I really appreciate the thoughtful responses by most of the posters. I do appreciate the input and thoughts on what you do after you shoot a deer to ensure the highest chance of succesfully getting the deer home and ultimately in the freezer.

As far at the picture. Those deer wereshot by2 of my nieces (they were either 12 or 13 at the time), my brother, my dad, a friend and myself. We had 2 vehicles but loaded all the deer into one truck. I believe the year was 1989 and my friend was from Texas and I brought him up to Montana to deer hunt over the Thanksgiving holiday. He still remembers that hunt fondly (he has never gotten a chance to do it since).

There were lots of deer that year and nonresidents could by a doe tag for $50 over the counter. There are a couple smaller deer in there, one of which my friend shot and one that one of my nieces shot.The deer that was cut in half was a buck that one of my nieces shot and had to be carried over a mile from where she shot it. It's head is out of the picture frame. We always followed the rules and most all of our hunting was on public land, most of which the vehicle can't leave the road even to retrieve a kill so cutting up deer to get them back to the vehicle is pretty common. All of the deer aregutted in the field.

I've always thought that a truly responsible hunter was one that was willing to shoot does to keep populations under control. We butchered our own animals and I don't recall ever eating a beef steak until I went to college. That pile of deer represented the meat that was going to be on the family table for the nextyear.