Just so you guys know. I'm a landowner and if someone legally shoots and wounds a deer I would rather them recover it from my property than leave it to lay to waste. My number is on my gate just for that fact. As for the story I told, that was a jealous man who got his panties in a wad and told everyone he would let the deer rot before the antlers left his place.

I have good relationships with my neighbors, and though it hasn't happened yet (to my knowledge), if a wounded deer jumped a fence, I believe we would all grant access permission to the other - but not without a call first.

Well yeah it kinda does...

Maybe those hunters who hunt closer to a neighbors fence line should be taking neck shots at a closer range to prevent deer from crossing the fence. You definitely should have phone numbers to your neighbors which border your hunting property. Just call them. And treat them the way that you would want to be treated then everyone will get along nicely.

I had a person hunting a stand that was at the corner of my small (28 acres) using a .357 Magnum Pistol shoot a spike buck that was either on my side of the fence or jumped the fence. It ran out into my winter food plot and fell over. I called out to the guy that shot it and told him to come on over, tag it and field dress it while I went and got my tractor to take it out for him. Him and some others had over 800 acres leased but liked to hunt close to my place because of the low hunting pressure and food plots. Common curtesy goes a long way, even though they had stands just off of my fence, some I could almost lean over and touch, we compromised by me being allowed to go over onto their land to retrieve a deer if needed. It actually ended up giving me full access to their lease during non deer hunting season, shot lots of squirrels during the spring season.

I'm sure lessors do quite a bit of this type of trespassing, but I've only had guys from a neighboring lease enter our property once (to my knowledge). Most trespassers I've ever encountered were locals....one was the neighboring landowner "looking for a horse"...

A couple of thoughts.

I'm a land owner but don't live there. I know my neighbors and don't get along with all of them. I've shot deer that I've never found. It can happen. I also think that I can spot a liar and can hear shots. I occasionally have poachers. One was on my place for several years until I caught him and busted his rifle on a tree. He might be the one that removed all of the cards from my cams.

It isn't hard to tell a poacher from a person looking for a deer. If the guy seems to be legitimately looking for a deer, I believe I would help him.

I do have a concern about confronting an armed person who is breaking the law.

This was partly a tongue in cheek response, for me it depends. If a deer is not noticeably wounded or mortally wounded at that, I'm dropping said deer, tagging it and not looking back. If I see an obvious freshly mortally or severely wounded deer and the hunter whom establishes that he clearly and legally shot it is welcome to the deer assuming he/she is not a douche. A incidental flesh wound that the deer was sure to survive isn't grounds to give that deer up in my mind, neither is a hunter with a questionable story as to where the deer was when he shot it. When I was younger in South Texas, hunters established by showing where deer were shot, the blood trail, etc. In those cases, deer were almost always given up as the legitimacy and stories matched.

Asking permission does not obligate getting a positive response that apparently entitled people seem to think that it does. The failure isn't on the other landowner for not granting access, but on the hunter for not doing a better job.

Doing the right thing is everyone's responsibility. if you feel letting a huge racked deer rot because you didn't shoot it and you wanted to claim it for yourself later, so be it. I hope we're never neighbors. I assume you know all the details surrounding the hunt, and that it would be impossible for a deer to run 100 yards after a pass through shot to the boiler room with .270 extreme polymer at 35 yards. If the guy felt entitled he would have just jumped the fence and got it, the deer was within sight. Instead he called the game warden and the gw asked if he could go retrieve it. My buddy got a solid "hell no, I've been watching that deer for 3 years." Hence me saying "Big deer turn some people into arseholes." I should have added "When they are a day late to the show."

I try to be the kind of neighbor a neighbor would want to have. We were helping a neighbor a bit down the road last weekend look for a deer their daughter had wounded. Tracked to the next neighbor's property, I called him and he said' "come on over and look". He came and helped us look but it crossed to another neighbor's place that didn't want anyone on his place. Totally understandable, they were hunting their property the next morning and didn't want the place disturbed.

I want my neighbors to know they can cross my place any time looking for a wounded animal, lost pet, etc. At the same time, I never cross a fence line without calling first. It would hurt my feelings if anyone thought I would rather let their deer rot than let them recover it. Bad shots and other mistakes happen, when I become perfect then I'll demand perfection of others.