Test

Joined
Aug 6, 2018
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385
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Indiana
Good deal with the reduced fine and no loss of privileges. Good lessons to share about spoiled meat on a long float.
 

mcseal2

WKR
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May 8, 2014
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2,671
Glad it worked out better than it was looking earlier. This result is a little easier to handle I'm sure.
 
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
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1,027
Location
Kansas
I really sympathize for you and it seems you did the right thing by bringing it out of the field. I've never lost any meat, but its always been a major concern. I wish your trip would have turned out better.

All of the AK Wildlife Troopers I've encountered have been excellent professionals with absolute common sense, but one. This trooper tried for two hours to find a reason to write a ticket. He told us that he was looking to write a ticket that day. All he could come up with was ONE missing rib bone that I discarded because it was shattered with impact (All meat has to come out on the bone in that unit). He eventually told us that he wasn't going to write the ticket and said that it was the best meat care he has ever encountered in the field, then caveated it with "I'm surprised a non-resident could do it". I kept my thoughts to myself. Finally, when he was ready to head back to his plane, he said "I guess I'm not writing any tickets today" to which I replied "I guess that's good for me". His only response was "not good for us, how am I supposed to pay for the gas to get out here today?". SO the moral of my story is that there might be some incentive for the troopers to write tickets and impose fines to either justify their field work or generate revenues that can support their enforcement efforts. Maybe if he was on the fence in your case, he figured he's write the ticket and let the DA or judge sort it out and hope it justifies his efforts and possibly put some money back into the enforcement coffers.

I don't get this at all.

So what if you down a moose day 1 and you're hunting with 3 other pals. You guys decide to splurge on eating moose meat for the rest of the trip, say 9-14 days off that moose. You'll definitely go through both tenderloins and maybe a moose "rack o ribs" What do you do then? Do you hope they believe you that you ate it?

Always hear stories about guys shooting a Dall and enjoying a rack of Dall ribs that evening?

What if a bear came in and took off with some or most of your meat?

What am I missing here??
 
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Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
1,027
Location
Kansas
Alright, I just read every post to the end. WOW, great ending. It's terrible you had to go through what you did but it worked out in the end. Obviously your character had a say in all this and you handled it about as well as I though you could have.

Great story by the way!
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
3,158
So what if you down a moose day 1 and you're hunting with 3 other pals. You guys decide to splurge on eating moose meat for the rest of the trip, say 9-14 days off that moose. You'll definitely go through both tenderloins and maybe a moose "rack o ribs" What do you do then? Do you hope they believe you that you ate it? What if a bear came in and took off with some or most of your meat?

Well to me it's about plausible answers and documentation. I don't think any trooper would be suspicious about missing (eaten) tenderloins as long as you had all the shanks and trim meat in possession. No trooper is likely to believe you gobbled down half the neck meat and saved the better stuff. Documentation is best accomplished with video and narration. Pictures are good but video is far better. We actually lost 90% of a huge bull's meat (after butchering and packing) to nightly predation by grizzlies. We simply could not keep the bears away and they ate/ruined/drug off a solid 500 pounds of meat. We did careful documentation and I voluntarily called the troopers by sat phone from camp. In the end we brought out ONE bag of slimy bear-chewed meat and that's all. That was is 2012, and I wouldn't guarantee the troopers would handle it the same way today.
 
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