This stinks

[turkeygirl]

Ok you might remember me mentioning the big buck that Andy saw during shotgun season and he couldn't get it to run my way then we saw another big buck, not quite as big, that also escaped. Well yesterday Andy stopped to talk to some people who live down the road from us and I guess they shot and hit the BIG buck but couldn't find him and then shot at the smaller big buck and grazed him. There was blood from the BIG buck and they tracked him up a creek but no luck and I guess someone else kicked him off some other property. Anyway this is bad news because this buck may be dead somewhere The other bad news is the day they were shooting at this buck, I was in a clim,ber and saw them drive up in and I would have more than likely had a shot at this buck had I been in my other stand as later that day I walked down the field and saw a blood trail in the woods that went towards my stand with people footprints! Anyway I am going to try searching the woods for this buck. Today I'm going out rabbit/squirrel/grouse hunting and will look in a swampy area where I think he was headed. It would be great to at least get his rack but it is worse that this buck may possibly not be roaming the woods anymore I wish people would quit shooting at deer that are running flat out across fields By the way if any of you have any tips for looking for dead deer besides looking along creeks, let me know.

[archerjg]

That does stink. Follow any blood trail that you can find and when it runs out start walking in circles to try to find more blood, and if that doesn't work then start looking in the thickest stuff you can find.

Archerjg

[Swamphunter]

[ QUOTE ]
By the way if any of you have any tips for looking for dead deer besides looking along creeks, let me know.


[/ QUOTE ]

I always check thick stuff in the area also. A place a wounded deer may feel safe to bed down for rest.

[western NY bowhunter]

I here ya...I have the same problem right now. My uncle shot what he described as "the biggest buck he's ever seen" the last weekend of gun season. We tracked him all day and ended up losing him in a really big and really thick section of planted white pines interspersed with brush, dense goldenrod and tons of nasty rose bushes. He thinks that the buck was hit in the shoulder but the slug hit a branch first and must not have gotten much penetration (he found a couple of big chunks of leg bone where he shot him). When my uncle jumped the buck while trailing him, he said that his front leg was limp and was draggin and he was bleeding pretty good. The deer was definately in really rough shape so I'm confident that the buck probably died because he would keep laying down after going 150 yds. or so. I figure that he probably laid up in the pines and died. I really wanna go up there and see if I can find him just so I can see what he looks like. Like you said...what a waste! I probably should have went out this weekend to look. This warm weather might make his carcass stink if he did infact die in the area. I'm gonna wait a while to look though because there are several really nice bucks that made it through season in this area and I'm hoping that I might be able to pick up a shed or two while I'm looking if I wait a little longer. I'm sure that if he did die the coyotes probably will have picked him clean by now so I'll probably just keep walking around and hopefully will find some hair or bones or something to try to track him down by. I've found deer in the past this way. Good luck. Let us now how it turns out.

[turkeygirl]

Well I went out yesterday. Found no game to shoot and definitely did not find the buck. I did find two doe skulls in a small patch of woods that are probable from last year and before then. This buck, if he was hit fatally, could be anywhere in the vicinity. I plan on searching different sections of the woods when I go out each time,maybe I'll find that spike I hit with shotgun and couldn't find and I'd also like to find that deer I hit during archery that I lost the blood trail on but who knows, one of these three deer may still be alive hopefully.

[VermontHunter]

Good luck in finding these deer or should I say ( hope they are alive and well ) in anycase good luck on the small game hunting...

[wtnhunt]

That is too bad. Unfortunately I can relate. Have some shooters behind us who constantly are taking multiple shots and wounding deer and pretty well having a negative impact on our hunting.

[ilhnter]

i know how that stuff goes......we have hunters in our area that blast away at deer running across open fields at 200 yds away.. there is no way your goin to hit a deer with a shotgun at 200yds running,... i'm sorry but your not going to hit it. if its close like 50 yds and closer i have no problem shooting at one running. i killed my deer running but it was at 15 yds so it wasn't that hard.... just wish people would get some sense