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Interesting Situation, what do you think.

timmys3431

Member
So my buddy finds a dead buck on ground he owns with his family. Buck goes 160'ish. So to be legal, he calls local CO to get salvage tag for the antlers. He meets 2 local co's at the deer. Co's cut head and dig out bullet. It had been rifled. They probe the temp of the deer at 80 plus degrees, ( by the way, this was saturday morning). My buddy has legal tag for hunting and was in the area hunting when he got a call from a relative to tell him of the buck. Co's tell him they need the antlers as evidence in the case. So my buddy tells them of another deer, a doe, that had been rifled friday night behind his house. He heard the shot and saw a truck driving away. Co's show no interest and don't even go look at the deer. He ask if he can retrieve the horns after the whole evidence thing is up. They say no and proceed to leave with no other questions asked. Can anyone explain this. Why not dig the bullet out of the doe also? Or even look at it. The distance between the properties is about 3.5 miles. Could it be possible they are selling the horns for themselves? The likleyhood of them catching someone is pretty much nil. So what gives?

I tend to think next time there will be no call to report the deer. If you want the horns you should be able to keep them from your own property. If they need them as evidence they wouldnt be hard to find, right in my friends house.

I'm not trying to stir up some big debate, just curious what the deal might be. My buddy is an avid bowhunter and does things by the book. Tried to do it right and the CO's didnt seem to what to even deal with him.
 
This, and just my opinion mind you, is to ensure those less than ethical guys out there don't shoot a deer like this, then call a CO and say they found it, can we keep it etc.

The body temp etc may have been a factor but otherwise, I would assume it prevent poachers from poaching, then calling to keep what they shot. Again, just a thought but what they did is more by the book than allowing you to keep it, at least what Ive seen.
 
Total ripoff. I don't know the law on this but they should check out all deer. I once had a doe do a kamikazee off a bridge at Sedan Bottoms. Broke it's neck. Drove to town and talked to police. The officer didn't want to drive out there, and just issued me a salvage tag to go put on it.

If I were you I'd call their office up and ask what is the law for your situtation. Request it in writing.
 
So my buddy finds a dead buck on ground he owns with his family. Buck goes 160'ish. So to be legal, he calls local CO to get salvage tag for the antlers. He meets 2 local co's at the deer. Co's cut head and dig out bullet. It had been rifled. They probe the temp of the deer at 80 plus degrees, ( by the way, this was saturday morning). My buddy has legal tag for hunting and was in the area hunting when he got a call from a relative to tell him of the buck. Co's tell him they need the antlers as evidence in the case. So my buddy tells them of another deer, a doe, that had been rifled friday night behind his house. He heard the shot and saw a truck driving away. Co's show no interest and don't even go look at the deer. He ask if he can retrieve the horns after the whole evidence thing is up. They say no and proceed to leave with no other questions asked. Can anyone explain this. Why not dig the bullet out of the doe also? Or even look at it. The distance between the properties is about 3.5 miles. Could it be possible they are selling the horns for themselves? The likleyhood of them catching someone is pretty much nil. So what gives?

I tend to think next time there will be no call to report the deer. If you want the horns you should be able to keep them from your own property. If they need them as evidence they wouldnt be hard to find, right in my friends house.

I'm not trying to stir up some big debate, just curious what the deal might be. My buddy is an avid bowhunter and does things by the book. Tried to do it right and the CO's didnt seem to what to even deal with him.


I'd have to say from between your buddy and you, your stories got mixed up and twisted. I've worked for the DNR for the past 3 summers both for county and state, and believe me that is most definitely not how situations are handled. I know certain things can be hard to grasp for people but to be honest why would your buddy even want a set of "poached" antlers? just curious. And you think the DNR is selling antlers to make revenue? you have got to be high?
 
Booner said:
I know certain things can be hard to grasp for people but to be honest why would your buddy even want a set of "poached" antlers? just curious. And you think the DNR is selling antlers to make revenue? you have got to be high?

Well if the deer was killed on his land he should get the antlers. Where poached or not. I can see them taking them for evidence but to keep them after the case was over is not right. If it was killed on my place I would want the antlers. The dnr officers probably wanted them for there selves.
 
I try to stay out of stuff like this, but in this case in will offer my two cents.

Shooting a buck out of season and with a rifle is an obvious crime. The bullet and any part of the deer would be evidence of the crime. If any other type of crime was commited on someone's property I don't think the landowner would have any reasonable right to keep some of the evidence because they wanted it. I agree that it doesn't look good when they don't care about the doe, but that is the CO's call. I do know that our previous CO would extract bullets from any deer found dead, buck or doe.

Again, this is just my opinion.
 
I'd much rather let them keep the antlers(which in poaching cases they always do) and build up a case against the scum bag who shot it.
 
The buck was poached, so they have to keep evidence in the case. Not sure why it could not be relased later tho? Maybe they have a big evidence room far away from where you are at that everything goes to and it would be a hassle to give it back later on? Just a thought?
 
I would have just considered the buck shot legally during season. You should have just went out and got a tag for it and tagged it yourself. Uropean mount and no one would know if you shot it or if your neighbor poched it. just what i would have done in this situation.
 
I would have just considered the buck shot legally during season. You should have just went out and got a tag for it and tagged it yourself. Uropean mount and no one would know if you shot it or if your neighbor poched it. just what i would have done in this situation.

............................surely your joking right? :thrwrck::thrwrck:
 
I would have just considered the buck shot legally during season. You should have just went out and got a tag for it and tagged it yourself. Uropean mount and no one would know if you shot it or if your neighbor poched it. just what i would have done in this situation.

Wait, what? Yeah explain that one when the CO rolls up behind you to check your stuff out and it has a rifle bullet in it "Yeah officer I'm telling you I found it died and I tagged it, somebody must have shot it with a rifle" how much you want to bet they're going to buy that one?
 
who would know the difference? Just think about it you dont call the dnr unless you want them to cetch a poacher. If you want to keep the antlers just dont call the dnr. Think about it this way: you find a dead deer on your land, you think it was shot legaly. the deer just ran like a mile and died on our land. Why would you not take that buck? You arent going to get into trouble for tagging a deer that you found.
 
You can tag a deer you find, but like mentioned it has a bullet inside its body you may have to explain and there's not much satisfaction in claiming a deer shot by another.
 
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