first thing I do is tag it.If by chance I would get bad meat and wouldn't get another tag oh well,the store sells meat.

lol. That is all.

i know i always look inside a deer before i shoot it

as red_robber said in his original post:
tell me that that is knowing your target

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.

well i know that if a deer is usually sick, its usually pretty thin, and if it had a lump on the side of its throat the size of a baseball, im pretty sure i would notice. i assume something that big would be on the outside of the skin. i usually go out looking for the deer that i am going to get the most amount of meat from, not a sick-looking thin one.

i dunno. just me i guess.

OK Kobear, I'll give you the fact that there could be situations where a hunter might be able to tell an unfit deer while on the hoof......

How about this scenario though... late muzzy season two years ago. A bunch of us were doing drives. I see several deer coming and one is obviously lagging behind and limping badly. they are on a course right for my buddy's wife so I pass a marginal shot so as not to spoil her chances. they come right past her and she does the merciful thing and waits to put the crippled one down. she takes it with one shot. It turns out to be infected at the site ofa wound which is not from a bullet or arrow.

Should she have taken a healthy deer and let that one suffer through the infection or possibly die from it?I think she did the humane, sportsmanlike thing and blew her opportunity to take some prime healthy meat by doing so.

BTW, we tagged , gutted, and drug that deer out. It was only after skinning that my buddy determined that the infection had spread heavily and the meat was unfit. I know they called it in and several days later they had seen no officer. I do not know for sure if one eventually showed up and I will say that it wasn't a problem for her as she still had another validtag for thatWMU. I could certainly understand, however, why my buddy or his wife might be inclined to simply leave a deer in the field if they were certain that it was unusable the next time.

Geez - there's not much to discuss here.

If you killed it - you tag it.

If you feel that you should somehow be "recompensated" because of an issue with the meat - then deal with the Game Commission the best you can - but to not tag it is illegal and against what what most of us stand for.

Certaintly none of us here would advocate skirting the law to get deer meat. Would we?

FH

i agree with farm hunter, you kill it - you tag it.

if the deer can still move around, it can still eat. and there is a chance that it will survive. and if you feel bad for it, then you're just as bad as the mother that wont let her kids play a fighting video game b/c its too violent. deer getting injured and dying is a part of nature. if you dont like it, find a place where everything is perfect, and let me know where that place is. the coyotes and wolves gotta eat too. and its alot easier for a coyote pair to take down an injured deer than it is for them to take down a healthy one.

The thing to do is prob call the PGC after you open the deer up if there is a infection. Open the deer before you tag it. Then when the PGC sees the infection you still have your unused tag and won't have to waite for a replacement. But I am not dragging the deer out of the woods. And when people say they don't want to get the tag bloody is why they tag it before they gut it,These people must not worry about an infection they can get from a deer if it is infected. I allways have a few pairs of latex gloves on me for extra protection from now on when I hunt.I can fill the tag out after the gutting and not get the tag bloody. To know what your deer looks like on the inside before you shoot it? Now that gave me a really good laugh superman.

First of all I have never shot an infected deer or even seen one before up here. I also hope I never do. But, if I was to happen to shoot one I would tag it and have a warden come and get it. I know that a tag would be replaced and that the deer would be inspected and disposed of in such a way that it can not be eaten by other animals as well. I would hope that it would in some way help research on preventing whatever caused it. Also help prevent house pets/ hunting dogs ect... from eating it and spreading it as well.