Fresh road kill- anyone else salvage the meat?

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FL-NC

FL-NC

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Yesterday AM I was on the way to the range to meet some friends for a long range shooting session. About a mile off the highway, I saw a doe on the left side of the road. Suddenly, I saw a flash of "something" on my right, then a sudden violent impact, and my wheels running over something. Yep, another very small deer bolted from cover, right into the right side of my front bumper. I was driving my jeep wrangler which has a 6" lift and steel tube bumpers (luckily), so no vehicle damage. And I ran it over. Needless to say, it was stone dead. The rear quarters were destroyed and the intestines were hanging out, stomach ruptured, etc. The front half was intact. I felt bad about it, but accidents happen. (I would have felt a lot worse if I had been on my Harley or driving my wife's VW Jetta). I decided that since it was already dead, there was no sense in wasting it, so I extracted the small backstraps until I got to the exposed digestive parts and took the front shoulders as well, and drug the remainder into the woodline. Waste not, want not, right? Glad I keep 2 sharp knives in my jeep. Then I put the meat on ice and headed to the range. Not much to show, but still enough for a meal or 2. As far as the law in Fl, I was supposed to inform FWC of the incident if they wanted to inspect the animal. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, and could not have done it anyway due to no cell service in the area. So who else salvages road kill?
 
Well, you brought up a very good legal point. I would not believe it to be true had I not experienced it myself, but there are people who intentionally road hunt with their vehicles. That is part of the reason why most or all states have legal provisions concerning the harvest of roadkill animals. Getting cited for being illegally in possession of an untagged or out of season animal can be pricey. In your case, Florida may not only want to inspect the animal, but also provide you with case documentation such that if you are subsequently stopped, you would not be potentially fined for possession of deer out of season.

As far as viability of roadkill goes, so long as you know that it is actually fresh, it is no different health-wise than dealing with a hunted animal except that there may be less acceptable meat to harvest.
 
My total roadkill thusfar in my life = One rabbit, which I hit about 3 blocks from my house on the way home from work; I had rabbit for breakfast. One poodle-I was with a girlfriend at the time, left that one lay. One blackbird with my knee on a bike, didn't stop, as I was busy keeping the bike upright and hoping I didn't have to shift, because moving the knee hurt like heck. And numerous frogs and/or toads during rainstorms. Left them there, too. I did hit a flying goose with my windshield, a glancing blow, it stayed in the air, and a doe that I ticked in the butt with the fender on my wife's new (to her) car, she'd had it a week. Lots of hair in the fender and bumper, no deer to be found.
 
I hit a beef calf with my wife's car back in the early 70's. Neither ranch on either side of the road would claim it due to liability concerns and it was not tagged/branded. So being young and poor, it was loaded into the trunk and taken 1 mile to my place where we butchered it. None of it was edible due to bruising and blood clotted everywhere. Some of the better-looking meat was ground and it tasted foul too.

Since then I have left road-kill to the guy behind me. However, I did take the head of a nice buck that was destroyed by a semi years later. Good rattling horns.
 
I hit a small buck in velvet back around 1992 on a hot summer evening about an hour before sundown. He actually hit me as he came flying out from behind a small hedgerow and caught the left front corner of my truck and broke his neck ( I think). Got a sheriff out to do a report and another guy stopped and asked if I wanted the meat, ( I didn't) so the sheriff gave him a tag for it. The guy said he would butcher it and give the venison to a friend who was laid off from work and he and his wife were struggling with bills and they would both appreciate it greatly. Then he told me that a well known local taxidermist was looking for something like that and he would give him the head. So he did and the taxidermist turned it into an award winning mount of a small buck reaching up to an apple tree branch with an artificial apple on it. He displays it to this day...... He got to make a blue ribbon winning mount and the other fellow and his wife got free venison. So nothing really went to waste. Wish I had a photo of that mount so I could post it.
 
Certainly. If you know what you are looking for. Chest struck deer especially are great if gotten fresh....and legally; get that tag. The major damage looks like an aortic tear, and it might as well have been a bow kill. Broken legs and ribs are a minor concern when the hams and one front shoulder at intact.
 
