[Joe from MO]

So, in Macon County..... You have to take your deer ON THE DAY IT's HARVESTED to mandatory check stations on the first two days of season. I have got to the point, that I will not kill a deer opening weekend, unless it's special in some way or other.

The processor I used to use, will now only take boned out deer, so I no longer use them, because if I go through all the trouble of boning it out, I am gonna go ahead and grind the rest myself. There is a place, South of Macon, that will process field dressed deer still. It's Amish owned, called Buck Ridge. So, in the case of these two deer, that is where they went. I normally save December for killing a couple doe for sausage and jerky meat, and I process those myself. Cold weather being the key.

But, I hear what you are saying. I have passed on deer this year during archery season, simply because the weather was a bit warm, and I didn't want to bone them out myself during warmer weather. I like to hang a deer overnight in cold weather, before boning them out.

As for CWD.... It has yet to be found on my side of the Chariton river in Macon County.... I don't really worry about it, because I can guarantee you, people have been eating CWD deer for years now, and no one has ever got CWD. Now, if I had one tested, and knew it had it, I'd probably ditch it. A friend of mine, killed some whitetails in WY this year. One of them came back positive weeks after harvesting it, they'd already eaten some of it, but got rid of it after the test results.

For every deer killed and tested positive for cwd, I'd bet money there are a lot more that had it, and never got tested for it and people eat them.

I do take a good look at every deer we kill though, if it looks emaciated at all, I'd probably either not shoot it to begin with, or not consume it..... Both these bucks appeared to be very healthy deer, so if they did have it, it was in very beginning stages.

I guess it's just a part of deer hunting anymore....