Would you eat this bull?

[DJ Fergus]

I've shot a couple of bucks with lots of warts all over them. I didn't eat them.

 

[nmbarta]

I think your dilemma comes from the fact the bull was shot while hunting so your ethics tell you not to waste the animal. If you were not hunting, happened on the bull and put it down to end the suffering you would not think of eating it. As it turns out when it was put out of its misery just happened to be when hunting.

Very well stated, that is exactly the problem.

 

[Pinoniper]

Ya. No. No way.

 

[slv hunter]

Good look getting a new tag! I hope she gets one. They should give you a tag or an elk they confiscate from a poacher. If it is bad your dogs or coyotes won't eat it only the birds.

 

[J E Custom]

My wife killed her first bull on Halloween, and what started as a great day ended in disappointment. Antlers are cool, but we hunt for meat.
I don't want to be wasteful, and certainly don't want to throw away an elk that took all day to get out, but I'm really struggling with feeding my family with this.

He had a really nasty infection on the bottom of his brisket, that puss was bubbling out. The wound went into the lung cavity.
As you can see, he is very skinny.
I'm afraid the infection might be throughout his body.
You can see the bright viens all over his hide, I don't know that it's related, but I've never seen hide look like this.
Not sure what to do, this sucks.

Nothing good can come from eating a questionable game meat. I would look at it as a mercy
Killing and just enjoy the hunt itself. If it taste bad or made someone sick, it could ruin your taste for future Elk and that would be a shame because it is good.

The main thing I like taking wild game is the fact I see it's condition first hand unlike processed meat that you have no idea where it came from and it's condition or how it was handled during processing.

So even if it cost you a tag, you are better off passing on it. I would donate it to wildlife for testing so you might help out future Elk in that area.

Your wife should not feel bad, she did a great and should be happy.

J E CUSTOM

 

[M77Fan]

I would have to say no in this case. That skin issue is something that would concern me, even if a festering wound would not. That sounded like an extreme wound that was going to slowly finish off that bull. You would have to cook it way too long to make that meat safe to consume.

Maybe your wife's hope was for a nice set of antlers and a freezer of meat, but she got something different. She got instead a nice set of antlers and the moral victory of a quick humane kill on a suffering, slowly dying animal. Not maybe what she had hoped, but that was a great accomplishment in the scheme of things. And she did a great job.

 

[nmbarta]

She did, we had him at 900, no wind and she's a great shot, but I didn't like where he was for a long range shot. So we decided to put a sneak on him. I had her bring her .260 "just in case" I thought we'd get to the rise below which would have put him at about 300, and I'd have her shoot my 7x300 win, but we couldn't see him from there. So we just kept going. I told her to chamber one and be ready, I knew we were going to end up stepping on that bull. I spotted him in the timber at about 100, head down feeding straight away, nothing but a tail pipe shot. We moved up about another 20 to a spot where we had a very small clearing in the timber. I told her to just wait for him to turn, but he must have caught a little movement and turned his head back to look over his butt at us. She had her gun up a looked really steady, I asked her if she felt good, and she did. I said put it right on his neck just below his ear and she put a 130 accubond right through his neck at the base of the skull. Perfect shot.
As much as I love long range shooting and hunting, there is something about getting close that makes it more personal. I've killed more elk with a bow than a rifle, it just keeps you coming back.
It was a really fun hunt, and as many of you know, she's been battling cancer. She had to dig down deep to come up with the strength to hike through the mountains while still going through chemotherapy. I'm really proud of her.
When she went in to get her port put in, they started prepping her right side. She asked the doc if they could put it on the left side. Doc said, "sure, but why?". She said, " I got bull tag and I don't want the recoil of rifle messing with my port" Doc says, "only in Montana!" They got a kick out of that.
Hopefully we can get a cow, if not, we'll get a few deer.

 

[buxndux]

No way would I! It would be in my head the whole time and that could of been a systemic infection..

 

[M77Fan]

Wow, somehow that all seems to fit together just right. Getting that close after all that work must have also been a thrill for her. Tough lady! All the more reason to skip that meat.

 

[Carsyn.22]

I concur.... I work at a poultry farm/processing plant, I know chickens are a different animal but if it looks bad, it probably is. That looks like more than just a battle wound, the hide is off coloured and bruised all over, the weight loss as well confirms that bull was bad sick. May have started as battle wounds but it looks more than that when the pics were taken.

 

[066wally]

My wife killed her first bull on Halloween, and what started as a great day ended in disappointment. Antlers are cool, but we hunt for meat.
I don't want to be wasteful, and certainly don't want to throw away an elk that took all day to get out, but I'm really struggling with feeding my family with this.

He had a really nasty infection on the bottom of his brisket, that puss was bubbling out. The wound went into the lung cavity.
As you can see, he is very skinny.
I'm afraid the infection might be throughout his body.
You can see the bright viens all over his hide, I don't know that it's related, but I've never seen hide look like this.
Not sure what to do, this sucks.

No way. Report it to the authorities.

 

[Joefrazell]

Id contact your local wildlife authority and talk with them. They can get you another tag if it's no good

 

[Troutslayer2]

I would think that FWP would let you keep the head and issue a new tag. I would figure out who the elk biologist is for the region and talk to them. I think they would probably want to test for CWD.

 

[nmbarta]

Well.....that would just make sense, so we can pretty much count on that not happening.
Like I've said, I can not get anyone with FWP on the phone. I got through to one guy yesterday, he said he'd call right back. No call back.
Not just related to this, but it's crazy to me that I can't get phone call in to FWP during hunting season. I don't know what's going on around here. Our tags are printed on computer paper now. Yep..... plain computer paper, easy to copy, easy to ruin. No game checks. I guess it's a free for all.