Gutless Method??
Pennsylvania
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJHb6WoOFvc
Hello,
I am wondering if I was to field dress a PA Whitetail DOE...using the gutless method such as depicted in the video I pasted above...what do I do with the tag??
I would of course tag the doe as soon as I recovered the animal. But if I was able to quarter the doe and take the edible meat parts, and pack them out as opposed to dragging the entire animal, what do I do with the TAG?? Do I leave the tag on the ear of the doe or do I take the tag and keep it with the meat?
Thanks for any guidance.
I would say keep the tag with the meat.
Call it in on your cell phone, keep proof of sex, and pack it out.
I've been doing this for a few years and consulted PGC officers. Ear tag has to remain in the ear and carried out with the meat. I got mixed answers whether you could skin the head and ears off the skull. One officer said you have to carry the whole head out. I take my chances there and just carry out the skinned out portion.
Would be effective in the CWD areas where you cannot take certain parts out of the zone. Quarter and remove loins, carry out, keeping spine and head behind. But... what do you do with the tag?
You cannot leave a carcass behind in the DMAP CWD areas. You have to take the spine and head to a CWD dump station.
The regulations on that make it tough for me to go back and hunt some of my favorite land.
Incorrect Phil, straight from the PGC's webpage on methods for handling high risk deer parts. "The least preferred option, though lawful, is to bone out the deer in the woods and leave the high-risk parts in the field."
The only consistent thing I have ever heard from PGC is "it's kind of up to the officer to make a decision". Unless I missed it, there is nothing in the regs about proof of sex or tagging meat. I believe that to be compliant you would need to tag it, bone it, then remove the tag to avoid littering
You're right. I'm not sure if they added that or if I never saw it in years past.
I'm not sure why they permit that when it's been shown that the prions from the killed animal will exist in the soil and can infect new deer.
Tag it, bone it, then remove tag to avoid littering. Seems like a logical approach and I guess if there was a question by a PGCO during transport you could always take them back to the site and show them the carcass if that was required or take before skinning and quartering with tag in photos and after quartering with tag still on photos with a cell phone?
Phone call to headquarters. Answer was to keep the tag with the meat.
No mention of needing to keep the tag on the ears/head? They said you can just pop the tag out and only pack meat?
Per pgc website. You only need to tag a whole animal. Once broken down you only need to be able to provide hunter information to a pgc officer if asked
