Wow, I see some mildlydisturbing posts here from many sides:

Kobear,
I gotta believe that you didnt think things through before making that post. How in the world would any hunter see an internal infection by looking at a living animal in the wild?

RSB,
I understand that as an officer of the law, you must take the position you took but I would certainly hope that if a WCO that was made aware of a situation like red robber described that some common sense and discretion would be applied by the officer. I am a law abiding hunter, but I certainly wouldn't relish the idea of ruining the rest of my hunt by gutting and dragging out a rotten stinking deer and carting it around till I find one of the PGC's very busy, andalready stretched too thin, staff to tell me the obvious and issue me a new tag. I'm sure you will agree that you guys are not always readily accessible, particularly in the first few days of the gun season. That being said, I will also say that I did havethe bad fortune once to kill a deer that was unusable. It was a doe and I did tag it and get it out of the woods but that was more because it was in a suburban setting and I did it so as not to leave a carcass where a non hunter might happen on it. It was a doe in 2B so I didnt bother with the process of replacing the tag and I did send inthe report card. But to be honest, If I'd been back in deep in someplace like the ANF the thing might have just stayed there although I would have contacted the PGC and reported it and been glad to return to the site with an officer. If doing that gets me a ticket, well then I'd simply say that the officer writing the ticket needs an attitude adjustment.