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Last deer season, Ranger First Class Chase Altman received complaints from an area of Appling County he called a night-hunting “hotspot.” Gene Road near the border of Appling and Wayne counties runs through a rural area dotted with agricultural fields. It is a tempting place for poachers to ride the roads at night looking for…
The black coyote broke the skin on the buck’s neck, but he couldn’t hang on but a split second. The younger gray female coyote that had been tailing the black yote had already retreated, knowing the buck was much too big to handle. The old male black coyote was nearly blind and was living out…
Georgia’s WMAs are generally pretty heavily patrolled in comparison to private property. And poachers typically aren’t as blatant about their illegal activities on public land. However, turning hunting dogs out illegally on a WMA, like a couple of hunters last year in Bleckley County, isn’t exactly a covert operation. The odd thing is, it wasn’t…
The grass is always greener. That might not be the case for a Florida man guilty of gigging redfish in Georgia waters. Mark Quinton Thomas, of Yulee, Fla., was caught last Feb. 20 with 56 illegally gigged redfish at the Meeting Street boat ramp in St. Mary’s. He pleaded no contest to charges of gigging…
Sometimes it’s wildlife that becomes the victim of opportunity; sometimes it’s a poacher. On Jan. 4, 2010, Officer Keith McDonald with DNR Law Enforcement received a call from 911 dispatch in Lowndes County a little after 9 a.m. Dispatch put him in touch with a complainant who witnessed someone shooting at a turkey from the…
When it comes to producing big bucks, the agricultural fields and the Flint River bottomlands of Macon and Lee counties are still king, and Worth remains third-best for the 19th year in a row, but the gap is narrowing between the south Georgia stalwarts and some counties to the north. Morgan County is poised just…
Levi Garrett trudged through the thick privet hedges on the outskirts of the swamp bottom, an enormous array of 10 incredibly tall and almost perfectly symmetrical dark brown tines weighing heavily on his drooping head. On a cold, clear day, gunshots rang out around the county, and the sounds of thumping hooves and vocal deer…
A few yards off a deer trail in the privet thicket, Jamie Sikes bent to inspect his doe in the beam of his headlamp. It was a fine kill; a mature animal that would make for many good meals. “We’re gonna eat good this weekend!” he said to his hunting buddy Clark Dickerson, who stood a…
On the ride to the hospital, Mike’s right forearm had already swollen to nearly twice its normal size. The skin around the cottonmouth bite had blistered and turned a nasty dark purple. Bloody discharge oozed from two small fang marks just below his elbow. At the wheel, his hunting buddy Clark raced as fast as…
A thunderclap rolled over the swamp bottom of Beagle’s Demise, a harbinger of the heavy rain Mike Shaw dreaded. Stuck in mud with water up to his armpits, he cursed his luck. No matter how hard he stretched, he could not put a hand on his canoe. It was wedged under a blowdown just out…