Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Ever have deer stolen!!

I had two shots on a four pointer today.First shot hit low hind quarter and the second shot hit high hind quarter.My sights where off somehow???I waited a hour because of the bad shots.I found good blood and ended up in a field.I looked up and saw to guys dragging out a deer.The said they both shot and hit him.I said Bullsh@@t,I just hit a buck just like this in the same spots weird RIGHT!I knew they lied.But just for the heck of it I got back on the blood trail,found where the deer died.They pulled my arrow out and through it about five feet from the bloody circle where the deer laid.Now I'm real pissed!!I caught up to them and told him we both know who got that deer.I called him lots of things to make him feel Like a low life that he is. I'm sickened people like this are out in the woods,just looking to steal meat.The fact is, i'll never wait a hour again in public land bad shot or not!!Anyone else dealt with these kind of scum bags????

Nope. But then again a TSX through the running gear keeps [bleep] like that from ever possibly happening.

No. I normally don't hunt within range of a deer getting to someone else even if it winds up being a bad shot. I can count on one hand the number of people I've run into in the last 25 years while deer hunting, and one of those was a surveyor and not a hunter.

I couldn't even fathom that thought.

no but i have pushed a deer and watched someone else shot it like 300 yards in front of me

Not us, but then if we hit way off to one side on the first shto, the second would have been kentucky windage right on the money.

I guess thats a downer of public land hunting.

I know I sure wouldn't worry about a forkhorn.

There was a outlaw family that liked to hunt on our ground.
I never said a word to them until one day when I was hunting and they were on their way out of the woods.
I bid them a farewell and they went their way and I went mine.
I walked down to camp and my brothers told me that my family was putting on a drive and to go back up on the hill where I was at.
I didn't want to walk 1/2 a mile, so I drove my truck up and stood in the bed.
A lone doe walked down the camp road and when it got to 60 yards, I could see that it was hit and limping.
I shot one time with my Remington Gamemaster 30-06 and it kept limping like as if I did not hit it. So I shot it again.
It ran about 50 yards, into the mountain laurel and I thought that I had made a clean kill, then I heard a bang.

By the time I got out of the bed of the truck and walked 50 yards, I came upon the doe and two outlaws who were trying to gut it out while it was still kicking. They were in a big hurry to get out of there. The funny thing was - they went back past where I had saw them and not the other direction - towards the gate to leave.

The shots I took were fatal (one took out the liver and the other was straight through both lungs) and I could see exactly where I had shot it and the shot that took it's knee off - from a previous hunter.

These guys said that because the deer was still running when it came to them, it was finders keepers. The last person gets the deer.

I got pretty verbal with them and my dad and my Uncle (who owned the land) walked up to where we were fighting and told me to let them have the deer and told the outlaws to leave and never come back.

It was 4PM the last day of deer rifle season.
I had a brand new little baby at home and had just lost my job.
I really could have used the meat to feed my family that winter.

I never thought that I would have to shoot till a deer dies to get a deer on my own land. Or that someone would be bold enough to take a deer off of me on my own land, while I was holding a rifle...

Hindsight tells me that these people didn't actually want the deer, they just wanted to fill their tags and their freezer.

The proper thing to do is to say - yep you are right, I am wrong. The last person to shoot gets the deer. Then take a step back and fire one or two shots in the hind quarters and backbone and then say - Yep - it's your deer!

That way - they get no steaks or chops..

Bet you never thought of doing that before - did you?

Had a young guy shoot his 1st deer with a bow, one evening, went to look for it was not alot of blood, it was cold so we agree to wait till moring, no yotes back then, next moring we get on the trail, deer went 100yrds to a gut pile, now this is on his grampas land, also 4 wheeler tracks from the deer, we follow them about a mile, to a house and a barn deers hanging in the barn, not taged, woman comes to the door, asks what the hell we wanted, we said the kids deer, she said her hubsand had got that deer, there were 5 of us, she said he was at work we told her who we were and, asked what time he would he be home, thought about just takeing the deer but, didnt need the hassle, told her it was on privite land and he should get ahold of us soon, or things might get bad! he ended up bringing us the deer and a 12 pack, said he found the deer, and didnt wont, it to be wasted, didnt no what to say about, being on private prt. just said he was sorry and hoped therewere no hard feeling!

Nope.

Well it happends all the time with rifle an bows don't matter.When your taught the right way to hunt and sometimes shi- happends It happend to one of our party with a good size buck 8 points watch them come across the river ob state land to get the deer an took off . There are hunter and there are just people in the woods with guns not worth your life over a deer.

Saddlering If he was just man enough to admit,the deer was dead when they found it there would be no problem.I would have shuck his hand.These are the kind of scum that ruin hunting and every piece of land gets posted.The same guys today also through a foam coffee cup in the woods.It wasn't there walking in.Fits there kind perfectly !!I don't think the lumanoks helped in this case.I know one of the two guys saw the glowing arrow Nock sticking out of the deer at first light,running up the field.Pointed them in the general area.Carma and payback is a bich.I would NEVER take someones deer.Unless it was totally unclaimed!OH Well life goes on,There are plenty of deer and the rut is just starting.

I have stolen lots of deer, mostly from the back of pickup trucks.

But really if I do shoot a deer I plan on tracking him right down and tagging him.

