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January 26, 2009 by
In action last week, Kentucky legislators approved a regulatory amendment that will create Kentucky’s first black bear season in more than a century.
“Sportsmen and sportswomen of Kentucky should be very excited,” said Steven Dobey, black bear biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “Bears are now well established in eastern Kentucky and research shows that population growth has risen steadily over the last 20 years.”
Supporters hope the December 2009 hunt will help restore a fear of humans to the large animals that have increasingly become a nuisance for some people living in the state’s mountain region.
Some bears have become brazen, chasing tourists from campsites, raiding garbage cans, and, in one instance, charging deer hunters, said Rick Allen, president of the Kentucky League of Sportsmen, a hunters organization that had been pushing for a season for the past three years.
“The 2009 hunt quota is a conservative one of 10 bears, or 5 females, whichever limit is reached first,” said Dobey. “The 2-day season will occur on the third weekend in December and bears may only be hunted within a 3-county bear zone of Harlan, Letcher, and Pike counties. Research clearly shows that Kentucky’s bear population can sustain a hunt.”
A $30 black bear permit for the inaugural hunt will be available only to Kentucky residents. All bears harvested must be Telechecked and taken to a department-operated check station. The season will be closed when the quota is met. Baiting and the use of hounds will be prohibited.
[ Read Full Post ] January 23, 2009 by
You’ve probably seen the television commercials for Southwest Airlines, where someone does something incredibly bone-headed, and the announcer asks, “Wanna get away?”
We figure that’s probably how Rusty Saunders of Fort Edward, N.Y. felt after he shot—and tagged—what he thought was an elk while hunting in Montana’s Paradise Valley last November.
The details are sketchy as to how Mr. Saunders initially came to his embarrassing revelation, but Mel Frost, the public information officer for the Bozeman office of Montana Fish, Parks and Wildlife confirmed that the Empire State woodsman turned himself in to a game warden in Livingston after realizing he’d bagged a shaggy-furred llama.
Outdoor writer Brett French of the Billings Gazette reported this week that Saunders’ case was ultimately turned over to the Montana Department of Livestock, because, unlike in its native Peru, the llama in considered to be a farm animal in the states, and not wildlife.
After investigating, the livestock folks turned the matter over to Park County authorities without issuing any citations.
“We don’t have any statute to prevent that kind of thing,” Steve Merritt, information officer for the Livestock Department in Helena, told French.
Photos taken by the livestock department showed the field-dressed dark brown and black llama in the back of a red pickup truck, with Saunders’ notched 2008 elk tag clearly attached to its neck. Not surprisingly, the photo is reportedly making the rounds on the Internet, along with verbiage inspired by another television advertising campaign.
30-06 rifle with Leupold Scope? $650;
Out of state license? $600;
Gas to drive from New York? $700;
Taking a trophy Montana llama? Priceless!
[ Read Full Post ] January 21, 2009 by
A once-prominent big game hunter and guide whose name and image appeared regularly in national hunting publications and advertisements for hunting rifles will never again hunt, fish or be allowed to own a firearm.
Once one of the country’s best-known hunting celebrities, the now-disgraced Kirt Darner, 69, was sentenced on Monday, Jan. 12, in Cibola County, New Mexico District Court to 4,500 hours of community service, fined $10,000 and ordered to pay an unspecified amount of restitution to the New Mexico and Colorado game agencies and a Colorado taxidermy business.
Darner, who pleaded guilty in June 2008 to charges of illegally transporting wild elk to his New Mexico ranch and receiving stolen bighorn sheep heads, faced a maximum penalty of four years in jail. As part of his plea agreement, he is prohibited from hunting, fishing or possessing firearms for life.
