For Natural Resources Police corporal John Myszka of Snow Hill, it was a great day. For the illegal hunters he snagged that day after Thanksgiving, it was pretty costly. But then, they deserved it.
Myszka, who has worked the Worcester County area for 18 years, still remembers several years ago when he and his partner (now undercover and thus un-named) racked up close to $10,000 in fines and confiscated equipment for the state in one day.
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It started with the two afield before legal hunting time (legal half-hour before sunrise), noting guns firing and ducks falling. The two were checking a private pond that was heavily baited. Baiting is the illegal practice of artificially adding feed (in this case corn) or other attractant to an area to attract birds to increase shooting possibilities.
The officers let the three illegal hunters shoot enough to produce the evidence needed in court. When intercepted and the ducks finally found and counted, the poachers had 14 black ducks, 11 over the limit of one each. Citations were issued for hunting too early, taking too many black ducks and hunting over bait. They all paid their fines ? $6,900 ? without contesting anything in court.
The end of the day found Myszka out at night, checking jacklighters, those illegally night-hunting deer with lights. Finding lights sweeping fields, the two officers in separate vehicles ran up on a tree blind to find two deer poachers. In court, both poachers lost their high-powered high-priced rifles, one paid a $1,000 fine and the other skipped. He has a $20,000 bench warrant for his arrest when he is found.
It pays to hunt legally and carefully, since hefty fines for egregious violations are possible, according to NRP spokesperson Sgt. Ken Turner. He noted that the most flagrant general hunting violations are failure to obtain a hunting license, a loaded firearm in a vehicle and failure to wear legally required fluorescent orange.
Each of the above can result in a maximum first-time penalty of $1,500, second-time penalty of $4,000 and/or one year in jail. For deer hunting, the top three violations are hunting at nighttime with lights, failure to attach a game tag and hunting during a closed season.
It still is not always easy for officers in making these cases. In the Myszka?s waterfowl baiting case, one hunter was highly religious. He explained that as a result of his religious convictions, he would not lie about where he had hidden the illegally taken ducks, but he also would not help Myszka find them. Myszka found the ducks and made his case. Glory hallelujah.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer isan internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting, and the outdoors, and he has more than 20 books to his credit. He can be reached at [email protected].
