I have left deer in the woods overnight, because I could not find it during the night, but I have never left a deer in the woods that I had down. I would be setting myself up for disaster. If its down get it out, at least thats what I would do.

I started my season off thinking I could hunt a couple of hours in the am then go to work. Seemed like a great idea but I needed to be at work at 8 so that left roughly 1 hour of shootable time. If I harvested an animal I would be late for work more than likely, and the what if's that ran thru my head ruined every hunt. After a couple of those hunts I just used that time to scout and did my true hunting when I knew I had the time to do it all. Guess what I'm saying is wait til you have all the time you need. It will make you more relaxed to hunt.

Dress it out and string it from a tree and you should be OK.

djt

agreed with these two gentlemen, if you are worried you won't have time to take care of it, then perhaps you should pass on the shot...you could always leave a bit earlier and still hunt your way back to home/truck

wouldnt do it !!
 

coyotes arnt a problem where I live but a friend had to leave a nice buck over night . He was hunting a federal area and the rule is off property by 8 pm!! no exceptions when he retreived what was left from coyotes it was a mess !! What a waste!!

Bingo, dress em and hang em high unless it is warm out..

I was under the impression that we were talking about a situation where the hunter shoots and locates the dead animal, but still leaves it in the field. Iowa law requires that a deer be tagged within 15 minutes of locating it, or before the carcass is moved, whichever comes first. If you shot one, and didn't tag it, and left it, the DNR could cite you for failure to tag the animal. If you did tag it and left it, and it was found and reported, you might be charged with waste of game/failure to retrieve an edible portion of the animal. I'd think it really depends on the officer, but I doubt that he'll accept the excuse that you were just too busy to drag your deer out. I could be wrong, but that's not a conversation I'd want to have with a DNR CO.

Mike

It sounds like some of you need to do some coyote management. I havent had much of a problem with coyotes in Ohio and Missouri. This Jan or Feb take a few of those guys out.

I would agree gut it, drag it away from the gut pile, and cover it with a few branchs and something with some human scent on it.

Yes, driftrider, that assumption, rather impression, would be correct. However, you give too much credit to some people. I'm sure you've seen by now many of these guys can't stick to the issue and are often mis-stating or mis-understanding what people mean or are saying.

For instance, when you quoted my thread, I clearly stated:

"Especially the way that statement is generalized."

I was referring to the fact that particular poster, aaalaska, wasn't entirely clear when he said "...anyone leaving an animal in the field over night should either be required to eat it or pay a fine for wasting the meat."

That's what I meant by "...that statement is generalized." and that specifically is what I was replying to.

To back it up a bit and to give aaalaska some credit, I do see when he replied, at the top of his reply it states "Leaveing a kill", so in a way, he does make some reference to what he was talking about. I didn't see that originally because most people have something like that in the actual post.

iSnipe

I think if you locate the deer and tag it you would be fine. If you were to shoot, locate, and leave without tagging, it would be the same as poaching in my eyes. If you shoot and leave to let it expire, but have plans to come back a few hours later, you would be okay.