Virginia Man Gets Two Years in Prison for Killing Three Hunting Dogs 🧑‍⚖️

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:

GOOD
VIRGINIA MAN SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS IN PRISON FOR KILLING THREE HUNTING DOGS

Eric Gregory Ripper, the man accused of blasting three hunting dogs during a late 2023 hunt, just learned the hard way that the state of Virginia has opinions about apparent property rights when furry assets are involved. He’s now set to spend the next couple of years behind bars and has been hit with a healthy level of restitution for his gruesome acts.

According to reports, the incident took place on the afternoon of December 29, 2023, on Ripper’s private property in King and Queen county. Conservation Police Officers with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources responded to an initial report of a hunting dog being shot and later discovered a total of three dead dogs, reportedly disposed of in a particularly cruel manner…

Bill would allow designated areas for deer hunting near bait in Pa.: House Bill 2440 allows the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) to designate areas where hunters could use bait to attract deer to address wildlife disease transmission, habitat degradation or for any other purpose established by the commission. Read the full story.

Man admits to defrauding Mass. employer to renovate hunting lodge in Michigan, feds say: A man who worked for a Massachusetts construction company has admitted to defrauding his former employer by diverting labor, equipment, and materials to renovate a hunting lodge in Lake City, Michigan, the U.S. Attorney said. Read the full story.

Deadline approaches for Kentucky elk hunt drawing: The deadline to apply for the Kentucky Elk Hunt Drawing is midnight on April 30. The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources will announce the winners for the Kentucky Elk Hunt Drawing throughout the day on Saturday, May 9, at the fourth annual Kentucky Elk & Outdoor Fest in Bardstown. Read the full story.

Illegal Turkey Hunting Case Solved in Western Oklahoma: According to officials, the case began on April 19 around 1:15 p.m., when Lt. Dylan Jones, the game warden for Ellis County, received a report from a landowner about suspected illegal hunting activity on private property. The landowner provided trail camera photos showing a vehicle entering the property. Read the full story.

Mass. recreational fishing group slams license fund shift: The Massachusetts Striped Bass Association is pushing back against a House budget proposal that would redirect fishing and hunting license funds into the state’s general budget. The group argues the move represents a fundamental shift in how the state supports fisheries management. Read the full story.

Wyoming Game and Fish highlights shed antler hunting rules as season opens: “Another reason we have these restrictions in place is due to a thing called antler poaching,” explained Sean Cotteleer, a wildlife technician in the Casper Region. “There have been a few cases where people will chase and harass wildlife that have large antlers. The harassment will cause them to drop their antlers, and it could be a little early.” Read the full story.

Conservation officers investigating after two deer found dead near Loon River: On March 23, at approximately 8 p.m., Loon Lake conservation officers responded to a report of two deer found deceased near Loon River, Saskatchewan. Both animals appeared to have been shot multiple times with small calibre firearm rounds.  Read the full story.

🙈 We’ve all had these kinds of days. Well truthfully, I’ve never hooked on to a monster, lost my rod in the process of trying to net him and then while trying to recover my rod, lost the damn fish. I’ve also never been given a second chance at netting the same fish like two seconds later and blowing that too.

He ends the tough day out on the lake in the best way possible with three very forceful words: “GoPro stop recording”

🎣 Brown Trout and Viking Canyons: An American, a Honduran/Swede, and an Icelander mount up on a road-weary Land Cruiser with eight fly rods on the hood then turn down a dirt trek into the heart of Iceland’s Highlands, the wind be damned. It sounds like the beginning of a good joke, but for fishing guides working the central highlands of the Land of Fire and Ice, it’s just another day at work.

It’s another day at work for me, too, only here I’m not a fishing guide. I’m toting a couple cameras along with a five-weight, my usual load-out for a job like this one. Read the full story.

🦌 Father David’s Deer: Pere David’s deer is a large-bodied, semi-aquatic deer, considered a primitive deer that’s an offshoot of the round-antlered deer family Cervidae, genus elpahurus, one extant species, Elaphurus davidianus. It may be the world’s weirdest-antlered deer. Main beams point nearly straight up, and it is the only deer that has the longest typical tines pointing backward. Antlers are thick and heavily pearled, but there isn’t much apparent symmetry to their racks. Unlike most antlered animals, Pere David’s deer sometimes shed and regrow antlers twice per year.

If the antlers are odd, so is this deer’s appearance: Long tail, long face and neck, big hooves, tall, stout body. Its proper Chinese name is milu. It entered Chinese folklore during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) as sibuxiang, the mount of mythical character Jiang Siya in a classic Chinese fantasy. Translated, sibuxiang means “four not alikes,” described as: The tail of a donkey, the head of a horse, the hooves of a cow, the antlers of a deer. Not a bad description. Read the full story.

🌊 Hatteras Dreaming : I was sending a meme to my buddy the other day and he responded with laughter, as per usual, then proceeded to let me know he was on an adventure. The picture he sent was all I needed to know where he was. Costa Rica. He was on a surfing trip. Of course, I was instantly happy for him—he most certainly needed it. The volley of texts got me thinking about surfing. And once I get my brain going, hold on. I immediately arrived at my first encounter with surfing and followed the ride all the way to my current place in life. Long ride for sure.

My earliest days on the water were with my longtime friend Rob. He had the first surfboard. I can still see it—an old twin-fin Channel Island. It had seen better days, but it did the trick. It helped catch waves, and me. The first time I stood up on a barely knee-high wave, I was sold. Sure, I rode it straight into shore, but for an 8-year-old, I may as well have been at Pipeline. From that day forward, all I wanted to do was surf. Read the full story.

Oh, and one more thing…