What if you don't know if the wounded animal was what they were shooting at? I only had a bull tag and I heard a volley of shots off to my right, then out came a cow elk with a newly broken front leg. It haunted me to not put it down and could only hope that someone with a cow tag didn't waste it.
On a drive one of our guys hit an 11 point low just in front of the hind quarter. Only a few drops of blood and he didn't look for it very far. Snow on the ground, so I did. Half a mile and a trout stream crossing later I cracked him running out of that stream bottom. I kept the antlers, but split the meat with the other guy.
Six days into our deer season I was still hunting and found a deer bed with some blood in it and a buck looking track leaving. That late in the season that was the only game in town and took up the track. If sweat equity counted for anything, it took me two days to run that 8 point out of blood from a front leg shot. I'm not sure how I would have felt if someone shot "my" buck up ahead.
