different I guess. Truth be told that's what many are hunting for anyway so if they end up with the antlers one way or the other they are ok with it(not directed at anyone specifically, my opinion based on experiences).

I hunt for the hunt and to provide food for myself and my family. I respect the animals I hunt a ton and consider myself completely unsuccessful if I wound and lose one. Yes these situations happen to all of us and there is always a lesson to be learned or a mistake you recognize in hindsight that you hopefully can prevent in the future but ultimately that bad feeling you have about wounding an animal or your lack of "closure" is nothing compared to being the animal on the other side of the equation. I've never been one for putting deer/game animals on a pedestal but as hunter, out of respect for my prey, I strive for a quick, clean kill and a speedy recovery. If I fail at that then I was most definitely unsuccessful.

JUST MY .02

 

Closure on an animal is key for me. Of course I always want it to be a speedy recovery and the meat going in my freezer, but I too have lost an animal's meat before to a late recovery, and worse yet lost them period, never finding them. I hated the feeling that went with never knowing. I could live with the ones that were late. Did these experiences have an impact on how I hunted from that point forward. Absolutely. Some of those very difficult tracking sessions have paid of later in life while tracking and helping others recover their kills.

Will, great posts by the way. Very well said.

 

A very good post and one I can identify with.

 

My thoughts mirror this dudes... mostly.

I'd elaborate.. but there's really no reason for me to.

 

Tag the animal? Definitely. If I knew I killed the deer and it wasn't recovered I would have punched my tag. That's the ethical and often times legal thing to do. The grey area comes in when you hit the animal and don't recover it because it survived. If I was 100% certain it survived then no, I wouldn't punch the tag.

I can say that for myself, I wouldn't consider it a successful hunt. I don't care if anyone else considers it successful to recover the trophy only and if they want to mount it up then that's fine but for me, a successful hunt is one in which the entire animal is recovered and utilized, the trophy is a reminder of that success. Having the trophy for an animal I didn't recover would be nothing but a reminder of my failure and disrespect to the animal I killed. It might kick around as a pair of rattling horns or be hung in the rafters of the barn as a reminder but it certainly wouldn't be proudly displayed.

 

Successful only in recovering the remains of a deer I shot.

Would I display the antlers? I don't know, probably hang the skull in the garcave to remind me of the hunt and failure.

Tag the animal? If it was still deer season, yes. If you kill an animal that has to be tagged, is it right not to tag it just becuase you don't recover the meat?

 

Interesting topic. This like most all of hunting isn't something that can be seen in absolutes.
(at least, not by rational people )

First, I really don't define my hunts as simply successful or unsuccessful. Heck, I find a certain degree of 'success' in simply dragging my butt out of bed at 3am to go hunting.

IF (and it's a big, huge, IF) I can find my buck that fell in the river... I'll be smiling like the Cheshire Cat. I'll feel like I won the lotto... and I won't give a rat's ass whether you all approve or not.

 

Good topic and I'm not really sure how I'd feel. Never happened to me. However (IMO) when you shoot at a deer you're only half way to being successfull (again IMO). It aint over and considered a "success" (to me) until it's gutted, hanging in my shop and I'm all washed up sitting there looking at it being ready to cut up.

Again i'm not sure until it ever happened. But finding it later might make me feel worse. Might make me feel like it was dead and I wasnt good enough to find it despite every effort. Would feel like I failed instead of succeeded?