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Long before daylight on the opening day of archery deer season, Hamp stood alone at the edge of the camp. Overhead a million stars twinkled and blazed in a black, moonless sky. The air was stone still, and for mid September, cool. Radar, the border collie, stood beside him, looking up quizzically, wagging his tail.…
Mr. Jesse appeared disoriented when Paul and Hannah arrived. “We heard the shot, Mr. Jesse. Are you OK?” Paul asked. Mr. Jesse stared down the hill gazing at the wall of thickness that made up one side of the beaverswamp. “It was the boy,” Mr. Jesse said. No hindsight ip unit displayed. Just down the…
In the spring of 2010, WRD Law Enforcement rangers used a call out to the public to solve a bear case in which poachers killed a mother bear and one of her cubs. But as it turned out, the case they solved was not even the one they set out to. In early March 2010,…
The four hunters stood around Paul’s camper. It was a few minutes after dark on the opening day of deer season. David was thrilled about killing a doe, and Nathan shot his first squirrel while hunting with Hannah. However, neither the dead doe nor the squirrel were on the minds or lips of the four…
Cpl. Freddie Hays and Ranger First Class Billy Bryant were on routine night patrol at about 11:45 p.m. last Oct. 23 when they encountered a pair of poachers doing something a little out of the ordinary. The officers were patrolling Clybel WMA, at the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Jasper County, when they saw a…
When the bullet hit, the animal buckled from the sting and went crashing back into the jungle of reed cane. Ten yards inside, running wide open, it came to the edge of a sharp-dropping creek bank. Not able to stop, it went crashing down the bank and hit a sharp boulder on the opposite bank,…
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…