Though largely circumstantial, the evidence was more than enough to pique my interest. It was cause for me to take a deeper look into what I believed to be an intentional hunting violation that hadn’t started out as one. Specifically, it seemed likely that an honest mistake had been made, but then intentionally was covered up with a cloak of dishonesty and deception.
Barring a very convincing story, or explanation, I was confident that by the end of the day, a summons would be issued, and that I would likely seize a beautiful buck as evidence. One September day, while checking expanded archery deer registrations at a local tagging station as part of my warden duties, a particular tagging slip caught my eye. I was familiar with the gentleman’s name on the slip, because he was a very well-known, skilled and successful deer hunter who I knew to be very passionate about hunting a certain expanded archery area.
As I looked closer at the information, I noticed the time and date stamp of his antlered deer permit indicated it had been purchased online around midnight on a date well after opening day of the expanded archery season. Also, it was interesting that the deer had been registered the very next day. I asked the young lady at the counter about the tagging slip.
She expressed some concerns regarding the circumstances when a group of hunters came in to register the deer, mainly that the animal had not been field dressed, and that the hunters seemed nervous and were in a hurr.