Fawn Not Good Enough

[chucker34]

I arrowed a fawn doe the opening morning of gun season here. As the story often goes, she looked bigger than she was, etc., etc. For a split second I was disappointed but the sentiment quickly changed to appreciation. The same type of appreciation I had for the much larger doe I'd taken a month earlier. These were my first two deer ever and both taken with a bow.

I had to endure some ribbing from some veterans at the registration station but I could give a BLEEP less what they think. I was happy with my fawn doe and the backstraps tasted good this past Saturday night. Granted, next year, I'll probably be more selective. This was my first season deer and bow hunting and I was primed whenever I saw a deer.

Now to the point of my post - finally. My father-in-law's neighbor was out gun hunting two weekends ago. Waiting for a buck, he didn't take a shot all weekend. On Sunday, he walked back to his truck and found a dead fawn right next to the driver door. Someone had shot it, decided it wasn't good enough to "waste" their tag on, and left it for someone else to become their "problem." Luckily, the neighbor called the CO, who came out and told him he could keep it without using his tag on it.

This disgusts me to no end. If 20 years from now, if I am veteran bowhunter seeking only trophy bucks and mature does, and arrow a fawn I thought was a doe, I'd hope I'd never consider disrespecting an animal like that.

[lawdog]

That does suck that someone would leave the dead deer lay, but at least it got used. It might have been an accidental shooting that they didn't have the tag for, or maybe they shot more than they should have or who knows, but don't automatically assume it just wasn't good enough for them, they could have had many other bad explanations for it.

[chucker34]

Good point lawdog. There could have been another reason. Maybe they had taken too many shots at a group of running deer or something. Still, though. Not an excuse.

As for the wrong tag situation. This was in 4A. You can take a doe with both your regular firearms tag and your management tag, if you want, correct? I'm not sure because I was only hunting archery this year and didn't pay much attention to the gun regs.

[bigbucks]

Just about everywhere in 4A allows 5 deer per person, maybe not every area, but most of them. I would say if they didn't tag it, it's just because they didn't think it was worth the $14 for the tag. I suppose it's possible that two guys were hunting together with one tag between them & each shot a deer or two guys had two tags left & shot three between them, but that's quite a stretch. I know if that ever happened where we accidentally shot more deer than tags, we'd find somebody that had a tag & make sure it got tagged, not just leave it somewhere.

I'm assuming this deer was gutted out.

We've found fawns laying in the woods, ungutted before, but they were hit very hard & wouldn't have run far, we're sure somebody found them & decided they were too small & just walked away. It disgusts me that people do that. You shoot it, you take it or make sure someone does anyway.