Cuffs and Collars

Field reports from Ohio

Divi­sion of Wildlife Officers

Cen­tral Ohio: Wildlife Dis­trict One

Wildlife Offi­cer Josh Elster and Wildlife Offi­cer Super­vi­sor Bill Bullard worked the first week­end of Sep­tem­ber at Deer Creek Wildlife Area with an empha­sis on con­tact­ing migra­tory game bird and migra­tory water­fowl hunters on open­ing day.

A large num­ber of hunters were observed on all of the food plot fields that were planted by the Divi­sion of Wildlife, but the doves were less plen­ti­ful this year than they have been in past years. Hunters that were con­tacted that day were all in com­pli­ance with state and fed­eral laws with regard to bag lim­its, plugged shot­guns, HIP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and hunt­ing licenses.

Hunters in any food plot fields are reminded that safety and eti­quette dic­tate that no dove should be shot at unless it is well above head high and there are no hunters down­range where they could have shot pel­lets rained on them after a shot.

A sug­gested shot size for dove hunt­ing is 7 ½ shot with an improved cylin­der choke. The most pop­u­lar shot­guns are in .12 and .20 gauges.

Dur­ing the last week of August, Wildlife Offi­cer Brad Kiger responded to sev­eral calls of sub­jects pos­sess­ing fawns taken from the wild. All the calls were located around the city of White­hall in Franklin County. One sub­ject had picked up a fawn along the road and was keep­ing it in his sec­ond story apartment.

Two other sub­jects had fawns con­tained in their fenced back­yard. Another had a fawn going in and out of their house with the dogs. All the sub­jects turned over the deer with­out any problems.

One of the deer was in such bad con­di­tion that it was only half the size that it should have been if found in the wild. Just because a doe can­not be seen does not mean she is not close by or that she has aban­doned the fawn.

Many species of ani­mals are raised by one adult that may tem­porar­ily leave its off­spring in search of the next meal. Wildlife par­ents care for their young and rarely aban­don them. The best thing for a fawn thought to be orphaned is to leave it alone; it should never be picked up.

Under Ohio law it is ille­gal to take a deer from the wild. Usu­ally after being removed from the wild the deer has to be euth­a­nized. Hav­ing a deer fawn from the wild is pun­ish­able with a pos­si­ble $250 fine and 30 days in jail.

Late in the 2011–2012 hunt­ing sea­son, Cham­paign County Wildlife Offi­cer Jeff Tip­ton received a com­plaint from the Turn In a Poacher or TIP hotline.

The infor­ma­tion was that some­one had found a trail cam­era on fam­ily prop­erty. On the SD card in the trail cam­era was video of a man explain­ing how he shot mul­ti­ple buck deer. Offi­cer Tip­ton worked through the video frame by frame and spent quite a bit of time not­ing each vio­la­tion. Tip­ton then used the online game check sys­tem to look up infor­ma­tion and was able to deter­mine that the man had bro­ken 15 or more laws involv­ing the tak­ing of white­tail deer.

The offi­cer took all of the infor­ma­tion that he gath­ered and applied for a search war­rant for the man’s res­i­dence. Before the search war­rant was served, Offi­cer Tip­ton went to the house for fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. The man denied the charges, and Offi­cer Tip­ton asked “Where do you think I got this infor­ma­tion?” Tip­ton played the video, and the sus­pect then admit­ted to the vio­la­tions he saw him­self admit on camera.

The offi­cers, with the help of Ger­man Town­ship Police Depart­ment, served the search war­rant on the res­i­dence. Evi­dence prov­ing the case was recov­ered, includ­ing two large buck deer, and the man was charged with mul­ti­ple vio­la­tions. He appeared and was found guilty in the Cham­paign County Munic­i­pal Court. He was sen­tenced to pay about $500 in court costs and fines, received 60 days in jail that were sus­pended on the con­di­tion that he have no same or sim­i­lar offenses for two years, and he lost his hunt­ing priv­i­leges for one year. He also lost both buck deer and is sub­ject to pay resti­tu­tion on both deer, one of which was about 140 gross inches; the other was over 160 gross inches. The col­lec­tive resti­tu­tion value of these deer is esti­mated at $7,000.

North­west Ohio:

Wildlife Dis­trict Two

Van Wert County Wildlife Offi­cer Brad Buen­ing was work­ing a sport fish­ing assign­ment at Lake La Su An Wildlife Area in May. Lake La Su An has been man­aged for tro­phy sun­fish and has very spe­cific bag lim­its and regulations.

Offi­cer Buen­ing was check­ing anglers at the boat ramp for fish­ing license com­pli­ance and mea­sur­ing sun­fish for length lim­its. While he was at the boat ramp, Buen­ing spoke to two anglers launch­ing their boat. Offi­cer Buen­ing asked if they had any ques­tions about the reg­u­la­tions before they started fish­ing. The anglers were in too big of a hurry to talk and prob­a­bly fig­ured it was not impor­tant, so they headed out to fish.

Sev­eral hours later Offi­cer Buen­ing con­tacted the two anglers after they had pulled out their boat. The offi­cer counted and mea­sured the two anglers’ sun­fish. Offi­cer Buen­ing informed the anglers that they were sev­eral sun­fish over their daily bag limit and over their limit of eight-inch sun­fish. The two anglers were issued sum­mons to the Bryan Munic­i­pal Court and found guilty of their vio­la­tions. Each angler paid $125 in court costs and fines.

It was a slow day watch­ing fish­er­men at the Maumee River wall­eye run so Wildlife Offi­cers Craig Barr and Ryan Kennedy decided to move to a new spot on the other side of the river.

