How to find unit managers

[300RUM]

 

Being dry helps your odds.

Bull crap. 7W is the driest I have seen in 25 years. And the elk hunting is the worst.

 

The 7W unit manager is awesome. Long, scary story.

scary story, do tell. I took a vet out with a last minute tag donation with Hunts for Heroes in 4B. I agree, very dry and an extremely rough hunt. I do know how to contact a unit manager. My vet spotted an animal and fired before I could verify the target. It was a deer. The unit manager came right to me. I recommend making contact through other methods. WM Austin is a great guy and without his input I believe the vet would have probably given up on hunting.It was only his second Big Game hunt.

[HuntHarder]

Your vet made a very a reckless shot, hopefully the WM threw the book at him. There is 0 excuse for shooting a deer during elk season.

[Chris]

Wow.

[300RUM]

Your vet made a very a reckless shot, hopefully the WM threw the book at him. There is 0 excuse for shooting a deer during elk season.

As I was climbing to make the call to Game Thief my worst nightmare was that we would get a Wildlife Manager with an attitude like yours. Very reckless? I was in a blind with him and I was never in any danger. He identified his target as an antlered animal so no other human was in any danger. It was impulsive and there was a definite problem with species identification. He should have waited till the target was in my sight and I confirmed it. It was only his 2nd hunt. I don't know what instruction he got on the first, also an elk hunt, regarding target identification. I showed him the camera footage from that tank with both deer and elk. Was it enough? Here is your first lesson, here is your final exam. I am definitely looking at what I could have done better. The Wildlife manager did his investigation. After taking into account all contributing factors a written warning was issued. The deer was confiscated and taken to a food bank. The veteran was very upset about his mistake and ready to give up on hunting. The WM stayed a while and spent some time with him acting as a mentor. By the time the WM was ready to leave the vet had expressed interest in continuing to hunt. As I said above WM Austin is a great guy. I got his business card out of the ordeal but I do not recommend this method of accomplishing that.

[CatfishKev]

Your vet made a very a reckless shot, hopefully the WM threw the book at him. There is 0 excuse for shooting a deer during elk season.

Easy to say for someone who is a seasoned hunter. I routinely show pics of my kids with animals and they call Elk "Deer" all the time. Very easy to misidentify if your not a hunter.

[lancetkenyon]

One of tje major rules of discharging a firearm. "Know your target, and beyond".

 

Know your target...meaning identify your target before you shoot at it. Steel plate, paper plate, or species of game. I have seen it several times. And found a discarded game animal of the wrong species or gender in the field several times, left to waste.

 

Good on .300RUM to make contact and get G&F to the site to take the game to a food shelter. But that does not excuse the misidentification of species by the Hunter. G&F have a hard job sometimes. The attitude of the offender should come into play for the issuance of citations. I think G&F probably made the right call in this case since a prompt call was made to report the incident.

 

I have another story from this year that is 180° from this one.

 

In 7W this week, myself and my cousin and son-in-law who had bull tags, we moving locations for some glassing. On a narrow 2-track in a remote area of the unit, we thought we were alone. When a truck appeared heading in the opposite direction, I pulled off to the side to let him pass. Windows down, we did the usually "Hello" as we passed. When he did, I happened to glance in the bed with a camper shell as he went by....

 

"WTF? He has a big muley in the back!" (I saw a nice, heavy, decently deep forked 4 point mule deer antler) A good deer for that area)

 

I snapped 2 photos of the back of his truck in my mirror, and told my son-in-law to call Operation Game Thief. I saw the guy watching us in his rear-view, and we started to flip a U. He took off like a bat out of heck. By the time I got turned around, he had put 300+ yards on us. I checked his plate through the dust and bumps with my binos, and got a partial plate #. The chase was On!

 

We gave chase and closed the distance on some nasty rocky roads close enough to stop and get the remainder of the plate #, 30+mph. (The wife's new 4Runner rides pretty darn nice) While on the phone with G&F, we followed him at a distance of 300 or so yards as he beat cheeks to get to the highway. About 2 miles later, he made a turn, and we followed. Cane to a Y, and we looked at the dust and made a decision to go right....unbeknownst to us into a dead end road. We caught up and things got real western real quick. He pulled off the road and behind a juniper and stopped. Jumped.out of his truck and I hit reverse real quick. We could not see his truck, but saw his shadow get out and start moving around. I decided it was not worth dying over to help G&F catch the guy, so we flipped a hasty U and headed back out. Expecting to put some distance between us and him, and thinking he was probably going to dump the buck, we hit the Y and went right towards the closest main road.

 

Then shoot got real. Looked back, here he came, chasing us! Told my son-in-law to call 911 in case anything happened, I wanted it on tape. Middle of nowhere, no other hunters around. I was only going 10-15mph, not really trying to evade, because we already new he was behind us, and we were hoping he would just back off and high tail it. Well, he followed us at about 1 car length for 2-3 miles, thank God we did not come to a road with a gate. Finally, at a Y, we went right, and he burned a hasty left and booked it. Of course, the next 1/4 mile we hit a gate....and we were done for the rest of the evening. Adrenaline had me shaky enough I couldn't even glass.

 

We called friends who had the same hunt and told them to be on the lookout for the truck, and 30 minutes later on a main dirt road, he flew past them at a very high rate of speed.

 

G&F manager called us back, and we have them the full plate # again, GPS coords of where he stopped on the dead end, texted the truck photos, and a full description. We got back to the cabin, and G&F called us. We sent photos of the map location, and were about ready to head out to help G&F locate the spot. Colby (unit 7 game manager who works very hard) and I talked, and got him into the spot. No dumped deer....

