Jail Sentences Slam Idaho Poachers in Major Mule Deer Case 👨‍⚖️

I’m currently at the “it’s Thursday already?” phase of the workweek and am unsure as to whether or not that is a good thing as of yet.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get this Thursday morning dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about today:

JUSTICE SERVED
JAIL SENTENCES SLAM IDAHO POACHERS IN MAJOR MULE DEER CASE

Game Management Unit 54, a rugged stretch of Idaho’s South Hills just north of the Nevada line, is no ordinary deer country. With more than eight hundred miles of roads and trails, it offers easy access, but the state keeps a tight grip on harvest numbers, offering only about three hundred mule deer tags for the area each year. With legal applicants having roughly a nine percent chance of drawing one, many ethical hunters wait a decade or longer for their shot at a mature buck in this coveted unit.  

Unfortunately for the legal applicants, none of that mattered to a group of twelve men who were discovered to have turned Unit 54 into their annual poaching playground…

⚪️ Reward Increased to Help Solve Killing of Rare Piebald Deer in East Hempfield Township. In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a rare piebald deer known around the neighbourhood as “Casper”, was killed along a trail where hunting is not permitted. The deer was distinctive for its mostly white coat, a result of a genetic condition, and residents say it was a familiar, cherished presence in the community. In addition to being shot, someone apparently attempted to remove its antlers, which has raised serious concerns and prompted an investigation by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

As part of the response, community members have now increased the amount pledged, with a reward of $5,000 now being offered for information that leads to an arrest. The killing has struck many locals as particularly troubling not just because the deer was rare, but because it was well-known and beloved by local residents.

🏷️ Wyoming Committee Advances Bill to Cap Landowner Hunting Tags, Aiming to Boost Public Access. A committee of the Wyoming Legislature advanced a bill that would allow the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission to cap landowner-hunting tags at 40% of the total tags in a given hunt area under certain conditions, such as emergency situations like the large game die-offs during the 2022-2023 winter.

The bill responds to concerns from public hunters that, in some limited-quota areas, nearly all available tags are going to landowners, leaving little or none for the general public. Meanwhile, landowners and representative legislators argue that farmers and ranchers provide crucial habitat and forage for wildlife and face damage from wildlife, so they should retain strong access to tags.

💸 Wisconsin GOP Lawmakers Propose Higher Hunting and Fishing Fees for Nonresidents to Address Budget Shortfall. Republican lawmakers in the Wisconsin State Assembly are advancing legislation to raise license fees for non-residents seeking to hunt, fish or trap in Wisconsin. The move comes as the state’s fish-and-wildlife fund faces an estimated $16 million deficit, largely due to declining sales of resident hunting and fishing licenses.

Under the bill, nonresident deer hunting licenses would be increased ( to around $200), and non-resident bow/crossbow permits would also climb. Additional boosts would apply to nonresident hunting/fishing combinations and commercial licenses. The state’s Department of Natural Resources estimates the fee increases would raise roughly $780,000 annually for wildlife programs.

🏔️ So a bear is trapped in your car. I think this guy had the right idea - that is until he carelessly left his hotdog-shaped fingers just dangling in this bear’s face.

Just another night in Tahoe…

🪵 At Home on the Range : The scud stacked up over the northeast, a gray washboard above the sea, to the horizon and beyond. Too late for a hurricane, but the wind didn’t care. Raindrops big as dimes on roofing tin and window glass, a racket like the devil beating some hellish rhythm on a snare drum. You never heard such.

The power flickered, faltered, failed.

No worries.

A generator ran most of the house, Colemans and kerosene took up the slack. And then there was the wood stove, an old-fashioned range, the kind your grand-mammy likely had if you came up Southern and rural like me. Read the full story.

🐈 Dad and the Bobcat: My Dad, Tom Hudson, tolerated no nonsense. As children, we feared him and the fiery, penetrating look in his eyes that meant we were doomed, guilty or not. As serious as he was,  having come to visit my parents with my young family in tow, I found myself wondering how he and I came to be in his truck, a smile on Dad’s face as we bounced across a freshly plowed Georgia cornfield chasing a bobcat.

It was the beginning of September, the opening day of dove season. Soon after our arrival at his home, Dad and I climbed into his pickup and headed to the nearby plantation where he was the game manager. It was early in the day when we arrived, with plenty of time to take a look around before the arrival of the day’s forty to fifty shooters. As a sportsman, Dad was the local leader, whether fishing or hunting. Read the full story.

🦌 The Anticosti Experience : Anticosti. Just drop this single word before any dedicated deer hunter and you immediately spark visions of a deer hunter’s paradise, a mythical place of dreams, where whitetails abound in a wild setting of dense black spruce thickets, daily snow squalls, winding rivers and low-lying open bogs.

The ads and the websites for the Anticosti Island deer hunts tell you all of this. It is not mere promotional hype. For any deer hunter, novice or veteran, Anticosti Island is truly a deer hunter’s paradise. I know. I hunted there for a week in early December. The five-day hunt for me was the adventure of a lifetime, and I have had a few hunting adventures over the years. Read the full story.

Oh, and one more thing…