Ethics, The Law, And a Lost Deer
Virginia
Early bow season. Shaft passes through a buck about an hour before sunset on a warm evening. Buck jumps off a little way then stands still for a few minutes, a little hunched up. No second shot available. Close inspection with binocs reveals entrance wound about three ribs up. Buck casually walks off. Hunter stays in the stand for a hour, wondering why the buck didn't drop dead. Hunter climbs down and recovers arrow. Damn sweet smell of stomach contents. Evidently, deer was more quartered forward than broadside when shot. Blood trail is followed before it gets too dark. The thinking was to keep the deer moving to bleed out. Too warm plus issues at work the next day; can't come back tomorrow. Jump the bedded wounded deer fifty yards from stand. Flies already attacking blood trail. Follow buck 200 yards and lose trail due to "bloody maples" and poor light due to hours after dark. Come back the next morning for an hour and could not find any more sign in the "bloody maples." Had to rip to work; avoided speeding tickets. Three days later, buck is found. It had doubled back and expired in the thicket of the initial bedding. Meat is mostly gone with huge piles of bear scat around. Do you claim the antlers, tag and check the deer? Do you take the antlers and not tag? Do you leave the remains as is? I'd like to hear some discussion on this and then I'll tell you what was done and why.
Deer was recovered...tag it & keep antlers. Meat not usable...leave it.
You removed a deer from the herd so tag it and use whatever you can.
Deer was tagged and checked several days later after query made to CPO and then antlers were recovered. He said if legitimate effort was made to track (it was) and the found deer was definitely the shot deer (it was) then the hunter was ethically and legally required to tag and check (it was). Last season there was a trophy buck shot on an adjacent property and it escaped to expire in front of one of my ground blinds. Not knowing how long it had been there, I let it lay. Most folks asked me why I didn't get the antlers. I told them I didn't shoot it so the antlers didn't mean anything to me and I would have to use a tag to possess the antlers. Three days later, the shooter heard about the deer through the neighborhood grapevine and met me there. I let him get the antlers and he asked me if he should tag it and check it. I said "yep." I think he did.
I could not find a doe one evening and found it the next morning after the coyote got a hold of it. I was able to salvage the backstraps. I checked it in.
tag it, take antlers, leave the rest
Funny thing about ethics and the law. You can be legal, but not necessarily ethical.
Case in point:
Last year my Son-In-Law killed his first deer under my guidance. He called me and was very excited. I had not killed a deer that day.
I brought my Pickup Truck to him, and loaded his deer, and ensured he had notched the tag. On the way to an open field to dress his deer, three Doe stood up next to the logging road.
He said, "Jump out and load your shotgun, and get one of them". I just told him no, that doing that was not hunting to me.
It may have been legal to jump out of the truck, load up and shoot one, but to me, it sure wasn't anything close to hunting.
Now, to my SIL, doing that is not hunting to him, either.
Good on ya, Bandicooter, for doing the "right" thing, on top of doing the legal thing.
