Have you or someone you know ever shot a deer with gang green

[rob-c]

Turkeyfeathers thread about finding a pellet of birdshot in a turkey feather, and finding gang green in the bird reminded me of a deer my dad shot when I was probably 17- 18 . My dad was  on watch for a drive and shot a good sized doe probably about 60 yards away, well when I met him at the end of the drive we walked over to the deer and you could smell it 20 yards out. it was nasty , my dad pushed on the poor deer with his boot and it was like jello under her skin. We got ahold of d.e.c and they issued my dad another party tag. Will never forget it 

Edited September 6, 2018 by rob-c

[Robhuntandfish]

the first buck i ever shot had only one horn and it was hanging down, his skull was busted open but he was still walking around.  

[Red]

About 10 years ago on a deer drive i had a spindly little 4 pt come running by i yelled out its small buck before i could finish my buddy fired off shot. The deer dropped instantly he said he had to put it down it was having trouble running. We looked the deer over it had at least 5 slug holes in the chest not including the one that my buddy put in the deers head. There was slimy ooze coming out of all the holes and its antlers fell off in our hands. This buck stunk so bad it couldn't even be gutted. 

[land 1]

shot on with a gun that had a hole arrow in it from 3weeks earlier, i knew who shot it, it was shot with the arrow high shoulder , when i butchered it the area between  shoulder and chest cavity on one side was all green puss etc. didnt stink  except right in the infeccted area cut that away  the rest ate fine

[First-light]

Shot a buck opening day that had been shot in the hoof during bow. The hoof was swelled up like a softball he couldn't walk on it. Deer has puss coming out of its eyes and nose. Took it to the butcher he said the meat is fine. (he wasn't eating it!) It actually was. I was young and stupid back then, now probably would of left it for the yotes! 

[wfmiller]

This was about 30 years ago, but my mom shot a buck with an arrow broke off in his shoulder. It smelled terrible and when they got it back to her brothers place they called the game warden. He looked at it and said not to eat it and took the deer and gave my mom a new tag.

[CharlieNY]

rob- I never shot a deer with gang green nor have I ever shot a deer gang banger with gang black or gang blue etc. As to shooting a deer with gangrene I have been also fortunate enough to never have shot one of them either. Just wanted to humor you. LOL.      valoroutdoors.com 

[BigVal]

Some crazy stuff guys, makes me feel even more for these deer. Truly spectacular animals. 

[First-light]

Now this is not gang green related but I shot a big old buck back in 91. 22" spread weighed 161 had no ass end all run off chasing doe. probably a 4.5 year old deer. Back then there was cardboard wadding in the slug. He is hanging on the pole and I notice one leg has a huge bump in it. Took out the knife and cut it open. It was cardboard wadding from someone who shot him pretty darn close. Crazy stuff right there. 

[rob-c]

1 hour ago, CharlieNY said:

rob- I never shot a deer with gang green nor have I ever shot a deer gang banger with gang black or gang blue etc. As to shooting a deer with gangrene I have been also fortunate enough to never have shot one of them either. Just wanted to humor you. LOL.      valoroutdoors.com 

Oops, I am not the greatest speller but man I butchered that one, well good thing the grammar police caught me to set me straight... 

[rachunter]

I'm not sure it was the same thing everyone is talking about,but a few years ago I gave a butcher friend of mine a deer.He said when he cut the back leg up it had green puss in it.He told me green puss with a bad stink is cancer in beef.I never seen it before and hopefully never will. 

[PREDATE]

Back in about 96 my Dad shot a dandy 10pt which was all green when we skinned it. ECO gave him the option of either keeping the rack or receiving a replacement tag. He took the tag of course.

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[wolc123]

Besides one questionable incident of my own, I know of two guys who killed deer that had gang-green from previous gun-shot wounds, according to the processors they used.  The first one was a wide four-point that a buddy killed at our place on a Thanksgiving day drive.   He shot at it twice.  The deer dropped on the spot after the second shot.  When we walked up to it, we noted a hole through the hams in addition to the fatal shot on the shoulder blade.  Apparently his only hit was the one on the shoulder. The butt-side wound was a week or so old, and was the cause of the gang-green.  The DEC gave him another buck tag.    I don't think they let him keep that unusually wide rack, but I cooked and ate the liver before I heard about the infection.  It tasted just like any other 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 year old deer liver that I remember (edible and OK, but certainly no six-month old, which are "to-die-for")     

The second one was a giant of a doe that another buddy killed down at his grandfather's cabin, near the PA line.    I think it weighed about 165 pounds field dressed, and was the heaviest doe ever killed at that camp, where they have kept careful records for decades.   We had made plans for that weekend hunt before the season started.  I had filled my buck-tag at home on opening day, but I went along anyway to do a little small game hunting.   We fried that big doe's tenderloins, along with a gray squirrel with our eggs for breakfast on the last morning at camp.   When he took the rest of the doe to the butcher (who weighed the deer on a calibrated scale), they told him that it had gang-green from some old bird-shot wounds and he did not get any meat back.  Once again, those tenderloins that we had already eaten tasted as good as those from any other mature doe that remember. 

