Buck Shot by Two Hunters, They Decide to Flip For It

Two hunters shooting the same deer is not unheard of, since a buck can run 100 yards or more before expiring from a bullet or an arrow.

However, what are the odds against two hunters shooting the same deer at the exact same time in the exact same place?

As a teenager, I hunted in Western Maryland after a fresh snowfall on opening morning. Catching a glimpse of movement, I saw a buck moving behind my tree stand. I turned and aimed just as the buck stopped. I shot and was delighted to see it drop in its tracks. As I walked up to my deer, I saw my old barber Carl Banzhoff walking in from the other side.

“Did you shoot too?” he asked inquisitively.

“Sure, did you?”

We each heard one shot, so we decided to look at the entry and exit wound to see where the bullet came from. Unfortunately, the deer was shot in the spine and the size of the entry and exit hole were the same. What are the odds?

“I had a rest shot and I’m sure I hit the deer,” said Banzhoff. Since I had taken an offhand shot, I gave him the deer.

The ownership of a deer has actually been the source of court cases. So it’s great to see that these two Wisconsin hunters solved their dilemma fairly, as reported in this OutdoorHub post.

Wisconsin’s deer season opened with a bang, but one 11-year-old hunter will not be going home with the nine-point buck he shot. According to the Associated Press, DJ Jorgenson was hunting with his son, Kameron, near the town of Oneida, Wisconsin when the boy shot and wounded the buck. The deer then ran off into private property, where another hunter managed to finish it off.

“We could see that the other landowner on his land, and we got up as far as the fence line. He came down and met us by the fence post,” Jorgenson told WLUK-TV.

The landowner, Randy Heyrman, indicated that Jorgenson’s intial shot only wounded the deer in the leg and said it took an additional two shots to put the animal down. The hunters met at the edge of Heyrman’s property to discuss who would get the buck.

It is not unheard of for two hunters to claim the same deer, although it is fairly uncommon. In this case, wildlife officials said the law was squarely on Heyrman’s side as to who should get the deer.

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