Hunter facing charges after death of beloved elk named Bullwinkle

[bearpaw]

This is a private forum, please review the forum rules regarding membership, and pay special attention the portions i made bold:
http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,163263.0.html

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I am told that more threats of lawsuits are flying around from both sides of this Reichert topic, this forum wishes to remain neutral on the subject, however, we are in a position where one side wants comments removed and the other side wants comments to stay, we simply can't satisfy both sides.

I've removed two Reichert topics in the past due to threats of lawsuit. ENOUGH! The members want to talk about this issue, they can discuss it as long as they don't make false slanderous statements or otherwise violate the forum rules.

NOTICE: If anyone feels a statement is untruthful and slanderous and wants it removed please send me your comments with your basis for removal, I will check with the accused party, if they can't substantiate the truthfulness of the statement, it will be removed. I will remove any statement requested removed that cannot be substantiated, if needed I will remove this whole bullwinkle topic. Anyone who is not a member including Mr Reichert can contact me directly if you feel any comment is untruthful or slanderous and it will be removed unless substantiated as being truthful.

Send removal requests to dale@hunting-washington.com

We have tried to fairly moderate this topic, if it must be removed and if another topic pops up I will forbid any moderator from moderating, we will not moderate it at all, it can take it's course with each person who comments being responsible for their own comments.

If you wish to remain a member of this forum the lawsuit threats and any other threats must stop, if you receive this message by pm or email I expect a reply back saying that all threats toward members of this forum will end or I will be suspending your membership at the end of the day. Please stop making threats using this forum.

This message is being sent by pm and by email to several members. I await responses from those members regarding their membership continuation.

[bearpaw]

I've received a couple messages that seem unclear about my post, let me put it more simply:

If you want to sue someone notify them outside of the forum. If you want to remain a member of this forum I want your word that you won’t be threatening members with lawsuits through the H-W forum. All these lawsuit threats are done on this forum!

I have provided my email address so anyone can contact me in the future if they feel they are being slandered by someone else. dale@hunting-washington.com

[bearpaw]

This topic has been moved to off-topics which is out of the public view. This board receives very little moderation, however if we receive a claim that an accusation is false and defamatory it will be removed unless evidence can be provided that the accusation is true.

The topic is now available for member discussion.

[Boss .300 winmag]

So then, no answer for which unit was used on the harvest report?

That hopefully will come out in court if the dept is helping the prosecuting attorney. I wouldn't be surprised to see unit 328 thinking nobody would ever think twice about it when compiling the stats for 2015.

[JDHasty]

I had decided to leave this topic alone for a while, but as was the case on the last thread after I had decided to "leave sleeping dogs lie," wherein Cboom decided it was in his interest to stalk me all around this site calling me out...

Anyway, as you have seen evidence of, the only thing anyone can find any evidence of, after doing exhaustive research, re: me being a game law scofflaw amounts to a single minor violation that took place well north of two decades ago.  Yes I had a minor violation and I paid a small fine and I learned from that experience.  That is all there is, basically the game law equivalent of a "minor traffic violation" ~ 25 years ago in a motor vehicle.  There is "no there there." 

FWIW, The violation was not hunting w/lead shot, which carries mandatory suspension and my hunting privilege has never been suspended nor, to the best of my knowledge, have I ever been investigated for any violation that caries license suspension.

Re this case:  I have posted as fact what I am confident are facts re: this incident.  I have given an opinion re: how I think this case should be treated i.e. I think it should be prosecuted.  I have referenced an earlier incident and given my opinion re: how that earlier incident has affected my opinion in this case.  I have made it clear that there are certain details re: that earlier case that I am relying on my memory of and have made it perfectly clear that this is what I recall when posting such.  I have provided documentation that validates facts I have referenced in that earlier case. 

And... the only thing that this individual can come up with to impeach what I have posted is the fact that I have a paid a fine for a minor violation and in posting that didn't even bother to get the facts straight???  That in and of itself should be, and is telling. 

Now, my intentions are to leave this topic alone for a while.   

[TheHunt]

Thank God!!!   Please take a breather... 

[X-Force]

Now, my intentions are to leave this topic alone for a while.   

Minutes or hours? 

[huntnphool]

If I had the gov tag, or raffle tag, I'd think I could hunt in said units, but hey, I'm just a big dumb lewis county boy, not neatly as savvy as the city slickers up north....thank God for the pierce and king county folks...

Do you read the regs?

