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JerryBobCo
Posts: 8,227 Senior Member
Have you ever left a dead animal overnight and come back the next day?
JerryBobCo
Posts: 8,227 Senior Member
I have several times. Twice with deer, and once with an elk. In two of those instances, the animal was untouched when I came back the next morning to retrieve it. The other time I was stupid enough to leave a deer in a pine grove where a large flock of ravens/crows were nesting. They were eating the deer when I got there the next morning, but I still managed to salvage most of the meat.
If I can, I try to get the animal out as soon as I can. But sometimes, especially on game taken late in the day and fairly far from a road, I take my chances.
I've heard stories about coyotes getting to deer in just a few minutes, but have never experienced anything like that.
If I can, I try to get the animal out as soon as I can. But sometimes, especially on game taken late in the day and fairly far from a road, I take my chances.
I've heard stories about coyotes getting to deer in just a few minutes, but have never experienced anything like that.
Jerry
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Replies
Oh yeah....and it was a .270 I shot him with....:troll:
Next morning, we went out and found the deer about 100 yards into the woods. She was a bit soggy, but unmolested.
Adam J. McCleod
Blood-tracking after dark works best with an oldtime kerosene lantern, not a flashlight or a Coleman gas or propane lantern. There's something about the yellowish kerosene flame that makes blood drops stand out against the surrounding terrain. A metal shield for the lantern that protects the user's vision from glare and projects the light forward helps, also.
Jerry
Right on the money Jerry....I got a lot of practice doing this as my ex FIL was color blind and called me every time he needed a deer tracked, light or dark...
Also -In my experience, a gut-shot deer left overnight will usually be total loss no matter what the temperature is
Yeah, while I would make every effort to recover the animal, I don't know if I could eat a deer left over night.
I've never left one overnight that was not dressed. A friend of mine, who grew up on a southeast Colorado farm with 10 other siblings told me a story about a deer his dad killed when my friend was still little. His dad gut shot the deer late in the day, and wasn't able to find it until the next day. He dressed it and brought it home, and the family ate it. According to my friend, it just about ruined the family on the notion of eating venison.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Jerry
I had a crippled elk that had to wait until the next day to be found, and luckily enough the meat was just fine.
You do need to prop the carcass open and get the shoulders raised off the ground so the air flow cools the carcass under better, or at least skin the neck and shoulders back so the hide doesn't hold the body heat in and sour the meat in the front quarters.
I have helped a friend look for a lost deer the next day with not as good of a result though. The coyotes had found it first, but he did get a good shot off at one and put it down.
I've done all my Elk hunting on the Western slopes of the CO Rockies. I don't recall ever knocking one over when there wasn't snow on the ground within view. But as anyone who has ever killed one knows, when you bust that cap, the fun is over and the work begins. I've never had to leave one over night but that idea of leaving human scent around til you get back in the morning is great. I'll tuck that back should the problem ever present itself.
To a couple of Teach's points. It has been my whole life experience that if you jump a gut shot deer and he gets away again. It's highly unlikely you'll recover it, except maybe by accident. And if you find it, well, coydogs gotta eat too.
And on the handling a steer like a deer, years ago before we had upwards of a million deer here, if you got one, you were a minor celebrity. So when I started killing them fairly regularly I had a butcher/small packing house that would hang them whole for me in a cooler. IIRC at 40% for like 2 weeks. These days you take it to them in ice chests and 2 days later they're blowing your phone up wanting you to pick it up 'cause they need the room.
Oh, and that lantern thing is right. Don't know why that works so well but it sure does.
Man I'd feel sketchy about leaving a carcass in that situation. Who needs coffee the next morning when you have a grizz on your kill to wake the senses!
