Tracked down neighbors wounded deer

[deadeye]

On his way out to a stand on Thursday afternoon, my brother in law saw people tracks in the woods.  Upon further inspection he noticed a small speck of blood in the snow.  He followed the tracks for a couple hundred yards deeper into our land where they seemed to have given up on the trail and headed back to where they came from.  My brother in law continued following the trail watching for the deer.  After a while of difficult tracking due to little blood and too many other tracks, he saw where the deer had bedded several times leaving a small pool of blood each time.  It was about 200 yards from where the others stopped tracking that he saw and finished off the doe.  It had been shot through the gut and shattered a hind leg by the knee joint.  On Saturday he decided to see where the deer had been first shot thinking it was our neighbors to the west.  He backtracked their trail west and then south through a small swamp and then another part of our woods. The trail then headed on to the neighbor to our south's land and he did not go any farther.  I ask him if he considered giving them the deer.  "Not after they gave up and I tracked it, finished it off, gutted it and dragged it out" was his response. I agreed. 

[mike89]

 

[LPS]

He earned it.

[snow1]

Actually its sad folks would give up like that,kudos to you guyz for the follow-up.

[Leech~~]

 Finders keepers.
All good tings come to those that keep tracking!  Or was that who shoot straight?     

Heck my first two Deer ever when I started hunting were Does illegally shot by someone else that I picked up the blood trail and stay on it until found. I was only a teen so at the time I hustled them home, cut them up and ate um. Now I would probably call it in. One of them was shot with a 22 I heard someone shooting in th he woods earlier that day.

[deadeye]

I'm sure I will bump into them sometime and ask about it.  Several years ago we found a buck they shot and didn't find.  They should have found the buck as it didn't go all that far. Shot through the liver and gut. 

We found it during the muzzleloader season.  They shot it the last day of the rifle season.

[LPS]

May be that they don't want to trespass looking for a deer on your property?????

[glenn57]

Ya know deadeye your post here is really making me even more schnitty about not finding the deer I tracked for 4 hours last Sunday morning. first time it's happened to me and don't like it. Pretty convinced though it will live.

Don't get me wrong, enjoyed reading your post.

[deadeye]

LPS, I doubt that's the case.  The have done it before.  Now, if they didn't have a big enclosed stand so tight in the corner of their land, maybe the deer wouldn't be on our property.  Think of a square or 40 acre parcel.  Now put a stand in the upper right corner of the square.  My brother in law owns the land to the right side and top of the square.  That means he cannot/should not shoot on three fourths of the land around him.  Also any deer shot on his property would have only one way to go to not come on ours.