I would assume most read the regs. Contrary to what some of you geniuses think they can be confusing. If they were as simple as some of you imply you would think the local game warden and regional comander would not have come to the conclusion it was legal after researching  it himself?

So, what you're saying is that a guy who spent probably $100K in total to shoot an elk made a mistake reading the regs. Before you said he had called because he knew the restrictions in that unit and received permission from Mr. Grant to shoot the elk anyway. Which is it? And, if he didn't know it was illegal, why would he have called Mr. Grant at all?

I am saying the call was made to find out the legality for weapons and the unit. A crystal clear answer was given on both notes.

 Seems the pertinent question would have been to ask if he could kill a branched antler bull in unit 334 with his tag.........but then that would have closed any loopholes right!

  second was what was legal with that tag.

This is still vague and leaving wiggle room.

 Are you stating that Mr Grant was asked directly if a branched antler bull could be killed with that tag in unit 334, yes or no?

 And he gave authorization to kill a branched antler bull in 334, yes or no?

Come on Kiti answer the simple questions.

 Yawn........still waiting!

[Rainier10]

My guess is after all of the warnings people are going to be pretty tight lipped about this until it works its way through court.  I think every angle of this has been beat to death and nothing new or groundbreaking will come out until then is my guess.  Unless somebody in the group starts getting nervous, makes a deal and starts singing like a canary.

[whacker1]

another newspaper article:
This time conjoined with 2 other subjects - Idaho & Montana
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/jun/08/landers-judge-wealthy-hunters-by-what-they-give-no/


A year’s worth of fund-raising banquets and silent auctions can be matched in a heartbeat by a single check from a big-bucks beneficiary.

Hunters, anglers, nature lovers and the entire planet benefit from rich people who unleash some of their fortunes for preserving wildlife habitat rather than building another getaway mansion in a pristine setting. So to them, we say thanks.

But examples in Idaho, Montana and Washington stand out as warnings to be aware of people who try to buy our trust.

In Idaho, members of the state Fish and Game Commission are getting the cold shoulder from Gov. Butch Otter, likely for taking a stand against legislators’ wishes to give more hunting tag options for the wealthy.



The commission took its stand last fall after surveying the state’s sportsmen and finding they opposed proposals to allow large landowners to sell hunting tags. They especially opposed auctioning more of their coveted once-in-a-lifetime big-game hunting opportunities to the highest bidders.

The commissioners stood up for the average hunter. Now the governor is looking to replace former commission chairman Mark Doerr of Twin Falls and current chairman Will Naillon.

“The commission did not change policy due to the overwhelming input of the sportsmen,” Doerr said in a statement. “The legislators were not happy and it is unfortunate their influence impacted the governor’s decision on commission reappointments.”
“The personal, political and financial gain offered by special interests must be intoxicating for those in leadership in the Idaho Legislature, because they continually ignore the will of the majority of their constituents, in this case, the sportsmen of Idaho.”

In Montana, an out-of-stater who owns prime fishing and hunting acreage has bought himself a cozy relationship with Ducks Unlimited despite his shady attempts to block average sportsmen from public natural resources.

In October, Montana sportsman and freelance writer Don Thomas wrote a piece entitled A Rift Runs Through It, for Outside Bozeman magazine, about the legal battle in Montana to secure and maintain public access to Ruby River, a southwestern Montana tributary to the Beaverhead.

Thomas pointed out how James Cox Kennedy, the Atlanta-based billionaire chairman of media giant Cox Enterprises, had worked the courts in attempts to prevent legal public access.

Ducks Unlimited’s response was to kill the messenger. Instead of recognizing Thomas for standing up for the average sportsmen who bid on waterfowl art at DU auctions, officers dropped his long-time column in DU Magazine and said, “Goodbye troublemaker.”

DU has honored Kennedy for being among the wetlands conservation organization’s biggest donors, and, okay, that serves the group’s mission. But he’s buying more than habitat for ducks.

Kennedy owns property along eight miles of the Ruby River and has been involved in a long-running litigation that has gone to Montana’s Supreme Court once and may find its way back.

In December, the Associated Press reported that Kennedy had donated $100,000 to a secretive conservative group accused of breaking Montana’s campaign finance laws to influence elections.
Kennedy and others contributed to issue-advocacy group Montana Growth Network, which financed ads supporting the winner of the 2012 state Supreme Court election and opposing the two other candidates.

The biggest “dark money” checks came from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Charles Schwab of Charles Schwab Corp., each of whom gave $200,000. Schwab also is involved in challenging Montana’s stream access laws, which sportsmen consider vital to preserving their right to reach public waters as wealthy people continue to buy and lock up choice properties.

