I agree you should know your target and beyond,but you would need to be a mind reader or psychic to know if a deer is fit for consumption before you shoot it.

if the freakin deer had a lump on the side of its neck the size of a baseball, i think i would notice.

dynamite drop in there.

if ya shoot it, tag it. or else you might as well be a poacher and you're absolute scum.

I've never killed a deer that wasn't fit for human consumptionbut if by some chance it happened, I wouldn't put my tag on it. Just common sense as far as I'm concerned.

Kind of the point I was trying to make!

KoBear, I notice you didnt answer my question. Your claim that you would always be able to tell whether a deer is fit to use shows nothing but naivete, but I guess you explain it all with your signature line!

Kobear, How long have you been hunting?

Tagging a deerthat is unconsumable after you gut it open is like buying a rotten steak at the market. Your not goanna buy it and then return it for a refund.

I guess Kobear doesn't know that a deer has two side. Maybe he is one of the hunters who waites for it to do a 360 and visually inspects all sides of the animal while his scope is turned up on 10 power. Yep it looks healthy to me. I will now shoot it. DOh, It ran off before I had the chance. Can you believe my luck?

Now on the other hand. It has a lump the size of a bowling ball on its side. But the antlers are huge. I will then tag it for bragging rights and be content with the large rack. Now how many would do the same as me for this? But I will not tag a small racked or a doe if it is diseased when I open it. The point is, We want something we can use from our tags.

I still think the point is that if you don't tag it your breaking the law. Very simple really. Tag it, gut it, if it isn't good then you get another tag.

I don't think the law specifies you have to tag it before you gut it. I believe the law is you must tag it before you move it though. Now gutting a deer is not moving it from it's location. I have shot 1 deer that ran into a thicket and died. I drug it out of the thickets about20 yrds. And then gutted it and tagged it. There was no way of doing it in the thicket of thorns. NowI did breakthe lawbut if I was caught,should I of been fined for what I have done? These are 2 simularities thatare in the grey area and not fined or punished for. Does not make sense to be fined for either in my book of rules. And some times we have to bend them on what is what we believe is to be right. If the PGC doesn't want to ackknowledge that some things are ok to do, Then why should we help them with poachers and law violators when they can't understand us for common sense some people might do? Like tag a diseased dear unsuitable for consumption that we have shot.

If there is a question about whether or not the meat is good then o.k., but at some point it seems common sense must prevail over blindly following the letter of the law. Say for instance you arrow a deer on a warm october afternoon but don't find it until late the next day. So there it is laying bloated and putrid in the hot sun. Gut it? I don't think so. Tag it? Not me. Imo, that wouldsimply be dumb!