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Here’s what’s worth reading today, Friday, December 18, 2020:
Christmas in Texas brings enjoyable memories of hunting, fishing and family
Texas Wildlife Management Areas offer excellent public waterfowl hunting
Man fatally shoots son while deer hunting in Ohio
An Elyria, Ohio, man unintentionally shot and killed his 28-year-old son while deer hunting in Delaware County last week.
Bradley Smith, 63, apparently mistook his son, Andrew Smith of Columbus, for a deer while hunting at dusk, said Tracy Whited, spokeswoman for the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office.
The Smiths were hunting with a group of friends in a heavily wooded area in the 2000 block of Pollock Road, just outside the city of Delaware. The group, who were experienced hunters, had met there for more than 20 years to hunt white-tailed deer during the state’s annual deer gun-hunting week, which ended Sunday.
Whited said Andrew Smith was not wearing any orange hunting clothing when the shooting occurred about 5:45 p.m. on Dec. 2. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The elder Smith is not facing any charges, she said.
In Ohio, hunters are legally required to wear orange during deer-gun season while hunting from 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife’s hunting and trapping regulations guide. This requirement applies statewide on both public and private land.
That day, the sun set just after 5 p.m.
“It’s just the worst kind of tragedy,” Whited said. “He thought he was shooting at a deer. It was his son.”
Every hunter should know what the Lacey Act is, how it works, and why it’s on the books
It’s become an almost regular occurrence for a “hunting celebrity” to get busted breaking game laws each fall. They post their violations to social media or showcase the hunts on outdoor TV—exactly the platforms that federal agents watch, waiting for them to make such a blunder.
Any unethical hunter can end up in this kind of jackpot, but it’s the celebrity cases that draw the most attention, because, well, they are inherently attention-seekers.
Hunters Josh and Sarah Bowmar are a few of the more recent hunting personalities charged with violations, joining the ranks of Spook Spann, Chris Brackett, and a host of others (though the Bowmars have not yet been convicted of any wrongdoing). Deer and Deer Hunting reported in late October that the Bowmars had been indicted by a federal grand jury, but the case circulated on various social media channels months prior to that. You might remember the Bowmars from the notorious Alberta bear hunt that led the province to outlaw bear hunting with a spear. In this case, they are being charged with knowingly transporting, attempting to transport, receive and acquire wildlife, including turkey, deer or parts thereof, in interstate commerce, according to the Grand Jury indictment.
Often, these types of charges become a federal matter, due to a myriad of laws that fall under the Lacey Act. Signed in 1900 by President William McKinley, the Lacey Act protects plants, fish, and animals by civilly and criminally penalizing those who violate its provisions. It also prohibits the importation of invasive or harmful species, or their introduction to the environment (for example, zebra mussels into lakes and rivers).
14-year-old Kansas girl shoots world record-breaking buck
With hunting seasons well underway in the state of Kansas, a Cimarron teen harvested what is now a buck breaking record.
On September 6, just one day after the opening of youth deer season, 14-year-old Paslie Werth harvested a massive, world record-breaking buck while rifle hunting with her dad, Kurt.
“On Sunday, we hadn’t seen a deer yet, and then when we went out that evening, I had no idea he’d be there and stand up 25 yards away,” said Kurt.
The 42-scorable point buck initially tallied an unofficial gross green score of 282 6/8 inches and displayed 44 total points.
“When we got the score, it was hard to wrap around because none of us guessed it to be that much. And it was just very surprising, and I kinda couldn’t believe it,” said Paslie. “The trail camera pictures that we got, did not do it justice.”
A Black-owned camp in the Poconos aims to make hunting more diverse
If Warren Gamaliel Harding Brown could see the hunting camp his grandson has crafted in the Poconos, he’d admire the large stone fireplace, the taxidermied deer head, and the turkey feathers on display beside some spent shotgun shells.
The flat-screen television mounted on the wall might have surprised the late patriarch, but the spirit of the place would have pleased the man who taught older family members to hunt and inspired the younger ones, decades ago, in rural Virginia.
That’s why Jonathan Wright named the the place “Pocono Browns.”
“He’s the one who started it all, this deep connection to the woods,” Wright, dressed in camouflage and safety orange, said at the camp on a recent weekday.
Wright, 34, doesn’t promote Pocono Browns, which he bought in April, as a Black-owned hunting camp, but it’s fair to say there aren’t many in the Northeast. Most hunters who rent his place are white, he said, but Black hunters, particularly newer ones, have sought him out.
“I had a guy drive here all the way from Columbus, Ohio, to hunt here because he was a Black hunter who was new to hunting and he wanted that level of comfort,” Wright said. “One of my passions is to get more Blacks into hunting.”
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