It was not long before the action started to pick up. Shortly after their move, the offi­cers watched a man unhook a snagged wall­eye and place it on his stringer. At the same time, they were also watch­ing sev­eral fish­er­men who had left items of lit­ter on the bank, wait­ing to see if the anglers would pick up their trash or leave with­out it.

A short time later, the man with the snagged fish began to leave.Officer Kennedy left to con­tact the man while Offi­cer Barr con­tin­ued to watch for poten­tial lit­ter vio­la­tions. While Kennedy was issu­ing the angler his cita­tion for snag­ging, another man began to leave with­out pick­ing up a bev­er­age can he had set down. Offi­cer Barr called nearby Wildlife Offi­cer Cody Klima to come and stop the man and his acquain­tances until he was able to get there.

While check­ing the fish­ing licenses of the group, the offi­cers dis­cov­ered that one of the anglers did not have a fish­ing license. He was issued a cita­tion for fish­ing with­out a license, and the man who left the can was issued a cita­tion for lit­ter. Both of them paid their fines shortly there­after in the Maumee Munic­i­pal Court.

Lake Erie Inves­ti­ga­tor Matt Fisher and Jef­fer­son County Wildlife Offi­cer Craig Porter were work­ing a boat patrol on Lake Erie, in Ashtab­ula County.

The offi­cers were check­ing anglers for fish­ing licenses and con­duct­ing bag checks on boats. The offi­cers observed a boat trolling for walleyes.

As the offi­cers approached the boat, they observed eight rods in use for fish­ing. Offi­cer Porter asked the two indi­vid­u­als for their fish­ing licenses. Both anglers showed Offi­cer Porter their fish­ing license. Offi­cer Porter then informed the two indi­vid­u­als that they were only allowed to fish with two rods per per­son. Both of the anglers were issued sum­mons for unlaw­fully using more than two rods and lines while fish­ing in the Ohio waters of Lake Erie.

While patrolling the San­dusky River, Wildlife Offi­cers Brian Bury and Troy Reimund observed a man fish­ing in the mid­dle of the river in down­town Fre­mont. The offi­cers walked down to the man to check his fish­ing license and see what he had caught.

When Offi­cer Bury asked the man if he had caught any bass, the man responded “One” and pro­ceeded to pull a 14.5-inch small­mouth bass out of his bucket. While the fish was out of the bucket the offi­cers could see other fish splash­ing inside of the bucket. The offi­cers decided to wade out through the water and check the bucket for them­selves. They found four other small­mouth bass in the bucket, and all four were under the 14-inch size limit. The man was issued a sum­mons in the Fre­mont Munic­i­pal Court for tak­ing small­mouth bass in the Lake Erie Sport Fish­ing Dis­trict under 14 inches in length.

North­east Ohio:

Wildlife Dis­trict Three

While work­ing a lit­ter enforce­ment project along the Lake Erie shore­line, Lake County Wildlife Offi­cer Jason Keller and Lorain County Wildlife Offi­cer Randy White observed a highly intox­i­cated female drink an entire bot­tle of wine while she was sit­ting along the rock break wall.

The offi­cers watched closely as she placed what appeared to be a busi­ness card inside the bot­tle and then seal the glass con­tainer with a cork. She exclaimed, “Mes­sage in a bot­tle!” as she threw the con­tainer into Lake Erie. She con­sumed a sec­ond bot­tle of alco­hol a short time later and uttered the same phrase as she hurled it into the water. Geauga County Wildlife Offi­cer Scott Dena­men and Wildlife Offi­cer Super­vi­sor Dave Shinko con­tacted her shortly there­after and charged her with the offense. She was con­victed of the stream lit­ter charge and paid over $200 in fines and court costs to the Cleve­land Munic­i­pal Court.

Wildlife offi­cers work­ing a trout fish­ing project in Cuya­hoga County observed an angler catch one fish over his daily bag limit and metic­u­lously con­ceal the extra trout inside his tackle box. He col­lected all of his gear and began to walk toward his vehicle.

Uni­formed Wildlife Offi­cer Dave Shinko approached the man as he was load­ing his fish­ing equip­ment into the trunk of his car and asked to see his catch. The man proudly showed Offi­cer Shinko his limit of trout and when asked if he had caught any other fish he replied no.

Fur­ther inspec­tion of the man’s tackle box did not reveal the addi­tional fish. Offi­cer Shinko con­tacted the plain clothes offi­cers and con­firmed what they had observed. Shortly there­after, the man reluc­tantly reached into the back of vehicle’s trunk under sev­eral lay­ers of cloth­ing and removed the extra trout. He was charged with the offense and appeared in the East Cleve­land Munic­i­pal Court. The man was found guilty and paid over $200.00 in fines and court costs.

South­east Ohio:

Wildlife Dis­trict Four

Dur­ing spring turkey sea­son, State Wildlife Offi­cer Eric Lane was patrolling Perry State For­est when he saw a hunter dressed in cam­ou­flage walk­ing along the road­way. The hunter dropped what appeared to be a turkey in the weeds along the road. Offi­cer Lane made con­tact and checked the hunter’s firearm, hunt­ing license, and turkey per­mit, all of which were in order. Offi­cer Lane picked up the turkey and asked the hunter why he had not tem­po­rary tagged it. The hunter told Offi­cer Lane that he did not know if it was legal to shoot a hen turkey with a beard. Offi­cer Lane told him that any bearded turkey is legal. Offi­cer Lane issued a sum­mons for fail­ure to tem­po­rary tag the turkey. The hunter posted bond of $125.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Sep 21 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.