About 12 years ago, I was up in my tree stand on opening day of shotgun season.  A group of about six antlerless deer walked thru the woods into range about 15 minutes after sunrise.  I picked out the largest and dropped her with a shoulder blade shot, at about 75 yards, with my scoped in-line muzzleloader.   It would have been a great chance for multiple kills, but I only had one doe permit.   The remaining deer milled around aimlessly for a while, not knowing where the shot came from.  I still had my buck tag and my short-barelled "backup" shotgun loaded with slugs.   About five minutes after the flatheads dispersed, I noted two more deer approaching, both with antlers.   The one with the more impressive headgear walked over to the still-steaming doe carcass, while the other one stood broadside half-way between there and my stand. 

At that point I made a decision that I would later regret because of gang-green.   75 yards was pushing the range for my open-sighted Remington 870 with foster slugs.   Rather than taking the closer "chip-shot", at the smaller-antlered buck, I went for the big one.   My shot was true, and he flopped down right beside his dead love-interest.   When I skinned him later, I found that a broadhead had passed thru his back-straps, above the spine.  I trimmed away anything that was questionable, loosing close to half of the backstrap meat and part of the front shoulder.   The body sizes were similar on the two bucks.  Besides an easier shot, I probably would have ended up with more meat from the other one.  Yet again, the meat from that 8-pointer (that I was able to salvage) tasted just fine.  A little more of it would have been nice.    

   

[mowin]

Shot several over the yrs.  Worse one was a "slightly" off Texas heart shot. 

The first shot was by some idiot with a recurve, wooden arrow tipped with a bear razor head. 

I shot it a a couple weeks later with the rifle. I was filling a DMP, and realized after, it was a buck that lost it antlers due to the arrow I recovered when field dressing. It "was" a very nice 10 pt. 

I gaged at the smell.  It wasn't pleasant. 

 

[Lawdwaz]

Am I the only one who takes pictures?

Two years ago on the last day (IIRC) of ML'r season I watched a buck for quite awhile before killing him.  The reason I watched him was he was on the wrong side of the "line", meaning he wasn't on the small piece of ground I had permission to hunt.  As I watched him I noticed he was acting different.  He kept trying to itch the back of his neck on branches and brush........

He finally came to where I could shoot and I killed him.  I gutted him and dragged him towards a the trail back up to my truck, eased with a nice skiff of snow.  At one point I looked at the back of his neck and some funky stuff; green & cheesy!

I made some phone calls and couldn't get any answers so eventually ended up taking him to a butcher and donating the meat ONLY after the butcher assured me the meat was fine. 

(some of you will probably remember this)

[wolc123]

4 minutes ago, Lawdwaz said:

Am I the only one who takes pictures?

Two years ago on the last day (IIRC) of ML'r season I watched a buck for quite awhile before killing him.  The reason I watched him was he was on the wrong side of the "line", meaning he wasn't on the small piece of ground I had permission to hunt.  As I watched him I noticed he was acting different.  He kept trying to itch the back of his neck on branches and brush........

He finally came to where I could shoot and I killed him.  I gutted him and dragged him towards a the trail back up to my truck, eased with a nice skiff of snow.  At one point I looked at the back of his neck and some funky stuff; green & cheesy!

I made some phone calls and couldn't get any answers so eventually ended up taking him to a butcher and donating the meat ONLY after the butcher assured me the meat was fine. 

(some of you will probably remember this)

That sure is nasty looking.  Was there any smell ?   The three that I mentioned above all smelled normal and none showed any outward indications of the problems within.     

[Lawdwaz]

I don't recall if there was a smell.  Probably was??  IIRC it was a cold morning........that could keep the smell at bay.

[mowin]

I did have pics, but they were early on during the digital camera craze.  Thousands of pics on a PC hard drive gone when the thing self destructed.  

Shot a small 8 pt on opening day in the mid 90’s.  Buck was in open hardwoods, and was avoiding thick areas.  Shot it at 30 yrds when I realized why I didn't like the thick stuff.  There was a full length aluminum arrow sticking out the side of his neck.  Broadhead was im bedded in the bone, but must not have had the energy to paralyze him.   

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Shot a half dozen or so  in our group over the years. We have never eaten any of them. Right or wrong in my mind an infection is in the blood stream and I am not eating that. 

[Steuben Jerry]

My wife shot a small buck on the regular season opener about 10 years ago that had gangrene. This was after a deer-drought of 4-5 years for her not getting any deer, so she was pretty happy. I had shot a doe the same day. So we had them hanging together in the garage overnight. The next day we dropped them off at a local processer. When we went to load them in the truck she asked "what is that smell". She has a nose like a bloodhound and I have a poor sense of smell. I blew it off and off to the processor we went. He called us later that evening and said hers had gangrene and he left it outside by his dumpster. I called the DEC to see about getting her a replacement tag. He said he'd have to check the deer out first. After many phone calls to check up on the situation, the local DEC guy took almost TWO WEEKS to get to the processor. Of course the deer was disposed of by then, so he said no replacement tag for her. I had to argue with him and the main office for a couple of days and they finally relented and admitted it was their fault for delaying their inspection. We finally got the replacement tag the last Friday of the season. The weather was crappy and she had pretty much slipped into holiday prep mode so she never hunted again after opening day that year.

Needless to say, we were both pretty disappointed in the local DEC guy that year. He retired a year or so later, and we heard from a few folks he was a lazy old cuss who was pretty much retired on the job for his last few years. I met his replacement a year or so later who helped us with a trespasser problem and he was great. Responsive, energetic, and knowledgeable. 

Edited September 7, 2018 by Steuben Jerry