BRMee

Thanks all, for the replies. Sorry for the lengthy story. Think I am truly looking for the different feedback to help me to stop kicking myself. Seasons not over with yet. Good Luck everyone.

How come I don’t feel so good… We are always told, “Do the right thing”. If you do the right thing, you can’t go wrong and you’ll feel better for it. I had an experience this weekend while hunting at my personally owned camp, with my 13 year old son and his friend, that I am still baffled and confused about, but yet I cannot stop telling my story to others, then see the mixed reactions that I am receiving. On Saturday around 2:45 in the afternoon I had just returned to my camp after a trip to the local town for supplies, to prepare for our, already late, afternoon hunt. I set the 2 kids in my tree stand and I set myself away from them and still keep them in view. After the kids got their gear situated in the tree stand the friend of my son had just sat down and noticed an object lying on the ground, approximately 25 yards from the tree stand. My son climbed down from the stand and motioned for me to go over to where they were. As I approached them my son told me “there’s a dead deer over there”. We approached the spike horned deer to ensure that it was in fact deceased. My son, his friend and I started discussing what we should do with the deer. The deer had recently died; the skin was still warm to the touch in places, and rigor mortis was just starting to stiffen the muscles of the carcass. We were deliberately talking loudly in case the hunter who had shot the deer was tracking it and would be able to easily find our location. After approximately 15 minutes of chatting and my son and his friend back tracked the blood trail for a short distance to ensure that no other hunters were in fact tracking the deer, I decided to pull the carcass back up to our camp without dressing it. Well, I didn’t do any dragging my son and his friend did all that, and this would be their first experience in dragging a deer carcass. Even though nobody in the party had actually shot this deer the kids dragged the deer, my son pulling on one leg, his friend on the other, with the same enthusiasm and excitement as if they did harvested the deer themselves. They would have to stop from time to time to catch their breath, and mumble a little bit to each other. At one point they got confused which way they wanted to round a small tree. One leg got pulled to one side of the tree the other leg was pulled to the other. At this point the kids were tiring; they were huffing and puffing to catch their breath. When the deer’s body did hit the tree, the carcass stopped and they kept going, stumbling and almost falling over from the inertia of pulling the dead weight. I had to laugh to myself because I don’t think they were really enjoying themselves at this point. We finally got the deer back to my hunting camp and I had to decide at this point what I was going to do with the carcass, whether I was going to tag the deer and register it as my own harvest or, “do the right thing” and call a DEC officer to inform them I had just found a dead deer on my property and there wasn’t any hunters around to claim it. I was thinking/hoping that the officer would come to my location, make a report, and issue a tag or permission, so that I would be able to keep the deer, since I or anyone in my party did not actually kill the deer. I chose to contact a DEC officer operating in the county where my property is located. I would have gladly used my own tag and claimed the deer as my own. I contacted what I believe to have been the wife of the first DEC officer that was listed for my county, from the NYS Hunting and Trapping Regulations Guide. After telling my story to the officer’s wife she told me that she was going to contact the officer that was on duty for the night and that she was going to call me back with further information. Time is passing and the carcass still hasn’t been dressed out yet. During the conversation I informed the wife that I was willing to tag the deer as my own, for transportation, if needed, so that she would be able to inform the officers my intentions. Approximately 20-30 minutes later the officer’s wife called me back and informed me, “They are going to confiscate the deer carcass”. She told me that a DEC officer will be coming to take the deer, either that night or the next morning. I told her that I was planning on leaving the next morning around 9 or 9:30 in the morning. She asked if I would then drag the deer carcass to the side of the road, off in the tree line, and they would find it if we weren’t still at the camp. When the officer’s wife told me that NYSDEC officers were coming to confiscate the deer, I had to explain to my 13 year old son and his 15 year old friend what was happening, the best that I could, because I didn’t truly understand, either. I first profusely and intently apologized to my son and his friend for having them drag the carcass to the hunting camp, and that I had no idea that anything like this was going to happen. I’ve spent my son’s entire life trying to instill in him to always “think first” before he reacts to any action he may partake in. I try to instill that if he thinks about doing something and he gets an immediate gut feeling that it isn’t right, then it isn’t, and DON’T do it. I’m trying to do my best to teach him to “do the right thing”, as any parent would hope to do, in raising their children. In this case my “gut feeling” was to contact DEC because of the facts that we found the carcass on my property, and that nobody in my party had actually shot and killed this deer, nor had anyone been tracking its location. We were hoping to take the deer home and put it in our freezer, this year. Early Saturday evening a DEC officer showed up at our camp to confiscate the deer carcass. I informed the officer that I was hoping to keep the deer and if the case may warrant, I was more than willing to use my own tag in order to transport the deer. The officer started to explain to me that they needed to take the deer, she knows how we feel and not to worry because they are very particular on whom they issue the meat to. All I knew at this point was, I wasn’t the one who was getting the meat. The officer actually brought up a hypothetical reason for confiscating the deer. She went on to tell me that a perpetrator of “drive by, road hunting” may have already been arrested and that they only needed a deer to finalize the case. She informed me that she wasn’t even from this area and that she was the officer on call. While stating this one particular hypothetical situation she didn’t mention anything about another; that this deer was harvested legally and the person, who had shot the deer legally, had just given up tracking it. A scenario that happens all too often I’m afraid. Since I am not an Environmental Police Officer, I wonder if this was the only option that this DEC officer had, to confiscate this deer, while giving us a hypothetical reason to do it. Later on in the evening while my son, his friend and I were discussing what had just happened, I again apologized to the kids for having them drag that deer all the way up to camp just to have it taken away from us. I reiterated to my son about “gut feelings” and doing the right thing. My son looked at me square in the eye, got a grin on his face and asked in only a tone that could be interpreted as to being a little smart aleccy and asked “how do you feel now, Dad”? All I could do was to laugh and tell him “yup son, your absolutely right”, I did NOT feel good at all, and it just did NOT feel right, in my gut. My son’s friend asked me, “What would have happened if we didn’t call the DEC officer”? The only way that I could have answered that question was to tell him that nothing would’ve happened because, everything that we would have done, would’ve been done properly and legally according to NY State laws. I would have tagged the deer and treated it as my own harvest. In this case there seems to be a Right way and a correct way in dealing with this situation. I want to believe that if I was telling my story in the presence of DEC officers that they would deny anything like that could happen or come from their ranks and on the same token if I was to tell the story in the presence of hunters I believe I would be considered a laughing stock and have my sanity questioned. One thing is for sure, if it wasn’t for the cellular phone system this ball of wax would’ve never had gotten started. 20 years ago there would have been no questions on how to handle this situation and I’m sure is would NOT have been lets go out of the woods to contact DEC, we just found a dead deer. I think the lesson learned at the outcome in this whole incident is how my son and his friend saw how the whole situation transpired and the impression that was left on them from the actions of the DEC Officer. This will be an event that I’m sure they will remember for the rest of their lives, and how they would handle a similar situation, only time could tell. I can only assure them that Law enforcement personnel are there to uphold our laws and ensure that others do the same for our protection. I can reassure them on what we did was actually the “right thing to do”, but boy, I really don’t feel good about it. I just can’t help the feeling that confiscating the deer carcass was the only option for this officer.