this happened at my buddy's camp and is something I never have thought about. how would (should) this be reported:

hunting during shotgun, a hunter shoots a buck that is clearly a buck (5 pointer). deer gets dropped, but still alive and the hunter finishes it off with a shot to the head. the shot blows off both antlers, leaving only 1 stub of 2" and the antlers are obliterated. how does the deer need to be tagged?? the regs say it needs to have (1) 3" antler. it had them but they were blown off. they tagged it as a doe, reading the regs literally. i would have tagged it as a buck.

what should have been done???

a buck needs to be tagged as a buck . the dec is wise to people tagging deer with there heads blown off as doe . if there was anything left of the antlers at all save them

BTW - they had plenty of doe permits and buck tags

Buck tag, and only the guy that shot it can fill his buck tag with the deer.

Realistically what they did is no different that sawing a bucks antlers off and calling it a doe.

devils advocate

realistically, all they had was a deer that had 1 two inch spike, therefore, technically, a doe. if they had the deer in the back of the truck, and where checked, they could be questioned either way. how would anyone know (except the hunter) if the horns where there before the hunter shot?

this was an honest situation and the hunter had the proper tags. they just did what they thought was correct as the understood them in the regs. i was just curious what others would do and how they interpreted the regs.

thanks for the input

No they had a five point they blew the horns off with a head shot.

I would tag the deer as a buck because when it was shot it was a legally antlered buck.

I wonder what a conservation officer would have said if he would this deer and it had an anterless tag on it. I'm sure it would have been a very interesting conversation.

If not what would prevent people from smashing the horns with a rock,and calling the buck a doe?

That's my entire point the hunter did know what he had before he shot it in the head with a second shot.

This is more a question of a person's ethics then what is legal isn't it?

I got this one last year during ML season. I taged it with my antlerless tag. Did not know it was a buck until I roled it over to gut it out. Dressed out at 132lbs go figure. Just two little buttons on top.



P.S. I might have a better Pic of His Nubs Somewhere if anyone wants to see it.

I definitely think it's a question of what is legal because the intent of the law is to NOT penalize someone who shoots a male deer that has less than 3" spikes because of the difficulty of seeing those spikes before shooting. He clearly saw the horns before shooting and knew the antlers were there when he shot. No one would get off on the 'technicality' pointed out - and if they did, the officer would be neglect in his job, IMHO. If you really wanted to do what you know is right, and not what you think you can justify is techincally legal, then you either get a hpone call into the DEC before tagging and transporting the deer, or you defer to the buck tag since the hunter knowlingly knew it was a buck when he made the 1st shot and had intended on filling his buck tag.

I'm sure I've justified something before because I wanted it to be right or legal even though if you asked me now I would say , "Yes, I was wrong" Well I'm pretty sure that guy saw an oppotunity to justify the chance to use a doe tag instead of his buck tag even though, because of the intial intent of the shot', was inarguably wrong. Those types of technicality's don't usually save people from being punished if found out. Doing what is right and what you can 'technically' get away with are different things.

Just my opinion of course.

Eric

there seems to be a tone that my friends were trying to get away with something or pull a fast one. I can assure you that is not the case. I also would have tagged it as a buck, but they did not see it the same way. When we discussed it they sighted the regs as they are written. I don't think they were right or wrong. just an unusual situation.