With the variety of answers here, I guess it depends on where you live and the law there. I am the one that started the "replacement tag" bit and it was misunderstood or possibly that is the way the law is in other states. The law in Pa. states that you must make every reasonable effort to recover game. I don't think a Game Warden here ever had some one bring in a deer that was dead for 5 days so they could get another tag. That is a lot of extra work for a GW to do and he throws the deer on a dump any way, so what was gained?