This article is in the news here today. 4 Men guilty of deer poaching Published 7:08 AM CDT May 19, 2013 Four men from Louisiana men have been found guilty of poaching deer in southwest Iowa. The Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil reports that Michael Fralick, of Ponchatoula, La., was recently convicted of 32 counts of deer hunting violations in four southwest Iowa counties. Fralick was ordered to pay nearly $29,000 in fines, court costs and damages and forfeit two rifles. He also received a five-year license suspension. James Moore, also of Ponchatoula, pleaded guilty to 11 counts. He was ordered to pay nearly $12,000 and has a five-year license suspension. Stanley Russel, of Roseland La., and William "Heath" Chambliss, of Kentwood, La., were also convicted of several counts and ordered to pay more than $1,400 each. Both received a two-year license suspension. The four also face hunting counts in Kansas. Read more: http://www.kcci.com/news/central-io.../20208370/-/u570uu/-/index.html#ixzz2TqM2adpF Here is my observation and wonder if anyone can shed some light on this. Why is it that nearly every time someone around here from out of state gets caught poaching they are from the south? We had a group in town two years ago that were camping in a state forest here in an RV, using ATV's and rifle hunting deer (rifles are illegal during regular season) and they killed over their limit. They did not even have deer tags or a hunting license! They too were from Lousiana. They lost everything they had with them including their RV, ATV's, weapons and hunting boots when they got caught. It is a real problem in Iowa. The majority of nonresident violators are from Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. Is it a cultural thing? Are there just that many rednecks down there that dont give a crap about game laws? Is poaching in the south just a way of life? Our game officers even admit that they have a better than average chance of writing tickets to anyone from the south. I dont want to paint with too broad of a brush because I know there are many upstanding sportsmen and women from the south, but you sure seem to have a lot of scumbags too. What gives?
There are a lot of rednecks in the South, obviously, and add the fact that the deer populations are not near what they are in the midwest, this probably leads many of the law breaking rednecks to poach when they are in the midwest. The opportunity to kill deer not available down here might be just too much for their small brains, therefore they poach.
Makes sense I guess. It's too bad because anytime we see a license plate from the south we get suspicious. Many of them are just so blatant.
If I had to guess, most of the states/territory N of Iowa have decent sized deer, so if they are going to poach they don't bother to travel out of state. All Southerners aren't bad people (says the Yankee transplant), but a few are probably enough to generalize. Just like you can only find the giant deer in IA/IL...The media/shows hype the giants in IA and IL which I would suspect appeal to those intent on breaking the law. I know we had poachers in upstate (Adirondaks of) NY, perhaps more in the Catskills...as more people live in the lower portion of the state. They were just intent on shooting anything...or at least that was our generalization...There are good and bad everywhere.
The deer aren't near as big down here. Lots of deer in Middle & West Tennessee. Not a lot of poachers here....I mean they catch some every year though.
Believe me when I say we have our fair share of poachers that stay down here and saw the heads off of deer and just leave the bodies in the woods. But, as a southerner when people up north hear every season about these idiots from down south that get caught poaching it makes all of us get lumped into one group which honestly is one reason I hate being referred to as a redneck. I love watching hunting shows and its pretty much one of the only things on television you can watch now without out gratuitous filth in it, but when you see michael waddell shoot a 170 class buck in Iowa every 5 minutes it starts to get to you I suppose for some people more then others. What Bubba in his recliner doesn't understand I think is that there are many factors why a Iowa buck is so different then a say Georgia buck or Louisiana buck. Like I said earlier what upsets me most is everyone groups us all together and says all southerners are dumb and law breakers because a bunch of each year decide they want to do something reckless and also it makes it easier for the left to take it out on ALL hunters in general.
From what I've been told poaching is rampant up in the bigtime northern hunting states. Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. Fletch, if you lived in Tennessee you probably wouldn't see guys from LA commiting game violations in your county. They are trying to kill bigger deer in Iowa and being stupid.
What? Poaching in Michigan, never, lol The big buck craze has caused others from states with smaller bucks to break a few laws.
The fact is there are poachers in every state. You hear about the nonresidents because it makes good press. You can bet there are slobs in and from Iowa that poach and don't get caught. Nothing chaps my butt more than those who violate game laws but there doesn't seem to be an end in sight for this kind of crap. I laugh every time I see that their hunting rights got taken away for five years (or however many). They're poachers and most don't have licenses anyway! Hello! Make them serve the months of October and November in jail for the next five years. See if that gets their attention. At least they'll be out of the woods while we're all trying to get some hunting done.
Being from Virginia and living in North Carolina I can tell you it is not just southerners. My wife is from Michigan and there are just as many inbred rednecks (probably more) as anywhere else. You can't group one group of people to four guys and a game wardens hatred for southerners. The TV shows cause lots of your problems. There is a reason they hunt mostly in the mid west, the deer are big because of agriculture and in general they are a lot easier to see and kill. In the south you can't see more than 30 yards in lots of places and the woods are so thick it makes it hard to even see a deer. Don't be narrow minded and group a couple of idiots to everyone in a particular area, if you hunted with my group you would feel right at home.
Believe me, its not one game warden and a single group from the south. It has been a problem here for a long time. Over and over and over it is guys from the south coming up and poaching deer. Year after year. The majority of our problem has been caused by nonresidents from the south. Most of the time they dont even bother trying to get a hunting license or a deer tag. They just get a group together and come up and start shooting deer. It has been the same old story for a lot of years now. Some have been financially ruined by it, but they continue to come. I will admit that Wisconsin and Michigan have been well represented too. Last year we had a guy from Wisconsin hunting on an Iowa DNR officers private hunting farm and he did not even have a deer tag. That was an expensive hunt that also cost him two years loss of hunting rights in all states that reciprocate with Iowa. Dumb.
Poachers are from everywhere....and if we are being honest, the out of staters are the easiest to catch. Locals that poach most often get away with it because they know the area. They know who owns what land, where they will get caught and where they would not. By no means bragging, but if I wanted to poach I know without a shadow of a doubt I would get away with it. Literally as close to zero percent chance of being caught as there can be. Now send me 4 states from home where I have no clue where I am at, and my hypothetical poaching is much more likely to be caught now. Now that said, The south has a lot of redneck poachers... but I've hunted over 10 states and I've noticed them everywhere. I've hunted Alabama some the past two years and have actually noticed far LESS poachers than back home in KY and north of there (where we were in Ohio seemed like the worst area for it).
Good post. I can tell you that it has gotten so much worse since all the TV celebs have moved to Iowa and make it look like hunting in a zoo. Most of them tie up thousands of acres and leave tens of thousands of dollars worth of crops in the fields to attract and hold the deer. It has made Billy Bob and Bubba think they need to jump in the truck with their rifle and a 12-pack and come to shoot a biggun in Iowa. The good news is, a lot of them are so darn stupid that they get caught. Unfortunately, they usually have several deer killed first. A lot of times they are caught with several 2 1/2 year old bucks that would not even qualify as a "trophy" here.
Yeah TV has definitely portrayed Iowa as a Geico commercial for deer hunting, so easy to kill a Booner even a caveman can do it. I'd say southerners are even worse than those from the midwest on their visit because the odds of them having ever seen the average quality of deer that high is much worse than someone from say Michigan or Ohio or Kentucky.
I'm done with this thread. I feel like I am on archery talk. I came here for a more peaceful and helpful experience. Threads like this accomplish nothing. Just leave it at poaching. No need to single out a group of people. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
