Ohio Poacher Gets Jail Time, Fines, and a Forced TikTok Apology 🤳

Welcome to the Wednesday edition of the newsletter. If you’re still with us, that means you’ve made it to the middle of yet another week.

With that said, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey and get this mid-week dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about this morning:

ANOTHER SOCIAL MEDIA STAR
OHIO POACHER GETS JAIL TIME, FINES AND A FORCED TIKTOK APOLOGY

A 21-year-old Ohio man who seemingly paid zero attention to state wildlife laws all while promoting it on TikTok has finally had his day in court. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Carter J. Hickey of New Philadelphia has pleaded guilty to 17 wildlife crimes following a multi-year and multi-state investigation.

It was back in May 2025 when pictures (including the one above), along with tips began to pour into both the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. What first began with a few local complaints, soon ballooned into what looked to be a deliberate pattern of violations that allegedly took place across 17 states…

USDA Expands Public Waterfowl Hunting Access in Arkansas : The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission was awarded funding in July to continue its highly successful Waterfowl Rice Incentive Conservation Enhancement (WRICE) Program, which provides financial incentives to rice producers located near wildlife management areas and national wildlife refuges in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) and Arkansas River Valley. Read the full story. 

Missouri sets new deer hunting rules for 2026 season: Missouri deer hunters will see several major changes when the 2026 hunting season gets underway, including a lower buck limit for nonresidents, an earlier youth hunting weekend and new rules for managing chronic wasting disease. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) says the changes are intended to simplify deer-hunting regulations while addressing concerns raised by hunters and landowners. Read the full story.

Hunters get extra doe tag as SCDNR targets herd balance: The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources announced that hunters will receive an extra antlerless deer tag in their base set for the 2026-27 season as the agency encourages hunters to increase doe harvests to help manage the state's deer population. Read the full story.

Idaho Fish and Game seeks information on elk left to waste in Clearwater County: Idaho Fish and Game is looking for information about a cow elk that was left to waste on a private property in Clearwater County. According to Fish and Game, officers believe the elk was shot sometime between August 3 and August 4. The elk's body was found in a farm field off Albers Road and Russel Ridge Road. Read the full story.

How a grassroots effort raised $80,000 in days to rescue Michigan’s premier duck hunting areas from budget cuts: Waterfowl hunting advocates raised $80,000 in recent days to fund operations at four Michigan Department of Natural Resources managed waterfowl areas this fall, providing a temporary solution to budget constraints that threatened to reduce hunting opportunities. Read the full story.

Texas City Dike bust nets 137 fish, 3 stone crabs, 1 sponge crab: The operation went down under cover of darkness, according to the wardens in a Facebook post Monday announcing the bust. Officers walked more than a mile onto the dike—at more than five miles, the longest fishing pier in the world—and observed three suspects "actively deploying and tending multiple nets and repeatedly filling a cooler with aquatic resources," the post read. Read the full story.

🏌️‍♀️ I’m not much of a golfer, but this course definitely has my attention. Watch as this fella chips nicely over a small herd of elk on his way to making par.

If this makes me want to be more of a golfer, I wonder if it makes this fella want to be more of a hunter…

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