Isn't it a rule written somewhere that the first fatal shot fired is the victor? Not meaning the final shot that kills the animal, but the first shot fired that would result in the animal dying?

I know someone better be prepared to fight, and fight dirty, if they wanna claim an animal I killed. It would have nothing to do with the animal itself, but everything to do with the principle. Without principles, we are only a pose-able thumb above the animals anyway.

Now thats a good dog! lol

So you shot him, her or both of them?

the way i see it... if you shot it and it didn't go down and die you didn't kill it. plenty of deer get injured and live to see another day. i'd say the person who actually drops the deer dead is the victor...

now if you shot the deer dead then someone wanted to claim it, then there may be a fight .

If that had been one of my daughters, we would have had ourselves a Mexican Standoff there for sure. If she honestly shot it, no one is going to take an animal from my girl.

Years back when I was a teen my dad took my buck to the cold storage locker in Bandera, and back then just about every hunter in the county took their deer there or to one other locker there in town.

It wasn't unusual for most of the hunters to go in and out of the locker just to look, or even take their deer out and load it themselves, and common for folks to stop off there after their morning hunt and check to see what was brought in.

Anyway my buck was one of the better ones brought in and had an unusual feature in that the brow tines curled forward and about 6" long which made for a lot of conversation as we dropped it off.

The guy that owned and ran the ice house/beer joint as we called it, said he noticed a guy loading a buck into the back of his pickup and decided to give him a hand loading what he thought was his buck. He then noticed the brow tines that were curled forward and knew then it wasn't his buck and stopped the guy right there, and told the guy he had better put that deer back in the locker and not waste time getting out of there because he was calling the sheriff.

x2

Coyotes nearly have a couple of times.

About 20 years ago I was hunting in northern Colorado and I was shooting across one hill to the other. A nice 4X4 came across the other hill about 300 yards so I took aim and shot. The buck went straight down. I sat there for awhile deciding which way would be the best to get across the deep canyon in between. Before I could get up another hunter walks up to my buck and begins gutting him. I stood up so he could see me and he never once looked in my direction. I was so mad that finally I just left. The best thing about it was that I later killed a 5X5 that was a much better buck than that one.

Yes, I grew up in Michigan and if you were hunting public land you better make sure the deer is down with one shot. If the deer ran far you were gonna end up having to deal with someone else claiming it.

I've always heard who puts it down is the one to claim it. Unless the rear or back straps were shot by the 1st hunter

That's why folks from down here call them "damned yankees".

This happened to my wife. She was sitting in a stand about 200 yds from me. I heard her shoot so I climbed out of the stand and walked towards her. When I got to within about 50 yds, I could hear her arguing with some man. I recognized her tone of voice as the one that usually makes me turn and run so I hid in a pine thicket to see how it would turn out! She told him 3 times that it was her deer and he kept saying it wasn't. Finally, I saw her draw a bead on him with the 30-30. He figured she wasn't kidding at that point and said, "Fine m'am...that's your deer but can I get my saddle off him?"

I shot the buck. He ran into the creek and up the other side. The doe was standing there just looking. I shot her and she fell dead on the spot. Went to where the buck was standing when I fired the shot and found a large amount of blood. Tracked him across the dry creek bed and found another large pool of blood on the other side. Followed blood trail and saw grass completely flattened out for about 30 feet. (I now know that it was where the man drug the buck.) Man walks up and asked me if I got one? I think he saw me coming,lifted the deer up and stashed him behind some brush while leading me the opposite direction.

Never had an issue with one of mine, but helped a bow hunter track one on our lease one time. He shot the deer fairly early, came back to camp and after a quick meal we headed out to start tracking. The blood trail was pretty steady and we came to the fence at a county road. It was about 60 yards from his stand. The blood trail ended in the middle of the road and there was a large pool of blood almost dead center in the road. The deer was gone, blood trail ended, and tire tracks through the pool.

I have a friend who shot a really nice 160 class WT with a bow around Menard back years ago. He hit the buck but could not find him after looking for hours after dark and he had to get back to work the early the next morning. He told his best friend the next day who also hunted the ranch with him about the deer. His best friend went out the next day after that and found the dead buck. His best friend tagged the buck and mounted it as his own and never told his the guy about it. The guy found out thru another friend about the deer about 6 months later. Lost his deer and a life long friend over the deer and not a word was ever spoken between them again.

With a friend like that, who needs enemies? Very low down and dirty! I wouldn't speak to him either.

I see your point but you can shoot a deer in a leathal spot and it can still run off a ways before it dies. If a deer is about to die from another hunter's bullet and you finish him off are you really going to claim it?

Yrs. ago in NW Colorado in the Cathedral Mtns. we hunted with a
guy from Fredsbg. who'd been brain injured. He was an excellent
hunter, but very docile person...Some Tullies and a Colorado guy
took two different mule deer from him...both around 30 incs.

Later, we started tagging the deer & hiding the tag in the inner
ear..About a wk. later the Game Warden got them and they got to
donate their Jeep,Guns, and all their hunting equipt. to the State, as well as all their points...Good Riddance..DD

I don't get wanting to mount something that you didn't take yourself. The cool part isn't the mount itself, it's the story that goes with it.

About 12 years ago a 8 point buck ran out of the woods near my stand and I could see he had a broken front leg. I shot and tagged the buck and left him in the woods while I went back to get a skid to put him on to take back to the camp. Whenever I returned, two of the hunters of the lease were standing by the buck. It turns out that one of them made the first shot and had been trailing the deer. When the shooter found the deer shot and tagged he was a little upset. Even though I
actually killed the buck and tagged it, I gave him the deer. I am glad it wasn't a monster buck because the outcome may have been different.

I would never want a deer that I finished off for another hunter. But, in Texas, the killer is the owner.

It happened to me on my parents place last year. I shot a 150" 10 point opening Saturday evening. I went to where I thought the buck went down and couldn't find any blood. After walking around the area for a while I deceided that I had missed. All night it just didn't set right with me. I just knew that I didn't miss that deer. So the next morning I went to my stand and set until around 8:30. I got out of my stand and started looking for blood again. Still nothing. A little bit later my uncle came over to my stand and asked where my deer was? I ( being very embarrassed ) told him that I guess that I had just flat missed. He said " no you didn't." and pointed to a hugh pool of blood on the ground. We followed the trail right over our neighbors fence. I called our neighbor to get permission to cross the fence and look for my deer. He said no problem but told me that that night he and his hired hand were out hog hunting and had spotted a BIG 10 laying under a pecan tree. He said that they thought it was sleeping so they pulled out and sent a different way around him so they wouldn't run him off. Yeah right! He took me to the spot where he said the buck was laying and sure enough there was blood. He said he guessed the buck had wondered off. What he didn't know was that I was setting in my stand at around 5:45 that morning and could see his jeep pull to right where he took me . The jeep stopped for around 10 minutes and then went back to his hired hands house. I
100% sure that his worker went back and got my deer that was just "sleeping " under the pecan tree!