James you know your right, forgive me I had a lapse.

I agree 100% to the wounded animal and really don't know any hunter who does not, it may be illegal by the letter of the law but it is the most ethical decision. Some laws in my opinion do not make real practical sense, here is an incident that still boils my blood to this day! During a rifle elk hunt one of our group members gets a shot at bull, after waiting he checks the shot site and sure enough finds blood. So being it looks good he starts on the track, while on the trail in the bush line he hears a animal bust off, figuring it was his bull he did what most hunters would do and backed off. Being it was in the evening and legal was very near he decided to mark the trail let the animal set up and go get help. As usual we are all spread out and coming in varying times, so the decision was made to wait for the entire crew and then we'd all head out to get the elk. By the time we get the trucks to the area it is flashlight time and we are able to pick up the trail and ulitmately found the elk. By the time we high fived, took a picture, tagged, gutted and the drag out it was 9:00pm. When we reached the truck 2 of our finest CO's were waiting and once they saw the elk they started on us. We explained the scenerio and they said legal is 1/2 after sunset that includes to chase and pursue game..being the animal was not tagged before legal we infact were in violation. Now let me regress for minute we never indicated that the animals wasn't tagged but merely the hunter had come back to camp to get help and we all came seeing it was his first bull (also nobody was carrying a firearm nor was their even one in the trucks)...all true. I asked what would they suggest we do, you have an animal that will spoil if left and wouldn't that be in fact considered wasting game?(now this is sept and at that it was unusally warm so the animal would have not made the 12 hours till the legal the next morning with at least some spoilage) He said stated the law and said the only other option is to call to request our presence to retrieve game after legal hunting hours of which we can refuse at our descretion! I am sorry sir but this makes no sense, seeing a number of animals are shot in the fading minutes of legal hunting time and in the case of an elk or moose it ain't a 2 minute job to gut/drag/load..this is just setting an otherwise honest/ethical hunter up for a fall. He said that is the law it is your responsibility to know it/abide by it and accept it. My job is simply to enforce it! Now we all know their is a thing called descretion when dealing with law enforcement and as such the one fella saw we were totally legit guys and offered a verbal warning. Meanwhile captain fantastic still wanted to write it up. In the end we did not recieve any fine or loss of priv just a verbal warning and suggestion to call the CO office if it happens in the future again. We're we wrong, I guess by the letter of the law but I still think we were made the way more ethical choice and have every right to retrieve a legally harvested animal, regardless if it is after the 1/2 post sunset. We knew enough to not take a gun so I think we understand the laws but in some case the grey should shift to more black/white when common sense is used and in play.

So what would have you done?

Are we poachers b/c we cared enough to reduce spoilage of legally harvested animal? I tend to think not b/c my ethics/moral is not to waste nor see an animal suffer plain n simple, it is a privelage not a right to hunt and I believe owe to all involved to ensure the animals are respected.