How many?

[horst]

Just curious about something.Ive spent the weekend looking for sheds but found something else instead.Since season closed Jan 10, while pulling stads, shed hunting, and wandering around looking for places to hunt next year Ive found, I believe, 14 dead deer.13 of them were on state ground or really close to state ground like in the fenceline.Only 2 of them I found were what appeared to be roadkills the rest were all shot and either not recovered or in a couple cases left to rot on purpose.Mostly young bucks that have either shed or in a couple cases had their antlers sawed off.A few the coyotes had scattered and the heads were missing.Only two of them were does {outta the ones that still had skulls} and one of them was what i believe was a road kill.

So, how many dead deer do you run across after season in your areas?The reason I ask is this just seems like a very high number of unrecovered deer to stumble across and I cant imaginge how many more I havent found.The majoity of these were found way back in the public grounds and away from roads.Kinda gives the impression someones shooting deer without any intention of dragging em out after theyre down, and in a couple cases im positive this is the case.

 

[River1]

I find one on occasion. Not every year though. Did you contact your Conservation Officer?

 

[horst]

Funny you ask, 3/4 of these deer were within 1/2 mile of the DNRs house LOL.Yeah, him and I are looking for the same set of sheds in the park out there and I stopped to see if he found em yet and told him what Id been running into.Seeings how seasons been over 3 weeks he cant do much about it now, escpecially after the coyotes have had this long to chew on em, its hard to even tell what killed some of them.But when you find a dead yearling doe with an arrow sticking outta the ground 10 ft behind her its pretty obvious somone shot her and didnt bother dragging her out.The fletchings were screwed up on the arrow and they didnt bother picking it up either.Another one was a small bodied buck with his skull plate sawed off.Where I found him was 3/4 of a mile into a real nasty chunk of state ground.Unless a pheasant hunter happened to have found him and had a hacksaw handy it appeared hed been shot and left to rot after they cut his rack off.

Theyve been aving a lotta trouble with poaching out that way anyway, somebodies been plinking deer with a 22 and leaving em lay.And the sherriffs office is even watching for them out there, when I drug my late season ML buck out they had me surrounded in the parking lot when I got back to it after dark.

Im starting to think its a more serious problem than I thought around here.

 

[kansasbowhunter]

I was out checking my trail cameras this past weekend and stumbled on a dead 6 pointer that had the arrow laying 20' away. Looks like who ever shot it was unable to recover it. I only hope that they tried......

 

[Bob J]

Seems to be a pattern here. I found 6 dead deer piled up on a country road near the city limits. Out in plain sight. What a waste. I don't want to think about the kind of impression an image like that leaves on the general non-hunting public.