Darner was indicted by a grand jury in 2006 on 41 felony and misdemeanor counts, including receiving stolen property, transportation of stolen livestock and tampering with evidence. He was originally charged with illegally moving four state-owned elk from his Lobo Canyon Ranch in Grants, N.M., to another ranch and game park in southeastern New Mexico in 2002. In addition, a search warrant served in 2005 on the Darner property in New Mexico uncovered a desert bighorn sheep head and a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep head that had been stolen from a Montrose, Colo. Taxidermy shop in 2000.
Previously, in Colorado, Darner was convicted of illegal possession of wildlife in 1994. In 1999 he was convicted of second degree tampering with evidence and careless driving in an incident in which he was serving as an outfitter. At that time, Colorado Division of Wildlife officers observed Darner’s client shoot at an elk decoy in a game management unit for which the client didn’t have a license.
Darner gained prominence as a hunter and guide with an affinity for massive mule deer bucks in the 1970s and 80s. When photographic evidence revealed a mule deer Darner claimed to have shot was actually taken by another Colorado hunter 40 years earlier, his entries in the Boone and Crockett Club record book were subsequently expunged.
Though Cibola County Deputy District Attorney Randolph Collins was unsuccessful in his effort to see Darner’s latest sentence include prison time, his argument to the court ironically included an excerpt from Darner’s 1983 book, How to Find Giant Bucks.
“Penalties for game violations are not stiff enough,” Darner’s book stated. “There should be minimum fine and mandatory jail sentences for some crimes, such as shooting a deer out of season. Second offenders should get very stiff, mandatory penalties. If a potential violator knew he’d get a $1,000 fine and a minimum of 30 days in jail for shooting a buck out of season, he’d find more strength to resist the temptation.”
The Deputy DA’s memorandum to the court accurately summed up how a lot of sportsmen feel about the once-iconic figure of the big game hunting community.
“The book title (How to Find Giant Bucks), now given his conduct in our county and his quest to put his profit above all else, has double meaning--how to find giant bucks is really, for him, how to make a lot of money by violating the law.”
[ Read Full Post ] January 16, 2009 by
Like many other states, Colorado experienced a surge in firearms sales in 2008, especially following the November general election.
Firearms owners nationwide believe the election of Barack Obama signals a forthcoming return of the 90s-era ban of certain firearms and high capacity magazine—at the very least —as well as other gun and ammunition restrictions.
Background checks performed on Colorado firearms buyers exceeded 200,000 for the first time in state history for 2008, reflecting an increase of 26 percent from the previous year. Total background checks last year numbered 202,772, compared with 160,756 in 2007. Roughly 97 percent of all background checks are approved.
More than a quarter of the checks took place following the Nov. 4 general election.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation reports it conducted nearly 30,000 instant background checks for potential gun buyers in November and more than 26,300 in December. That compares with 18,569 checks in October and 14,556 in September. In January 2008, the CBI conducted 13,161 background checks.
Lance Clem, spokesman for the CBI, called it a “staggering year” for the Insta-Check Unit, which conducts the background checks.
“November was the biggest month,” Clem told the Rocky Mountain News. “We had records set on three separate days in November.”
[ Read Full Post ]January 14, 2009 by
Hunters, anglers and shooting sports enthusiasts often ask me to help them identify the good from the bad among politicians as well as high-profile sports and entertainment personalities
Sometimes it’s hard to tell who you can trust these days.
Television and movie actor and Saturday Night Live alumnus David Spade has recently proven he is an anomaly among many of those who work in the entertainment industry.
On Christmas week—in the true spirit of the holidays—Spade announced he was giving the Phoenix, Ariz. Police Department $100,000 to purchase 50 Bushmaster AR-15s to help arm its officers. A Phoenix native and Arizona State University grad, the entertainer said he decided on the gift after hearing that police union officials asked that officers be allowed to buy their rifles if the city is unable to provide them.
Spade’s gift means as many as 300 officers on patrol could soon be armed with AR-15s, even in light of recent debates between police and union officials about the availability of the tactical weapons during the city’s ongoing budget strife.
