Shot a big one

I shot a big one pretty early this afternoon. He was quartering away from me. I shot and he dropped. Then he started squirming around so I tried to put another one in him but he got out of sight. Ended up hearing him run off but never saw him again. Found a bunch of brown and white hair but haven’t been able to find any blood. What do you guys think? I’m gonna look like crazy in the morning no matter what but do y’all think he’s dead or alive?

Russell county...call CNC!

Although what you described sounds like the classic back slap. Hope it’s not and that you can find him.

White hair doesn’t equal backslap but I agree that’s how he acted according to op

Dog time

This for sure.

You’re right Josh, I missed that he had white hair.

X3

How far and what did you shoot him with?

Call a dog, but I’m gonna guess you hit his shoulder and exited his brisket. That shot usually won’t bleed til they run at least 60-70 yards.

White hair could be from him hitting the ground on stomach..
Sounds like back slap but I hope it wasn't. Otis was hurt I think but harold can get shelby on him! If the deer is down and Otis is healthy he goes on the tailgate!

Shot him about 140 yards away with a Remington 7 mag sandero bull barrel. I called CNC but it’s a no go from him.

Call idahomike he outta be fairly close to you I'd think

Idaho mike...or aj ninette....spell check that name....hate harold couldnt get there but his main man has a banged up pad according to what I read on here

Hope you find him

Yep...Otis is out of commission for probably week. I'm actually ready to start Shelby on tracks by herself but I really need to start her off with something like a low gut shot that's putting out some blood and scent.....ones that have a higher likelihood of recovery. I don't want to start her off on back slaps or possible misses....The reason I'm doing that is in order to help boost her confidence in the beginning. I just don't need to run a bunch with her that don't have dead deer at end.

I agree with you! Hope you guys get healed up and finish strong!

Good luck

Hope you find him! Keep us posted.

If you want to find your deer, call him
Mike Lopez: Statewide (Starts Jan. 5). (630) 240-6394.

Put the dog on it. Call Lopez

Put a dog on him!

Leg busted maybe? Any bone shards? Very little blood? If all these fit then probably so. I hope not.

Walk from where you last seen him to closest water. No buck call a k9 in. Good luck!

Hope you find him, good luck getting any sleep tonight

Lol no way I’m sleeping tonight. And no I didn’t find any blood/bone/meat. Just a bunch of hair. He was right by a ton of thick stuff so he could be 50 yards away and I just couldn’t see him. Hopefully I’ll be posting a pic in the morning!

Don't be hard headed call in a dog.

I’ve called several but I can’t afford to pay $150

Good luck brother!

I don’t know if it has been mentioned, but it would probably be a good idea to call in a dog.

There’s a page on fb that’s free. Some guys have good dogs n just do it for the sport just pay them gas money and whatever tip you can afford

Hope you find him

Unless something has changed, Lopez will do it for gas money.

Good luck

Y'all find him?

You're not going to shoulder or European mount a "big one"? I bet you can find a dog within your budget.

I’m in Russell county I’ll help you with the cost.

Hate to see you lose the big one.

Heck I can chip in a few bucks. 100% worth it to recover a big one.

I talked to several people with dogs and it just didn’t work out. The property line isn’t far from where I shot him and we don’t get permission to cross onto their property. Me and a buddy spent 3 hours trailing this morning. Found a little blood but not much. I’m here for a few days and I’m not giving up yet so I’m going to hunt where I shot him and look for buzzards. The money would be worth it if I found him but I’ve found several myself and I’m just not very confident about him anymore.

Maybe calling someone with a cat would be cheaper. I hope you find him.

Why not call other property owner and explain situation. I have also found a lot of deer myself, but a dog is a much higher percentage chance of finding the buck. If he is the big one why not pay someone gas money and take the help offered by others? Anyone hunting a deer should do everything within their power to find the animal they shoot. If they dont they shouldn't be hunting.

I already did. The property owner said no and I have to respect that even though I want to cross over and look. I’m not giving up. I’m here until Thursday and I’ll continue to look

Kudos to you for respecting your neighbors property rights. It may be a chitty thing to deny you access, and I bet the guy is combing his land or looking for buzzards to find that deer, but you are doing the right thing.

I just can't understand why a property owner would ever do that. Hear about it all the time. I'd go with the person, but I'd dang sure never tell them no.

If you see buzzards on his side, you better believe I'd have the game warden out there to go with me to get my damn deer.

Is it your deer? I honestly don’t know. I’m thinking that would be very hard to prove. You have to trust the landowner to do the right thing. I don’t think a GW would help matters.

