So I stumbled on this while hunting in 171 this weekend. Maybe its just because I'm so new to this but I found it odd that someone would leave the head and antlers behind on a bull elk like this? It appears to be quartered out and it definitely had been there a while cuz the smell was pretty damn strong. I marked it on my GPS and took this picture but I didn't want to mess with it beyond that. My buddy who tagged along wanted to try to take the head with him but I asked him not to because 1) I'm not sure what a game warden would make of it or if its legal (I had a cow tag) and 2) I'm not sure if the person might come back for it or maybe it was poached?
What is a good procedure for this type of situation? How long would someone have to wait before taking the antlers off a corpse they found that was obviously there a while? Is there some sort of hunter's code that pertains to a situation like this?

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