Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Outfitter convicted

I'm not saying he DID or DIDN'T do anything wrong... just saying before everyone jumps to the kind of conclusions everyone here is making I'd prefer to know the facts..

He gets a short rope with me on past performances..Imagine if I was to pull his bullshitt not once but twice in Montana say were you hunt..

He's proven to be a fibber and a thief of our wildlife..I stand firm get out Martin...There's about 10 thousand other resident hunters in this province who agree with me..

Again, "making a false statement to a conservation official" is definitely a hanging offense, right? Worthy of a two year jail sentence according to some here...

When your a vistor in another country making scratch on crown wildlife it dam well should be...

And they weren't gunning for him as a foreigner and his BC competitors weren't jealous, right?

Could be his client got gung-ho and did something stupid and he was trying to protect him.

Don't break any laws, period, as any of them can bite you in the butt. Also, giving a statement to a COS officer, even if just a technicality in the law was broken, is a sure way to get charged. They might be more lenient in their charges, but there will still be charges, as they have an oath to uphold the game laws, even if they may or may not agree with the laws or if they think you should or should not be charged.

Kurt, several years ago, you and I talked about my other charge, from when I first purchased the area, in 1999. If you decide to put any of my comments on the website and anybody says anything about my past, the following paragraphs will explain everything that has ever happened, ever.

Our mutual friend, who does all my brochures and website, came up in 1999 to hunt goats with us. I took him into a remote area and we were both supposed to hunt together, on an exploratory goat hunt, as I didn't have many hunters that year. Our pilot, a licensed Canadian hunting guide, was also going to be our guide on this hunt. On the hike into the area, he crossed a beaver dam, slipped and fell into the water. He went back to the plane and then back to camp to get dried out and some warmer clothes. We waited for him the next morning, but he never showed up. Later, he told us that the camp, 18 miles away, that he flew back to, was weathered in and he couldn't get back to us. The hunter and I didn't know what had happened, as we didn't have a sat phone. After several days, he still didn't show up, so the hunter shot a goat, not far from where we were camped. He was a bow hunter, but couldn't get within range, so he borrowed my rifle. During this hunt, I saw the 2nd largest goat I've ever seen in my area, but because we were waiting on the guide, I didn't have a chance to take it either.

1999 was the first year that I owned the area and I had just applied and was accepted as a Landed Immigrant to Canada (I moved from the US), but I couldn't hold a guide license until 2000. The pilot was supposed to be our guide, but because of the weather, he couldn't make it back to us for 4 days. It just so happened that as the hunter and I were hiking up to recover his goat, that a guide from the neighboring area, was taking a short cut through our area, with his hunter. We talked and he saw that our guide was not with us. In fact, our guide/pilot flew over as we were talking, saw us, landed at the nearby lake and started up the trail to help with the goat. Our guide met the neighboring guide part way. Then, our guide, feeling bad for the very tired hunter, helped carry this hunter's pack back to the plane, then flew this guide and hunter, back to their base camp. My hunter and I had to pack his goat back alone and then wait until the next day to get picked up. Two years later, when this guide was no longer able to guide in this outfitter's area, because the outfitter leased the area to me instead, he turned the hunter and I into the game department, for hunting without a guide, because he was pissed at me for "taking his lease". Because I had let the hunter use my gun to shoot the goat and because I was the owner of this new business, I was charged with guiding without a license. We had a guide, he just wasn't physically present again.

The same time that the COS was talking to me about this issue, they had received a complaint that I had hunted as a resident in both Montana and BC, in 2000. When I showed them my non-resident hunting license and tags in MT, for 2000, plus proved that I met the residency requirements of being a resident for 7 months before hunting in BC, that charge was dropped. They then wanted to know how many days I was in and out of BC in 2001. According to their interpretation of the game laws, residency was a year to year situation. They based residency, also on physical presence in the province. Most residents likely didn't know that they were supposed to be physically present for 7 months of the proceeding 12 months, before doing any hunting as a resident. Since a month is basically 30 days, 7 times 30 is 210 days of physical presence was required. According to this law, even if you don't move or change your "residency", you might not be qualified to hunt as a resident. This is even if you owned or rented a home, paid taxes in BC, had everything registered in BC, didn't live anywhere else but BC and didn't claim any residency priviledges anywhere else, besides BC. So, if you were a truck driver and worked for more than 5 months outside of the providence or if you worked in a mine, say in Alberta, you might not have been qualified to hunt as a resident. But, if you couldn't hunt as a resident in BC and weren't qualified to hunt as a resident anywhere else, where does this put a guy? Pretty confusing. So, because I couldn't prove that I was in BC for 210 days in 2001, they charged me as not being qualified to hunt as a resident. I surely didn't keep track of where I was every day and could only prove less than 1/2 of a year of actually being physically present in BC.

They agreed that I was a resident in 2000, but that in 2001, I was not a resident, because I had been away from BC more that I was "allowed". So, then I wasn't a resident anywhere, as I didn't have any residency priviledges anywhere else either. There were only 3 reasons I wasn't in BC all the time in 2001 - seeing my family, wrapping up my old business in Montana and booking hunters by going to US trade shows in the winter. I surely wasn't trying to use the system and I surely couldn't have imagined that I wasn't a resident. I knew people who traveled with work far more than I did, who were still hunting as residents, but because they weren't foreigners, they weren't well known and no one complained, they went unnoticed. It was not a good or fair law.

So, in court, I was charged with 2 things - guiding without a license and hunting without being physically present for enough days in 2001 to be considered a resident. Even though I wasn't the "guide" for the hunter, I agreed to plea guilty to this charge, if they dropped the residency charge. They didn't, so I fought both of them. In court, the judge said that because I was both the owner and because I let the hunter use my rifle, that I aided in the hunt and acted as the guide, even though we had one hired for the hunt. It didn't matter about the plane being weathered in. We should have just waited, even if the guide had not made it back, and just not shot the goat.

With the residency charge, the Judge quickly ruled in my favor and said that I was definitely a resident. I met all the residency requirements of being a Landed Immigrant and that since I didn't have any residency in any other state or province and since I didn't live anywhere else, that I was definitely a resident of BC. Well, the Crown council and COS didn't like this, so they appealed the judges ruling. We had to go to Appeals and Supreme Court, where I wasn't able to testify. It was strictly a written argument, by both legal councils (attorneys). One judge ruled in my favor, regarding residency and 2 ruled against me. They said the law was a bit vague but the way they interpreted the law, was that one had to be physically present for 7 months/year, each and every year. I bet there are a lot of residents who don't know this!

When I went back to the original judge for sentencing, she was not happy that the courts had over ruled her decision, so even though I was found "guilty" of hunting without being a "resident" in the Appeals/Supreme Ct, this charge would not go on my record and I did not loose any hunting priviledges. I had a fine and lost the animals that I took that year, but nothing on my record. She was visibly upset about this Appeal decision and did not want me to face any penalties, but she was obligated to uphold the decision of the Appeals/Supreme Ct. With the illegal guiding charge, my friend lost his goat, but was not charged with anything else. I didn't loose any guiding priviledges, but had a fine to pay. This was the only thing the judge agreed that I had done. The residency violation - no way. So, I was just charged with guiding without holding a proper license.

Since then, the residency law has changed (maybe because of me), so that being a resident each year is much easier. It requires much less physical presence now -less than 1/2 of the time, of the old law. The way the law was originally written, made being a resident, for hunting priviledges, very difficult for anyone who traveled for work.