I've picked up my fair share of recently deceased road critters.
If the meats blood shot make cuts in it and drain as much of the blood as possible.
I toss the lot in a cooler with ice, rocksalt, and just enough water to cover it for a few days then finish process. Same thing I do for stuff I've shot. Never had an issue with any of it.
 
I've hit a couple of deer but never put one down to stay.

A guy told me once that his families criteria for good meat was whether the blood had dried yet. If it hadn't, GTG.

My dad used to tell a story about him and one of my uncles hitting a rabbit while they were driving somewhere. They stopped, as did a car going the other way. My uncle jumped out and yelled "thats our rabbit, we hit it!" Different times.
 
I got up one morning and there was a dead deer at the end of my driveway which is about 1/4 mile long. That was probably 7 AM and since I got home the night before at probably 10 PM or 11 PM, it was killed between those hours. I called the game warden (I wanted to stay legal) who didn't want to inspect it and told me I could dispose of it. I was going to haul it to the back 50 and bury it but, lo and behold, someone came along and swiped it. Good for them. It saved me some work.
 
George P said:
It is legal in FL to do what you did
Click to expand...

Sort of. Possessing a deer out of season is not legal, hence the need to call in and basically getting permission for having the deer out of season.

FL-NC said:
I'm aware of people "road hunting" firing weapons out the window- are you saying people road hunt by intentionally trying to hit deer?
Click to expand...

Yes, but mostly smaller animals. The truck was outfit with an industrial, homemade brush bar. By God, the guy ate anything he tried to hit. He had no problem swerving to hit a coon, rabbit, bobcat, small deer, etc.

We were on a camping trip where a group of us convoyed down to central Texas. His truck trailed behind and he and his buddy ended up arriving about an hour late. He came in and dropped a raccoon head in my lap. They had gotten a raccoon and two rabbits and put them into stew that night.

I have recounted this story several times over the years and he apparently wasn't the only one to actively engage in this form of hunting. Others I have met have had similar stories about people they have known.
 
FL-NC said:
I'm aware of people "road hunting" firing weapons out the window- are you saying people road hunt by intentionally trying to hit deer?
Click to expand...
I have heard stories locally of young men with pick up trucks in alfalfa fields at night and a couple of deer jumped out in front of them. It appears that they were doing about 40… the wardens got wise to that one pretty quick.
 
FL-NC said:
I'm aware of people "road hunting" firing weapons out the window- are you saying people road hunt by intentionally trying to hit deer?
Click to expand...

Back in the 60's and 70's when deer were much less common than now, I had a friend who had never killed a deer and he wanted one BAD! He had a pretty nice dark-blue Mustang and tried to hit several deer when I was with him. He finally ran off the pavement one night to hit a deer and wound up in the ditch with broken suspension and and a twisted bumper. The deer was hit with a glancing blow and hobbled off .. probably to die somewhere.

He had to walk over 2 miles to a gas station to call his wife and insurance company. His wife gave him so much grief that he didn't try it anymore.
 
This thread calls to mind Bailey White's book, "Mama Makes Up Her Mind". Mama lived on the remains of the ante-bellum plantation on Meridian Road, north of Tallahassee. Not much land; her forebears mostly "drank it up". Mama, being somewhat poor, was given to road-kill in her diet. Bailey regularly remonstrated against it, due to health issues.

One day at lunch, Bailey was suspicious and raised an eyebrow. Mama swelled up and reddened, "It's good! I saw it! A blue pickup with Florida plates!"
 
I heard that the regs for zone V8 were going to change to forked horn or better.

I had a buddy you could drop off on the side of the road with just a tomahawk, and return 5 minutes later to pick him up with a T-shirt full of well butchered meat.
 
The wife got her first deer 3 years ago.... It glanced off the side of her 2012 Dodge Journey. Couldn't run away and a sheriff had to put it out of its misery. She could have had a tag for it but she didn't want it. No problem, though, as there was already a guy waiting for the tag and another guy had stopped to see if he could have had the tag if nobody else did.
 
Only critters I've ever hit were a couple possums, a raccoon, and a skunk. I'll pass on all three, thank you.
 
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