Last year had an odd occurance, had a buck come up that was three legging it, had been shot and had a busted shoulder. Froze when it saw me. Finally decided to put it down. Had been hit with what I assumed was a small caliber round in the shoulder. Took out the knuckle and a bad flesh wound. Did not go beyond the knuckle. Shot it, gutted it all taking my time. Nobody showed nor did I see any other hunters in the area. Public land. Finally decided I would use my tag. Don't believe in letting a deer die like that wounded. Perhaps I stole it, I did not hit it the first time. Any deer I hit I will follow as long as it takes. I owe them that. Don't know how I would react to finding my deer beeing gutted out by somebody else.

You'd want to kill em!!!Shooting a wounded deer thats unclaimed is different then someone dragging it out within a hour after your shot.It's not worth going to jail over a deer.Even though I had some unpleasant idea's.You can probably guess.L.O.L OH well, I wish I can just forget this.

One of my uncles up in PA told me has flipped a coin many
times to see who got the deer.

We were in Monticello,Maine,many years back.Pulled up to the barn after being out all day,and the rope to which my pal's 8 pointer was hanging from,was cut.....dangling.....no deer.Gone!

We reported this to the local warden.

That night, there was a knock on the door,from a local potato farmer,who said he knew where the deer was,and would return it if we promised not to turn in his boy,who cut the deer down with friends........boyish pranks.

There being honor among potato farmers,and deer hunters in those days,we agreed.The deer came back...we kept our word.The warden was not happy,but understood. I liked and respected the old-timers in Maine. Your word was your bond back then.

Man, I wish People now still acted like that these days!Sad Now these days we live in!!

The law in Massachusetts is who ever tags it first is there deer!What are you going to do?? Just move on to the next chance and learn from your mistakes.I was trained as a young boy to wait 1hour+ for gut shots or non vital hits.Today it bit me in the butt.In public land I learned stay on your hit deer faster.I hope someone here learns from this and I'll sleep better tonight.Good luck to all!

I'm a retired Michigan Conservation Officer. Back about 1985 I was on patrol on state land and saw a buck deer hanging at a tent camp. I thought, "that's a weird looking deer". It just looked different.

Only the archery season was open. There was nobody at the camp, so I looked at the deer. It had an archery tag on it but was obviously killed with a rifle. I waited for awhile but had complaints to handle, so I put the deer in the back of my truck and figured I'd show up at the camp again about dark and hope to contact the shooter.

Awhile later I got a radio call that some local hunters had returned from Wyoming with a mule deer buck they had killed with a rifle. They stopped at a local restaurant and someone stole the deer from their truck. I immediately smacked myself on the forehead and thought, "THAT's why the deer looked funny!", and realized that I had picked up the stolen deer.

So I went back to the camp, rehung the deer, and waited with another officer until the suspects returned to camp a couple hours after dark. Two guys pulled up in a pickup. They shut the truck off and we approached both doors. They were both very drunk, and the passenger opened his door and leaned his head out and vomited (almost coating my partner's boots with puke).

This was not a game law violation, since mule deer are not native to Michigan, so I arrested the two idiots for felony larceny of private property. It was a much more serious crime than a game law violation. They had themselves quite a little adventure in the criminal justice system for the next few months.

The hunters were very happy and thankful to get their deer back, and for a short time the stars were shining brightly upon me and I was not the most hated man in the county any more...at least until the next day dawned.

On the better side of a story like this, I had an experience three years ago I won't soon forget, more than one lesson learned! I was hunting the second Iowa gun season during finals week of my third semester of seminary. One of the area fellows that attended classes for his own enjoyment had a few acres north of town with some river bluff country out back. He invited me to hunt, so I did, he showed me the property lines, etc. I was sitting the second morning of the season in a ground "blind" I had built. I heard some rustling to my back left and looked back slowly, sure enough two deer coming, a small 3x3 and what look like a heavy-racked 5x5 about 50 yds away. I slowly worked into shooting position when they were behind trees, and grunted once when the larger buck was in what I regarded as a decent position, quartering towards me. I had a rest, put the crosshairs where it would send the bullet through one shoulder, cross through the vitals and exit the opposite ham. I pulled, both deer took off, appearing un-wounded. I went to the shot site, found no hair, no blood, but tracked their leaps and bounds through the leaves to the edge of the property line and found nothing. I figured I must have hit an unseen twig or just pulled the shot, cussed a lot, then went in to church. After church I had a message from the landowner saying I needed to call him. His neighbor to the north - a sheriff's deputy and trapper - was sitting with his daughter about 200 yds north of my position, unbeknownst to me. They heard the shot, saw two deer run through the woods, then only one made it into the picked cornfield they were hunting over. He went to walk the edges because he saw how far I had tracked them. He found my buck on the edge of the field, not a spot of blood in the trail behind it, only 25 yds past where I had tracked to. He gutted it and skinned it out, thank goodness because it was almost 65 out at the time, then called Bill and told him to call me. The bullet from my .454 Casull went exactly where I told it to, 320 gr. cast at 1600 fps penetrated clear through. He said in all of his years of hunting he'd never seen anything like it, no blood trail and the entire body cavity was filled with blood, a lung and the liver punctured. He did it right and I got the deer, my biggest whitetail to date, a 5x7 that scored 130 B&C gross. I think folks stealing deer are the exception, not the rule.