I don't know about AL, but I know some states have a legal requirement for land owners to let a hunter retrieve his/ her wounded game animal from their property. Granted it would be hard to prove that the buzzards were in fact circling his deer, I would definitely be pulling every string I could to get my hands on it.

Not in Alabama.

I've been thinking about your situation and the different possibilities of what happened......Was the hair that you found long strands of white hair nearly the length of your finger?

Chris. I agree completely. I've never denied a hunter the rights to access our property
to retrieve a wounded deer.
I wonder if the folks that do this, have some kind of illegal activities going on.

Illegal? Aw c’mon now. It’s his property. He’s allowed to control it as he sees fit.

CNC, all of the hair was about an 1 1/2 to 2 inches long. And I found light colored blood. Not very much blood though.

Yes it may not be the neighborly thing to do, but it's his land and the law is on his side. The only reason he needs is he doesn't want other people on it. We had a thread about this very recently. It's bad for the OP, but he's handled the situation well by contacting the neighbor and asking for permission, which was denied. Nothing he can do at this point. He can't even be sure the deer is dead and on the adjacent property.

This to the max, and if the property owner hunts there is a good possibility that he will need to look for one on your side.

I was trying to figure out how you would have white hair and brown hair….One possibility if he was quartered away from you at a decent angle is that you could have hit him back in the edge of the hind quarter giving you some brown hair. The bullet passed through a little bit of his hindquarter ….exited…. and then re-entered into the back of the guts giving you white hair. A shot like that would be pretty devastating on one and likely wouldn’t go very far unless it was just a small caliber gun or some type of bullet that didn’t penetrate well. It would still die but could possibly tote it off a ways. Below is something like what it would look like if you blew off that belly hair I’m talking about. If this looks like what you found then he’s likely dead somewhere. If you found mostly brown hair though with only a few bits of white…..then I’d go with the back slap theory.

About the neighbor thing……What if the neighbor had been keeping his place quiet and unpressured all season long waiting on the rut to get here and was just getting ready to go in and hunt the area in a few days?? I could understand in that situation why he wouldn’t want someone going in and tromping all over the area with a search party. I’ve had this happen on a track before and while it was disappointing to have to call it off….I could understand where the guy was coming from.

I agree 100% I have great neighbors where I live and where I hunt and can't imagine not allowing someone to look for thier deer. I know some good ole boys around here that would never do anyone that way and if you treated them that way you would live to regret it. I hope you find your deer.

The neighbor probably didn’t want him piddlin in his sanctuary.

I'd rather a neighbor make good use of one of our animals (no doubt all those bucks go back and forth between multiple properties) that he has mortally wounded than see it go to waste just so some section of my land remained undisturbed.

I think its pretty crappy of the neighbor. I know he has the right to do what he wants on his property and maybe he is saving his property for the rut. But as sportsmen,we all have certain responsibilities to do the right thing towards the deer we hunt. This means finding them or trying to find them using all available resources and helping those in need find them as well.

Hate to hear this for you WGDfarm.

I can see it both ways…..Don’t get me wrong, if my neighbors around here called me up with this situation then I’d be just like y’all are talking about and give them permission without thinking twice. However, with all the stuff that I’ve seen since I started tracking…..I can also see situations where someone might not want their property tromped over by search parties just because the neighbor decided to blast away again…. taking some half-ass marginal shot that ends up just crippling the deer…Then suddenly it’s supposed to be the neighbor responsibility to be a good guy and allow him to come over into his place with a search party and tromp down the woods in hopes that maybe the bad decision worked out……

This doesn’t have anything to do with the OP’s track were talking about at all so don’t take that the wrong way. I’m just generally speaking from my experiences of seeing any and everything hunters do. It isn’t just as cut and dry as y’all are making it. I completely agree about being good neighbors…..But there’s a fair amount of these situations that are a direct result of the hunter just lobbing a hailmary at one hoping for the best….A fair amount of calls that come into trackers are due to hunters making really bad decisions about when to shoot….and taking shots that they never should have taken in the first place…..one bad decision leads to another and they go chasing after the deer pushing it……500 yards later they hit the property line and now they need permission to keep chasing it onto the neighbors property.

Again, I do agree for the most part that we should all extend our neighbors the same courtesy that we’d want to be given. But I also can see another side to why someone might say no. It isn’t suddenly his problem because you decided to shoot the deer in the arse…. or facing straight at you…..or while it was running……or from 55 yards with a bow….or any of the other bad shots that get made, I’ve made plenty of them myself over the years so don't think I'm trying to be high and mighty about that part of it or anything like that….I’m just trying to give a little perspective to the conversation and show that it isn’t just always as black and white as the neighbor being the one that’s an arsehole.