Myself.....Nope, got one when MHS was away, borrowed his rifle cause mine went T.U. last minute, made a bad connection and had to track her for dern near a mile while heavy snow was coming down....had to keep after her so I wouldn't lose the blood trail. Once gutted, it was another one of those LOOOOOONG walks back to the Jeep, then back to the cabin for assistance. After a couple of beers to relate my , we all went back to get her out.....to this day, I think that's the ONLY one we ever had to quarter and carry out pieces of her on our shoulders, through the blow-down that litters a tight mountain draw. Other than recovering the meat.....it SUCKED! lol
OOPS correction for memory loss......back when I was 16 and first started hunting elk on my own.......nailed a spike cross-canyon in Needles Creek....it was last light on the last day, we had to get him off the hill-side the next morning......sucks trying to drag out a frozen carcass.....they like to snag up on every sage-bush!
Major reason I have no interest in hunting elk in grizz country anymore.
A great good friend once shot an absolutely enormous cow. In it's death throws it somehow managed to throw itself into a large Cedar tree. We liked to have never got that thing out of there.
Jerry
Yeah. But fortunately the places I've hunted out West, they don't allow trucks. Or fourwheelers for that matter. I don't know if I'll ever hunt out there again or not. I very much hope to do so. And if I do, I hope to either haul stock out there or rent it when I get there. But I would most certainly settle for just about any scenario just to hike and hunt those hills.
This has been interesting campfire talk reading all y'all's stories.
Jerry, I've heard the stories about coyotes too. But I remember one instance that occurred up on my lease at Ezzel Texas, just south of Halletsville about 12 miles. My oldest son and I were hunting there around Christmas one year and I shot a doe about 5:30 PM, just at the end of legal shooting time. It was snowing its butt off believe it or not. We were so cold we couldn't stop shaking and when we didn't find it right away within 30 minutes, we gave up for the night and chickened out and went to the cabin and built a nice warm fire in the fireplace. It was dark anyway by that time so we gave in for the night.
Anyway, the place is lousy with coyotes so I figured that deer would be gone the next morning. Most every time I was in a deer blind for more than an hour or two I saw at least one, if not 5 or 10 coyotes. But to my surprise, my buddy Ted and his brother Mark, showed up before daylight to hunt the next morning, so I told them about it. Then my son and I slept in because we were still cold and Ted said they would look around since they wanted to hunt that blind.
Ted and Mark found that doe not 100 feet from where I shot it where it had crawled up next to a big clump of rose hedge. I must have walked right by it (Of course it WAS covered pretty well in snow, which didn't help). Anyway, they brought it to us and I tagged it and skinned and gutted it. I let it hang the rest of the day before i quartered it out. That deer was untouched by coyotes and was one of the best eating I've ever bagged. But I wouldn't guaranty that coyotes won't eat one. Maybe the cold weather had them laid up in their warm den for the night.
Found him the next morning, intact. Also found the GPS by retracing my steps from where I shot and located the buck initially. I really worried about coyotes/wolves and was relieved to see it there. Since it was dressed, and fairly cold the meat was fine.
That's what saved the meat on the one I told about here. Howeve, mine still had the guts in it all night. It was snowing and about as cold as it usually gets here in December, in the mid 20s. I've seen it much colder here in December, but I can count the times on one hand.
when I was still in college, I had a friend who had a mount of a huge whitetail buck. It's one of the biggest whitetails I've ever seen. When I asked him about it, he told me that he had killed it near George West, Texas, which is southwest of Corpus Christi. He left the deer overnight and went back the next day to retrieve it. When he got there, the deer was in shreds, and about all that was retrievable was the rack. Apparently, coyotes got to it during the night.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Interesting side story; one of our long time members of opening pheasant group still hangs all his birds if weather is favorable. A few years back we found a rooster we had killed in a melee of shooting day before. This guy picked it up threw it into his game pouch and said it would be perfect!
Now I would t do that but I do hang birds if weather is right
I know most people think that it's probably nuts, but it makes the meat more tender. I've heard of some hunters who put their birds in brown paper bags and leave in fridge for 3-5 days.
Anyway hope I didn't steal the thread.
Bellcat
And I think, "Why are they talking about dead hookers in you trunk on the Hunting forum?"