What’s alarming is that while Kennedy is buying votes and court decisions to secure more than his share of heaven in the West, he’s also apparently buying the favor of conservation groups that sportsmen consider to be on their side.

DU, while shunning the messenger – Thomas, assisted in the nomination of Kennedy for a national wetlands conservationist of the year award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

So far the stream access lawsuits have been denied repeatedly in court thanks to the efforts of the Montana Public Land and Water Access Association. We’ll have to see if the case returns to the state’s top court to know if Kennedy’s money served his purpose in the judicial elections.

In Washington, a day in court has been postponed for a wealthy West Side hunter charged last with shooting a virtually tame trophy bull elk last season in a closed area near Ellensburg.

Tod Reichert, 76, of Salkum, is charged with second-degree unlawful hunting of big game, a gross misdemeanor, for allegedly having locals lead him to the bull residents called “Bullwinkle.” Reichert is charged with shooting the trophy elk in an area closed to hunting branch-antlered bulls. Apparently he then drove the bull’s carcass to a legal hunting area in order to tag and field dress it.


Reichert’s is well known in elk “conservation” circles for his willingness to spend a fortune on raffle and auction tags to facilitate his trophy hunting.

Described as “a strong supporter of elk hunting and improving elk habitat,” he has killed several record-book bulls by outbidding other rich trophy hunters to get coveted tags, including $40,000 for the 2007-08 New Mexico Governor’s Tag, $19,000 for the 2001 Oregon Governor’s Tag, $16,000 for the 2003 edition, and an unpublished amount for the 1999 California tule bull elk tag.

But trophy hunting has a way of stalking the ragged edge of poaching when hunters get greedy.

In 2007, Reichert bought Washington’s first East Side Governor’s Tag and killed a trophy elk in the Umatilla National Forest. However, he was later indicted for hiring a helicopter service to spot elk for the hunt, which is unlawful in Washington and most other states. He was also charged with lying to wildlife authorities about the guiding services he hired.

Reichert’s sentence included a $5,000 fine and a two-year ban from entering a national forest.

The pretrial hearing in his current “Bullwinkle” case originally set for May 31 in Lower Kittitas District Court was postponed until June 21. It’s possible that Reichert could be using his attorneys to postpone the hearing as long as it takes for him to fill his two current trophy tags purchased in March at the tag auctions facilitated this winter by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

A lot is at stake. Reichert bid $85,000 for the Pennsylvania tag and $75,000 for the Washington tag.

If he goes to court and is found guilty before those hunts, Reichert could lose his hunting privileges before those seasons start.

Either way, his auction bids will be used by RMEF and the state of Washington for wildlife conservation. Some people are okay with this system. Others aren’t so sure.

Bottom line: A wealthy man can buy just about anything he wants, but he should still have to earn our respect.



Published: June 8, 2016, 7 p.m. 

[JimmyHoffa]

Apparently he then drove the bull’s carcass to a legal hunting area in order to tag and field dress it.

The story gets juicier by the day.  I wonder if they ran over a litter of puppies on the way to the other field?

[Rainier10]

Apparently he then drove the bull’s carcass to a legal hunting area in order to tag and field dress it.

The story gets juicier by the day.  I wonder if they ran over a litter of puppies on the way to the other field?

That caught my eye as well, I don't remember seeing that before.  Maybe new stuff will be coming out.  Now I am kind of curious to know what unit they reported it was killed in.  Too bad the tags aren't like a salmon punch card where you have to write down the area you are upon harvest.

[whacker1]

Apparently he then drove the bull’s carcass to a legal hunting area in order to tag and field dress it.

The story gets juicier by the day.  I wonder if they ran over a litter of puppies on the way to the other field?

That caught my eye as well, I don't remember seeing that before.  Maybe new stuff will be coming out.  Now I am kind of curious to know what unit they reported it was killed in.  Too bad the tags aren't like a salmon punch card where you have to write down the area you are upon harvest.

That part was well documented and admitted that they drove from 334 to 328 to not leave a gut pile in the landowners field in 334 per the landowner's request.  If you read through the last 42 pages, you will find it somewhere.   

[JimmyHoffa]

Yes, the field dress part of it.  First about the didn't tag it immediately.  So according to this article, they didn't even tag it until they were in the other field.

[whacker1]

Yes, the field dress part of it.  First about the didn't tag it immediately.  So according to this article, they didn't even tag it until they were in the other field.

Got it, I missed that part....Thank you for pointing it out.