I am with rack and everyone else here who say they would do the same thing that Ralph C. did on the show. I was very impressed with everything that he did concerning this segment on the show. He showed a true hunting situation and the unfortunate outcome that can happen ( i.e. a bad shot, deer eaten by coyotes etc.). I really appreciated the fact that he showed his emotions and how bad he felt about the situation, and then did the right thing by tagging the deer. Alot of shows would have just canned that fottage and used a more successful hunt. I e-mailed Ralph and told him how impressed I was with the whole situation.
Now about asking for another tag. My buddy had a situation a few years ago that I truly believe that he should have recieved another tag from the Ohio DNR and didn' t. Here in Northwest Ohio we get one tag a year, either sex. As he was pulling up to park that morning to hunt he saw a deers eyes out in the field between the road and the woods. The deer was bedded down. He ended up getting in his stand and at first light he saw the deer was still laying out in the field. It was a small doe and he could see that something was wrong. He got down and walked up to her and she tried to get up . He saw that she had been hit by a car and was in pretty bad shape. Both of her front legs were broke and one was cut off at the elbow, and the leg was laying on the road. Her one shoulder was all mangled etc. She was in really bad shape. He nocked an arrow and shot her to put her out of her misery. She still got up and ran on her stumps for about 20 yards and the died. He was really bummed out seeing her suffering that much and not knowing how long she had layed there. Anyhow, he went down the road to a farmers house we know to call the game warden and report it ( this was before he had a cell phone). The game warden said that she would be there as soon as possible. He sat there and waited for about 35 minutes till she got there. He then explained the situation to he and she looked at everything. She said that she could see where the deer had been hit etc. and that he did a good thing by dispatching the deer . Then believe it or not, she told him that he would have to tag the deer since he shot it and killed it. She said that if he would have called her first and waited for he to get there to shoot it thta she would have gave him a roadkill tag, but since he shot it and then called he would have to use his tag. He explained that he couldn' t stand to see it suffer and wanted to end it as soon as possible. He never argued or anything. Long story short, his season was done. I though that it was pretty crummy myself. It was obvious what had happened but it didn' t matter. I really believe in that situation that he should have been given a roadkill tag and been able to hunt with his tag but she didn' t see it that way. just thought that I would tell the story that happened to him and see what others thought about it.