My "mourning period" would last as long as it took to hop that fence and recover that dead cow. We can shoot five caribou a day up here and I have done that when the freezer was empty. But I have never shot a sixth because the first one got away .
For the record, taking two elk was never in the cards - my goal was always one down and done. Meat that doesn't fit in the two refrigerator-freezers and chest freezer I already have typically goes to Denver Rescue Mission, who requires professionally processing of neat donation. Given that a single elk would have overflowed the freezer space we had available, the best case with a second elk is I would have had to pay processing fees for meat that would all be given away. To keep it I would have had the additional expense of yet another freezer. Neither scenario was attractive.
The purpose of having two tags for different areas and overlapping seasons was to allow me to hunt longer if necessary, not to take two elk.
Let me get this straight - you hunt caribou with five tags in your pocket and would continue to hunt caribou, taking up to four, even if you lost the first one? At the same time you preach it is unethical for someone with two elk tags in their pocket to continue to hunt elk if they lose the first one?
