Settle a quick debate...a legal answer?

[tylerduce]

***ANSER FROM A CONSERVATION OFFICER***

By a stroke of good luck I met our local conservation officer this evening.

I explained our question to him regarding when to cut a tag and what someone should do if they find themselves in one of these hypothetical situations.

His advice was to be honest and upfront with what had happened. The easier the hunter makes it for the CO's to understand the situation and the more credible they are, the more likely they are to be understanding. They don't want to see a hunt ruined or a good animal wasted. And they have discretion in how the law is applied, verses how it is written.

From a legal perspective, it would be good practice to build an evidentiary record if you ever find yourself in an ethical or legal dilemma. Take pictures and take notes. For instance, lets say you shoot an animal at last light on the last day of the season. As soon as you find the blood trail take a picture on your phone. Pictures are time stamped and have location data attached to them that you can find in your phone's gallery. Now you can prove you shot the animal at the time you claimed you did. Lets say you've searched for 2 hours and still haven't found it. Take a picture of you and your crew at night in the forest. Or open a note taking app like "Keep" or "Evernote" and write a short entry explaining the situation. Again, notes are time stamped. Boom, more evidence to back up your story. You find the animal the next day, take a picture of the animal where it lays. You get the picture.

Thanks all for the discussion.

[browningboy]

I had written my answer in this thread and it’s gone? Weird?
I wouldn’t cut the tag until I found it, make every effort to obviously and in most cases one hits an animal good there’s a decent blood trail.. minus bears