Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Tracking Tales

That deer needed finishing off, I don’t care who does it.
Please don’t sidetrack a decent thread with bulldoodoo........

I think some parents start their kids off before they are really ready. Bad shots happen though. I think there will probably be legislation concerning tracking dogs in the future. Good thread and discussion on this one.

I promise I wasn’t derailing the thread. I enjoy the stories of CNC and company that track. I was just asking at what point is enough enough. Cnc mentioned that one guy with the young boy has called him a lot. Bad habits need to be corrected behind the gun for some folks.

I'll offer a lil different perspective on the topic.
I track on leash for several reasons.
1. Most of the places I go are small tracts of property and it's easy to get off the property we are on.
2. I do track on a wma where I have to be in leash and only in the daylight. Which is aggravating because it's a lot easier to bay one at night.
It sucks getting drug through briars and privet by a 55 lb black mouth cur 40 foot in front of me when he gets to rolling after one. It does making bays on brisket and leg shots difficult cause we can't run them down. Most of the bays that we end up with are usually several hours old and the deer is sick enough to not break and run and if they do it ain't far. As for whose deer is it or if you shoot your hunting crowd. I AM THE ONLY person that is gone shoot over my dog and that ain't open to negotiation. Most hunters have never been involved in baying a wounded deer and things can get kinda western and you have to be careful and pay attention and not get excited. And the last the thing I want is a excited hunter waving a loaded gun around me and my dog trying to kill a deer they boogerd up to begin with. More hunters are using dogs for recovery of deer which is fine even with good shots. I use my dog in every deer i shoot. It is understood before we ever start on a track that I carry the gun and I use the gun but it's still your deer. I have tracked them shot from the rooter to the tooter by young and old and all in between. My dog will usually tell me withing first couple hundred yards if we gone recover or it ain't dead. However I tell every hunter I track for when I come out 1 of 3 things is fixing to happen either we gone load it up, it's where we can't get to it ( off property, bottom of a pond etc), or when I leave we all gone be satisfied that the deer ain't dead.
In the end what we are doing is a service and I can personally say I have put some in the tailgate that would not have been recovered without a dog. I have made some folks sleep better at night cause they know they didn't kill it.
In closing I feel like as hunters and outdoorsman we owe it to the animal we hunt to make every attempt to make a clean ethical kill and when that don't work and you booger one up we owe it the animal to make every attempt to recover it. Weather that means we finish it with a bay or find it already dead.
I hope dano gets in here on this topic.

I totally get that. The shooting around the dog would be a disaster for the avg Hunter. Hence why you are there in the first place.

Sorry to get off topic and potentially derail again, but what’s the law with tracking. Can you finish one off at night and it not technically be hunting? Duck hunted with a guy who knocked a duck down right before legal sunset. He chased him across the flooded field and finished him off a few minutes after legal shooting light. Warden was watching and wrote him a ticket.

Let's just say it pays to have a good relationship with the game warden and leave it at that.
As for management areas dog on leash, daylight only and no firearm during bow season or not during a orginized gun hunt

Guess that brings up another question. Can you finish off with a gun during bow season.

Again see post above.
I have finished a couple with a knife but that ain't the best practice

There is “the letter of the law” and “the intent of the law”………A law enforcement officer cannot tell you that you are ok to do something that is against the letter of the law. However, they can choose to use discretion in situations where the intent of the law is not being abused if my understanding of it is correct. I have found that most any GW I have ever talked to is very understanding about how things happen and what we all deal with….They are hunters themselves and know that sometimes deer will still be alive, etc…..Are we talking about someone trying to make an honest attempt to recover a deer for another hunter using tracking dogs or is it someone using it as a means to just be a yahoo??…..The best thing for everyone in my opinion is to try and not push the envelope to the point that we tie their hands and force them to have to place restrictions on everyone. This happens through policing ourselves and what we socially accept as hunters as going too far. I do agree with Matt that there needs to be some line drawn so that things don’t get out of hand. How that plays out though when you're actually there in the situation in the moment may be a little more complicated though

No doubt on starting before they are ready. Whoever is behind the gun needs to be proficient no matter the age. That being said, I’ve certainly made a few bad shots in the last 50 years. You hunt enough they will occur.

Me and you must know the same wardens

I'm glad your enforcement officers work with you. In most states I'm familiar with this thread would have already lightened you of your guns, trucks, and dogs...and probably freedom too.

Seriously?......Jail?.....Confiscate trucks guns and dogs?.......For what offense?

If you don't tag an animal you finish off they treat is just like you drove into a wma and spotlighted one.

I don't agree with it either but it happens. I know an older gentleman who thought his partner would go drag his buck back for him. When the guy got there it was still alive and the other guy shot it. But the original shooter still tagged it, of course because that makes sense. Lost his mount and gun over that and paid a heck of a fine.

That seems excessive.....That's the problem with having a bunch of excessive rules.....They require excessive teeth or enforcement to make everyone march in step. There should be rules for common sense stupidness that carry hefty fines but it doesn't require being that ticky tack about things.....I hope our GW's will always be given the leeway to use common sense to apply discretion

I agree. Kind of like confiscating dear heads that are found. The world record is one of those.

Here’s a little different perspective for everyone to think about on this topic. I’ll set my personal opinions aside for the 3 buck limit and GC but that’s what we have at the moment so…….

Just about any deer that a tracker is capable of baying up and finishing off either day or night is almost certain coyote bait…..Despite how these stories may make it sound, a deer doesn’t just bay up easily unless its pretty disabled. You can argue over the semantics of who shot it last and who’s deer it is but in the end every buck that trackers recover is another one that goes toward someone’s three tags and its another one that gets counted as being killed instead of being a lost statistic……There are likely thousands of deer across the state that are wounded by hunters that will die as a result but never be counted……Every one a tracker is able to recover reduces that number. That benefits us all to some small degree.

There would be a situation where I might be ok with trackers registering with the state like the new bill is wanting to do……That would be if trackers who register and get a permit to do so could have freer reign to track day and night and do what they can to recover the deer people mortally wound. Like I previously said…..it doesn’t matter if its day or night, if I can bay it up and finish it off then 95% chance it’s a dead deer regardless. So instead of us continuing on with only two choices of either a grey area that we tip toe around or more stringent rules that further restricts us…….What about a 3rd option that free the reigns on us and allows us to do things legally but requires registering and it being know who was doing it as the trade off?? Just a thought…..I dont like all the permits and registering and crap but if I'm gonna do it then I want to get something out of it.....The juice be worth the squeeze.......Its probably the only way of doing something like this without it turning into the wild west.....Trackers could be more effective at recovering these deer though by going in sooner instead of waiting until the next morning but that means that there will be more bay situations.....If we just keep on the same track we're on now then eventually someone will cry fowl and start passing leash rules and no tracking at night laws.....yada yada yada.........We could do it a different way

Yep

"The Law" and "Common Sense" are mutually exclusive terms.