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Trading Stories

Trading stories with a buddy, we traveled down a dark road. Got to talking about having wounded deer claimed/taken by someone else. Has this ever happened to you, what's your story?

It happened to me once, about 1980. Opening morning of firearms season in the Baraboo Bluffs area of Sauk County. I shot at a buck & knocked him down. Trailed him and discovered a gut pile, two sets of boot tracks & drag marks leading past posted signs onto private property. Somehow I knew they were not going to give me permission to enter & claim my deer. Lost deer, end of story.

If it happened, lets hear your story.

Happened to me about 20 miles north of Hayward. Bayfield county land. Opening day of gun season and my first time deer hunting the area. I was by myself as my partner would not get to camp till that evening. I shot a decent buck but had to track him. No snow. After a hundred yards or so he got up and ran but i couldn't get a second shot. Then a 4 wheeler goes down a lane that he ran toward and he comes running back at me and angles away. At the time I was not sure it was the same buck so I didn't shoot. Then BANG, and a bunch of hollering back and forth like a kid shot it. I tracked out the blood trail and sure enough the 4 wheeler had turned the buck back and ran back to the same road the atv was on and they shot it. At first I figured fair enough they finished it off but probably from the 4 wheeler. Then I noticed they had a 'T' tag on it, it was the first or second year of those. I was tempted to jam my tag on it but it was 2 guns against 1. I did insist that one of them put a legal tag on it which they did, playing the.... we didn't know game.

My best friend and I have traditions that we would hunt with our families on the opening weekend of the gun deer season. After opening weekend we would hunt as much as possible at home on public lands. This is when we had earn a buck, and both of us had to shoot a doe. Naturally we both saw multiple bucks that we could not shoot. My Buddy ended up seeing a doe and taking a shot. Shortly after hearing his shot I walked over to him and sat down to see what he had shot. He said he hit her good and that she ran over the hill, and that he thought he could hear her crash. We let her sit for maybe 30 minutes because where we were hunting the pheasant hunters would always push deer. When we walked over all we found was a gut pile and the drag marks to the park lot. She was no more than 75 yards from where he was sitting, but with the hill we could not see anyone making their way to the deer. This was no that long ago, but it is still something we talk about.

It happened to my son when he was around 14. He shot a doe in rifle season and came to get me. This was in the Wisconsin Dells area.

We were on private property and tracked it a couple hundred yards to a gut pile and drag marks heading out of that property. No other shots heard, of course.

About 1975 I broke the law. I was sitting on a ridge overlooking a Cedar swamp edge. Shotgun country at the time. About 11:00 Thanksgiving Day all hell broke loose in the swamp as 15- 20 guys were driving it. Well, a volley of 20+ shots rang out and a herd of deer headed my way. One of the last ones, a 7 point was limping badly. When he got close enough, I finished him off. With ample snow on the ground it didn't take but 15 minutes before the tracking party got to me where I was sitting on the ground and I pointed them to the buck. They couldn't believe that I hadn't tagged it already. With 2 holes in the hindquarters and 1 in the guts I welcomed them to it as even back then I butchered my own and really didn't have much of a desire to deal with 3 slug holes if I didn't have to. As they dragged it away, they came across another blood trail that a few of the guys started to follow. I just shook my head, glad that in 2 days gun season ended. So much for the movie, " 1 shot, 1 kill"

When I was a kid, maybe only 6 or 7 I was sitting with my dad and he shot what would've been the biggest buck he'd ever killed to that point. He thought the shot was back so we waited about an hour, trailed it about 200 yards and met a guy who had drug it under a pine tree and was still sitting waiting to shoot another. He said he shot it 3.5 hours earlier and showed us this old gnarly looking slug and said he "found" the bullet even, oddly enough our blood trail stopped right there for some mythical reason. My dad's a pretty passive guy and didn't think it was worth arguing so he let the guy have the buck (the guy offered it to us even though "he" shot it). It was a pretty decent 18" 9 pointer. I was mad, but my dad talked me down off a ledge and used it as a good learning experience reminding me not everyone with a gun is as friendly as we are.

when I was 16 we were making a drive with some family members when a big buck jumped up in front of me. he was running quartering away from me at about 50 yards. I got a shot at him and was sure I hit him. I heard some shots from where my uncle was standing the drive off (about 100 yards from where I shot at the buck) I walked up and found a good blood trail, since the drive was over I followed the blood trail to the buck laying dead with my uncles tag already on the antlers. My dad walked over and I told him that I had shot the buck and my uncle said he shot it, yet magically only one hole in the animal right in front of the hind quarter and exit on the opposite side mid body. my uncle claimed it was his shot and not mine, even though he shot at it running straight on...and I showed them the blood trail...my dad said it wasn't worth arguing over a deer, especially since it was with family. then he asked me to gut it for him. 163 inch 9 pointer, 12 inch g2s, 21 wide, dressed 220 during gun season...he promptly cut the rack off the head and to this day sits on a shelf in his basement.

I've lost 3 to other "hunters". We were doing share the harvest doe reduction and I shot 3 adult does and one made to the county road before expiring in the ditch a car pulls up and they took her. I was hunting next to a state park ( park was muzzleloader only) and I shot a good buck he made it barely back into the park a muzzy guy shoots at him (only one bullet hole in buck) guy wants argue then has the gall to ask if he can drive onto my property to pick up the buck, sorry no can do. Last one I was hunting a small piece of property during Earn a buck shot a antlerless dead on spot and went to get my truck, came back no deer and tag stuck on a stick drag mark to neighbors.

Unbelievable that family would do that.

crazy, right?

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