Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Giant Louisiana buck taken illegally.......

Can't figure why the big dummy would admit to shooting the buck with an undersized rifle when he knew it was illegal. The fraud stuff is just nuts.

He should have used "the stinky bait".

I'm betting he didn't realize it was illegal or figured that he would just have to pay a fine since everything else about the kill was completely legal.

I would like to see the Picture of this Buck

Me too.

Hey Readonly, are you practicing for the bar exam or are you just full of organic fertilizer?

Quite a few years ago in a Central LA paper there was a story of a gentleman (doctor I think) who took a deer with a spear he had made. It was a nice buck. Bad part is, that is illegal to take a deer in LA with a spear. Seems like he had the deer taken away from him. Been many years ago so memory is a little fuzzy.

I take it you heard about the 218 B&C non-typical Louisiana buck that a young lady killed this past fall? The buck had made his escape from a high-fence "ranch" and then walked past her stand. How lucky is that ?!!!!!

I suspect that he wasn't hunting deer at the time. He might well have been hunting swamp rats or whatever when he saw the deer. He might not have even given the caliber law a thought in his excitement. That doesn't make it legal, however.

Possibly he thought the buck was a giant prehistoric swamp rat with antlers, or something?

It's tha law but I don't personally have to agree with it.

With that being said, he broke it and must accept responsibility.

There must be a felony law on the books in LA about "cheating" in contests.

I have an issue with "Big Buck Contests" myself. But that is whole other topic.

Some laws are stupid. And to enforce this one is even more stupid.

Maybe I can go along with a fine but thats it.

When you could use a 22 hornet, legally but the idiots that wrote the law won't allow at .204 with more energy... well plain ignorant.

Of course I think its ignorant to enter deer contests too..... but thats just my opinion also. Not many folks get to see what I shoot, what I shoot is for me mostly, not to brag to others. Folks that feel the need to brag kinda bother me.

Sounds like a really nice buck though. Wonder if the guy knew he was illegal? I'd bet the "confessed" part is a game officer asking what he used and he had no clue(no excuse I realize) or that he had to put weapon on the contest data.

PErsonally I bet I"d win if you knew how many deer were lost to "legal" calibers like the 06 and such, vs the "illegal" ones... still so many folks believe if the deer doesn't fall over its not hit. And the phuggin hunting shows on TV are SOBs for making that bang flop shot seem like thats the ONLY reaction you typically ever get.

Ok, off my soapbox...

If I break a law today and get caught, I will have to pay whatever fine or jail time that is written down for that law. Same with him, as it should be. If you want to be exempt from the law you need to join the Obama administration. miles

Yes I did hear about that. If I read it correctly, if someone shoots a deer like that here one has to pay restitution for the deer. I am not sure how one can tell it was a high fence deer though when they shoot it. Looks like the land owner would be responsible for his own deer getting loose. In this case, the owner of the high fence knew the family of the girl that shot it so he did not demand restitution which would have cost about 10k if I remember correctly.

As much as I despise the fact that many Laws and Regulations
have taken away much of our Freedoms, and I have a general distrust for many (not all) who enforce those Laws, I have to say that without LAWS our way of life, as we know it, couldn't exist.
Now let me relate to you an incident that shows that Fareness and Common sense still exists in some areas of Hunting Reglations and Enforcement.
Last December, as every December, I traveled " Back Home" to
to hunt deer with family members at our family homestead in the Allegheny National Forrest of western Pennsylvania.
In that game unit a "Legal Buck" must have atleast THREE points
on atleast one side.
A family member misstakenly shot the biggest rack "Y" buck any of us had ever seen! After much debate, we loaded up the deer and took it to the nearest "Check Station" and fessed up.
There were five PA Game Wardens there and all agreed that the
the buck had a great rack , but the kill was illigal.
Because my family member "Fessed-Up" there was only a $25 fine,
AND they issued him a replacement tag. They confiscated the deer
but with in 20 minutes, people from the Salvation Army were there and processed the deer.

Keep the Faith and know the Constitution.

Rabbitdog

Virtually all laws listing specifics need to have some cut off points. In this instance it sounds like it's 22 caliber. The cut off could have just as easily been 17, 20, 24, or even 50 caliber. If one is flying a model airplane, speed might be limited to 300 mph and an altitude of 600 ft. The regs are written that way to be consistent and avoid judgement call situations. Think of the mess if one judge was fine with a 20 caliber while another insisted on at least a 24.

Even minimum foot pounds of energy would be difficult to enforce for marginal cartridges. A hopped up handload might exceed the minimum where a lesser charge would fall short. If ones load was actually checked, he could argue that he just used his last hot one on that deer over there.

Geezz! The law or regulation was on the books and he screwed up. If the law states that his game can be seized, so be it, and he should man up and learn from his errors whether they were willful or not.

I don't do contests, but I would be royally pissed if I made a legal and concerted effort to generate a winner and then got scooped by a known illegal entry. Can you imagine the fireworks if one lost a Bass Master Classic to a poached fish?

Yes, none of us are perfect and every day we may or may not elect to violate laws. I speed all the time and rarely come to a complete halt at stop signs. If I get ticketed, that's OK, I certainly deserved it, and I will pay the fine without crying or complaining. If the state had the right to take my crew cab for such an infraction, I might think twice about drifting through that stop sign. There are plenty of other laws that I will not violate, one being big game hunting with sub legal arms.

If one doesn't like the rules, he can politic to have them changed or find a different place to live.

Regarding Rabbit Dog's prior post. One can bet that results might have been different had they been been caught under other circumstances attempting to elude discovery. They did the right thing.

It was a recognizable buck and became a legal deer under the State's authority when it escaped the enclosure. She killed it legally and no restitution is mandanted in that case.

Exactly! If he was quail hunting and jumped the thing and unloaded 3 rounds of 8 shot into it's gut and let it run 2 miles and eventually die I guess that would be fine with some folks too. As has been pointed out, there is a REASON there are minimum cartridge requirements in some (all?) states for certain game and though you can nit pick to death the perceived 'loopholes' making them EASY TO UNDERSTAND and meaningful is often a delicate balance. You'd hope that by saying "Only centerfire of .22 cal or greater" people would get the general idea.
The felony charges were for 'contest fraud' not the killing of the deer.
He was an idiot on multiple fronts and I hope he pays idiot prices for it.

22's are not a legal caliber for deer hunting here in CT, yet my departed Uncle George, my name sake, shot all his deer in the last 17 years of his life with a 22 hornet with 45 gr Speer SP bullets. I should know about that since I loaded that ammo for him, got the rifle a savage 340 I think, called me up and say hey can you load some ammo for me, I loaded some 400 rounds for him, when he died, I had to help settle things, I did an ammo count there was still 236 of those hornets left. And he never shot paper, and he never bought any meat in the store either. That guy in Louisiana is just stupid, and he is going to pay for the stupidity. If it was a fork horn or an old dry doe, no one would even care, a buck that would get into the record books well that is something else altogether.

In Idaho, privately owned elk must be ear tagged with clearly visible tags. The main reason is so they can be identified if they escape to help prevent them from breeding with wild animals. It's also to prevent the spread of CWD but that's never been found in Idaho.
The law says that escaped animals become legal for hunters after they've been on the lam for 7 days. How the heck a hunter can determine that is beyond me.