 

More to the story which I probably shouldn't tell at this point. Except I hope they nail the bastard.

[CouesFanatic]

wow

[HuntHarder]

Crazy story Lance. Glad you got out without any harm to you or your family.

 

As what was stated above. Know your target that you point your weapon at. If you can not identify the difference between a deer and an elk, this should be discussed prior to entering the field. Killing the wrong species should NEVER happen, especially by an Adult. I know the "feel good" part of me wants to give a novice hunter the benefit of the doubt and cut him some slack. Gross Negligence should not be handled with warning citation IMO. I will say that after the mistake was made, you (300rum) did a great job of immediately turning it in and letting Game and Fish handle the situation the way they felt necessary.

[300RUM]

Just because two people commit the same basic offense doesn’t mean they should all be punished identically. Varying details of each individual case may dictate harsher or more lenient punishment for the offense. If 5 people each killed another person would you immediately just charge all of them with 1st degree murder or would you consider the possibility a more appropriate charge for some, based on the details, might be 2nd degree murder or manslaughter? When you use the phrase “Throw the book at” to me it means to treat extremely harshly and to show no mercy. I do not feel that type of response was warranted in this case. While the WM did his investigation his questioning was more like a casual conversation than a harsh Interrogation. He announced his decision, filled out the paperwork and then spent some time walking the veteran through the scenario and showing him how he could have done things better. He was very proactive in trying to turn a very bad mistake into a learning experience. In above posts I have very complimentary of the WM and It is not because he issued a warning instead of a citation. I would feel the same had a citation been issued. It is because of how he conducted himself through the whole event. Now I don’t expect he would treat Lance’s character the same way and do expect he would “throw the book at” that guy. It sounds like that guy would deserve it.

[MrBojangles]

One of tje major rules of discharging a firearm. "Know your target, and beyond".

 

Know your target...meaning identify your target before you shoot at it. Steel plate, paper plate, or species of game. I have seen it several times. And found a discarded game animal of the wrong species or gender in the field several times, left to waste.

 

Good on .300RUM to make contact and get G&F to the site to take the game to a food shelter. But that does not excuse the misidentification of species by the Hunter. G&F have a hard job sometimes. The attitude of the offender should come into play for the issuance of citations. I think G&F probably made the right call in this case since a prompt call was made to report the incident.

 

I have another story from this year that is 180° from this one.

 

In 7W this week, myself and my cousin and son-in-law who had bull tags, we moving locations for some glassing. On a narrow 2-track in a remote area of the unit, we thought we were alone. When a truck appeared heading in the opposite direction, I pulled off to the side to let him pass. Windows down, we did the usually "Hello" as we passed. When he did, I happened to glance in the bed with a camper shell as he went by....

 

"WTF? He has a big muley in the back!" (I saw a nice, heavy, decently deep forked 4 point mule deer antler) A good deer for that area)

 

I snapped 2 photos of the back of his truck in my mirror, and told my son-in-law to call Operation Game Thief. I saw the guy watching us in his rear-view, and we started to flip a U. He took off like a bat out of heck. By the time I got turned around, he had put 300+ yards on us. I checked his plate through the dust and bumps with my binos, and got a partial plate #. The chase was On!

 

We gave chase and closed the distance on some nasty rocky roads close enough to stop and get the remainder of the plate #, 30+mph. (The wife's new 4Runner rides pretty darn nice) While on the phone with G&F, we followed him at a distance of 300 or so yards as he beat cheeks to get to the highway. About 2 miles later, he made a turn, and we followed. Cane to a Y, and we looked at the dust and made a decision to go right....unbeknownst to us into a dead end road. We caught up and things got real western real quick. He pulled off the road and behind a juniper and stopped. Jumped.out of his truck and I hit reverse real quick. We could not see his truck, but saw his shadow get out and start moving around. I decided it was not worth dying over to help G&F catch the guy, so we flipped a hasty U and headed back out. Expecting to put some distance between us and him, and thinking he was probably going to dump the buck, we hit the Y and went right towards the closest main road.

 

Then shoot got real. Looked back, here he came, chasing us! Told my son-in-law to call 911 in case anything happened, I wanted it on tape. Middle of nowhere, no other hunters around. I was only going 10-15mph, not really trying to evade, because we already new he was behind us, and we were hoping he would just back off and high tail it. Well, he followed us at about 1 car length for 2-3 miles, thank God we did not come to a road with a gate. Finally, at a Y, we went right, and he burned a hasty left and booked it. Of course, the next 1/4 mile we hit a gate....and we were done for the rest of the evening. Adrenaline had me shaky enough I couldn't even glass.

 

We called friends who had the same hunt and told them to be on the lookout for the truck, and 30 minutes later on a main dirt road, he flew past them at a very high rate of speed.

 

G&F manager called us back, and we have them the full plate # again, GPS coords of where he stopped on the dead end, texted the truck photos, and a full description. We got back to the cabin, and G&F called us. We sent photos of the map location, and were about ready to head out to help G&F locate the spot. Colby (unit 7 game manager who works very hard) and I talked, and got him into the spot. No dumped deer....

 

More to the story which I probably shouldn't tell at this point. Except I hope they nail the bastard.

wow crazy story glad you are ok

[AZLance]

Good luck with that... 19 years now and havent ever seen a unit 33 GW...

[muledeerarea33?]

Good luck with that... 19 years now and havent ever seen a unit 33 GW...

never seen one big game hunting but have ran into Martin a few times while dove hunting ponds.

[Roosevelt Mark]

Barry is a great guy and a stand up sportsman. He's very pathis nate about his job. He's from snowflake so he knows the area. He was up in kiabab for a few years before coming to 4b this year.

 

2 thumbs up for Mr. Austin.