What would happen?

[walleyeking19]

I was thinking, with some of the confusing regulations on deer zones and how many deer you can shoot where, what would happen if you shot a deer and attempted to register it without a valid license? (ie. shoot 2 bucks in one season or shoot too many deer from one zone.)

When you went to register it, would they say something? Or is it the honor system? Does anyone know if this has happened to someone? I think it would be very easy to shoot too many deer/wrong sex with all the new zones every year.

[Powerstroke]

I will first start by saying that if you are a firearm hunter only, there should be no confusion. The regs are very cut and dried every year for firearms hunters. The confusion occurs when someone uses more than one weapon or hunts more than one zone. To me, that means that a hunter needs to try harder to understand the regs. If you want to shoot more than one deer or shoot a doe, you should know which tags you need and if that is legal.

In my opinion, the duty to understand the regs is on the hunter. Although the DNR has added more zones of regulation, they have done so to manage areas at a more local level and hopefully make it easier to understand.

To your question, no one should ever "accidentally" shoot two bucks. It has never been legal for a person to shoot two bucks for themselves. Party hunting is still legal and you can shoot more than one buck as long as you are hunting legally within a party, but it is up to the hunters to manage their tags and not "accidentally" shoot too many deer.

You would not run into any problems when registering a deer because the registration stations are not DNR employees. You would likely get caught when DNR employees audit the registrations and the licenses used. The only time a specific license is tied directly to the deer you shoot is a buck in a lottery zone. Every other license leaves the choice up to the hunter and requires the hunter know the rules and have the proper license.

[Bear55]

This is a differen situation but I know a hunter who accidentally registered a deer with an old license from last year. Both last years and a current years license were in the same pocket and no one picked up on it until after registration. He called the DNR to ask what to do or if something would happen. They didn't really give him a clear answer, just told him to keep both licenses together and be sure not to use his newer tag. They then said someone would probably call or stop by to talk to him, it's been about 5 years now and no word.

[bigbucks]

Gotta start keeping those old licenses...