Keep hunting?

[PredatorSlayer]

If you shoot an animal and don’t recover it, do you consider your tag filled or keep hunting?

 

[Customweld]

Tag filled. Done for the season

 

[Werty]

Most likely keep hunting, assuming laws allow.

 

[JustSomeGuy35]

Keep hunting. I've seen a few deer, elk and one bear that had been shot in previous years, still getting around.

For example:

Ever seen a 3 legged bear? I saw one cruising a steep drainage with no issue.

First elk I killed had a blown out front knee and a muzzle loader sabot in its hip. He was limping but still moving thru the steep stuff.

There's a nice buck I've seen 2 years in a row after my neighbor shot him in the ankle with a 12g. Looks like an elephant's foot.

If you're a trophy hunter, I don't know what to tell you. If you're a meat hunter like me, only notch your tag once you've recovered the animal.

 

[ZAK13]

I do my best to recover the animal, as another has stated, a lot of times the animal survives and thrives. So unless i can physically see the animal and cannot physically recover it, then no I don't notch my tag.

 

[SwiftShot]

I skinned out a bull elk that was breeding cows. Pulled a few year old arrow out fulling scar tissued up along his upper ribs. It was under the spine inside the chst cavity. Muzzy 125 on the tip. Tip was lodged in a vertebrae right inline with the front legs. It had broken off healed over and he was kicking ass that year.

 

[roadrunner]

Keep hunting.

 

[Tyson]

If I’m confident he is still alive then I’ll keep hunting. As others have stated, seen a lot of animals thrive after being shot.

 

[DanimalW]

I’m pretty good about showing enough restraint to not take questionable shots in the first place. Still though, I’ve made a mistake or two in my life on shots, and have made every effort to recover. That said, I don’t feel the need to place a self-imposed penalty on myself for a rare, and honest mistake. So yes, I would feel ok to continue hunting. I just thought this was something that for-profit TV hunters did. I really don’t know many people that would set fire to $1000 NR piece-of-paper tag. Folks don’t do that in real life do they?

 

[MrRogers]

Keep hunting

 

[Rich M]

If you are just slinging bullets and not trying to find wounded game, then you shouldn’t be hunting.

If you gave it a good look-for as in like hours of looking and didnt find, keep hunting.

 

[KsRancher]

I would keep hunting.

 

[Huntindog45]

keep hunting. not even a tough question for me.

 

[svivian]

Depends on the shot. If I think it was lethal and can’t recover my tag is punched

 

[FLATHEAD]

If you draw feathers on a duck but it keeps flying, do you consider
it part of your bag limit?
I keep hunting.

 

[Where's Bruce?]

Every
Thing
Hinges
In
Conscience
Single-mindedly

 

[MattB]

Depends on the hit. Gut shot, tag punched. Graze across the back line, keep hunting.

 

[Sam Colt]

I think a lot depends on how you were raised.

If I make a good shot and can’t recover the animal despite my best effort, I consider it lost. That’s unfortunate, but on me. I’ll keep hunting only if I have another tag.

I have spent a couple of days tracking a wounded animal before. More than once I’ve gotten a 2nd shot and recovered the meat.

 

[grfox92]

Don everything in your power to find your animal and then keep hunting. Wound loss is accounted for in Game and Fish numbers.

Sent from my SM-G990U using Tapatalk

 

[EastHumboldt]

I will look all day and all day the next day. If I don’t find it I keep hunting. I’ve been lucky and never had to do this for an animal that I shot. I’ve recovered every single one within a couple hours. A friend of mine took a shot at a big old muley, saw him scrunch, found a blood trail. We looked for a day and a half before we went back to hunting. Pretty sure he just nicked a foreleg.

I saw a man do a very fine thing once. It was a hunter in an adjacent camp. He spotted a yearling mule deer buck who just had one little 2 inch spike. The little buck was badly wounded so the guy put him out of his misery and hung his tag on it. He was an accomplished hunter with many large four-point plus bucks under his belt. He did it because he did not want the Young Buck to suffer. Think I would do the same, but I’ve never been presented with this dilemma. I know it tears me up to think of them suffering.