I know this is not a washington matter however with the number of WA plates I see and people from WA I talk to every year In region F&R every year And the ones I have talked to about future trips, I figure it is worth my time to post and yours to read..
2 Bulls dead and 3 people involved yet only 3K in fines. He should loose his hunting rights for a solid 5 years over that, Arrested with his own handcuffs and 10x the fines and never be allowed to work in law enforcement again..
Deputy Sheriff knowingly kills the smaller bull of the herd then continues to pursue the bigger one and kill it... Why is this ass hat still employed by the tax payers dollar? People make mistakes and the fines he received would be acceptable for a mistake but this was no mistake....
This is the Big Horn County sheriff's Email load it up and let him know your feeling's on this I know I already have....
ken.blackburn@bighorncountywy.gov
Big Horn County Sheriff Cited for Hunt Violations
Big Horn County Sheriff's Deputy Jesse Piper has been cited for hunting violations. On October 17, Piper was hunting in the Trout Creek area. Piper had only one license for a bull elk but two were shot that day.
"This didn't seem like a case of an accidental over-limit."
That's James Hobbs, the Lovell Game Warden with Game and Fish. He says Piper was hunting one bull with another smaller elk in the vicinity of his target. Two shots were fired on what Piper thought was the larger of the two elk, only later to discover that both elk had been killed. Mistakes happen every hunting season, often with a warning or small citation being issued. What Piper did after the kills, however, is the cause for concern.
"He had killed two six-point bulls and failed to tag the first one he killed which is the one he should have tagged, probably. He killed a second one that he was initially shooting at. He tagged the bigger of the six. What I believe happened and what we were told through our interview is that he knew he had killed that first elk because it was kind of moving around when he was following the herd. He essentially put it down. It was dead. He went and hunted for the bigger elk that he shot second. That's where the real violation took place."
The larger elk was packed-out of the area with one of Piper's friends of Sheridan, making him an accessory after-the-fact.
The smaller elk was dressed and Piper called his father to ask if he would come and tag that elk.
"The father, as many fathers do, was trying to protect his son but he never even said, 'Hey, let's just call this into Game and Fish and take care of this.' His father came a few days later and tagged that first six-point with his license that he had. That first six-point elk, because it was hanging-up on the mountain for a while, they had dressed it out, but because of the weather it did go bad so it wasn't in a state that it could be saved. There was an elk that was wasted but because of his honesty, and they did pack-out everything, they cut him a break on that."
Hobbs says Game and Fish was clued-in on the incident from an anonymous tip from the public.
"There are a lot hunters that care about the wildlife. We as Game Wardens work a lot of hours, we're always out and about but we can't be everywhere at once, regardless of how hard we try. We need the help of good, ethical sportsmen to watch-out for violations and let us know about them if they see something."
In total, the three men received 3,000 dollars in fines. All three are presumed innocent until either the fines are paid or a court finds them guilty.