“These guys need to be able to do their jobs and I am just happy I could help,” Spade said.
Spade appeared on our sportsmen-and-gun-friendly radar screen earlier in 2008 when he performed before one of the country’s largest gatherings of hunters and conservationists at the Safari Club International annual convention in Reno, Nev.
And last month wasn’t the first time he stepped forward in support of Phoenix’s Finest.
In October 2007, after hearing about the death of Phoenix Police Officer Nick Erfle, who was killed by an undocumented immigrant, Spade sent the officer’s widow and children $25,000 because the story “just touched him.”
In our book, that makes Spade one of the Good Guys.
[ Read Full Post ] January 10, 2009 by
Last week, a Boone & Crockett Club scoring panel confirmed that the massive non-typical bull elk taken on Monroe Mountain in central Utah by hunter Denny Austad in September 2008 as the official the new World Record for the category and species.
The panel determined the “spider bull,” (a nickname bestowed upon the animal because of the tangle of antlers it carried), scored 478 5/8 non-typical, 93 inches above the B&C minimum score for non-typical American elk and more than 13 inches larger than the previous World Record.
Tracking official scoring data dating back to 1830, the bull’s gross score of 499 3/8 inches makes it the only elk in history that has ever come close to reaching the hallowed 500-inch mark.
But the massive bull, the hunt, and the B&C World Record title itself continue to be the subject of a heated debate within the hunting community.
That’s because Austad was hunting with a Utah Governor’s Tag he purchased at auction for nearly $170,000, which allowed him to hunt elk in any unit in the state, using his method of choice, and up to two months, if necessary. Many states have similar tag auctions that have raised millions of dollars for noteworthy and beneficial wildlife and habitat programs.
Austad tagged the bull after hunting for 13 days, on land open to hunting, while adhering to the Boone & Crockett rules of Fair Chase.
But many, including Outdoor Life’s Hunting Editor, Andrew McKean, point to several aspects of the story and hunt that explain why some hunters are concerned that the bull—and its World Record status—may signal a disturbing trend.
“Does Austad’s achievement merit the same recognition as a hunter who competed against the masses to harvest an animal?” McKean asked in an Editorial Opinion last year. “Austad hunted with a modern rifle in an area that was open only to muzzleloading hunting at the time for most permit holders. In essence, he bought the chance to participate in a special hunting season.”
McKean further opined: “For hunters who are passionate about America’s tradition of free, public hunting and fret the implications of trophy hunting at any cost, the Spider Bull represents a troubling trend.”
The Boone and Crockett Club, Pope and Young, Safari Club International and other hunter-membership organizations that measure and document outstanding big game animals often publicly state that their record-book listings are meant to honor the game animal first, with the recognition of the hunter being secondary.
Above all, that’s where all hunters should focus while admiring this amazing natural wonder that once resided on Utah’s Monroe Mountain.—J.R. Absher
[ Read Full Post ] January 5, 2009 by Here's an important lesson for anyone who uses those Internet social-networking sites like MySpace: be careful what you say or post online—especially if you’re a game law violator!
Agents from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries recently tracked down a teenager who illegally killed three deer on one day--including two spotted fawns--and then posted the photo of the deer on his networking Web page.
After receiving a tip about the photo posted on the Web site on Dec. 1, DWF agents initiated an investigation and questioned Christopher Bearden, 17 of Olla, La. Officers say the teen admitted shooting all three deer on opening day of gun season. He was issued citations for two counts of taking spotted fawns and possessing over the daily limit of deer.
Under Louisiana regulations, taking or possessing a spotted fawn carries a fine between $500 to $750, and possible jail time between 15 to 30 days for each count. Possessing over the limit of deer is punishable by a fine between $250 to $500, or jail time up to 90 days, or both plus court costs.
The DWF reports that Bearden will also have to pay restitution on the three deer, valued at $1,573.62.
[ Read Full Post ]
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