The other side of poaching
On August 25, 2015, a Zimmerman, man pled guilty to a 2014 case of illegally taking multiple deer in the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. The man admitted to killing thirteen deer illegally from the Sherburne Refuge and the Sand Dunes State Forest over a period of years.
Tony Edson, an avid deer hunter from Otsego, has hunted the Sherburne Wildlife Refuge since he was a kid back in 1991. His family also owns 80 acres that border the refuge, so he would hunt both on the family land and the refuge during the hunting season.
It was around 2011 or 2012 that Tony started seeing, while hunting and on his trail cameras, a very nice six-point buck. This was not the typical basket six-pointer. It was huge with very long tines and a big body. The next year he saw the same buck as an eight pointer but never had a chance to harvest it. The following year he saw it again and it was even bigger and sported ten-points. Tony watched this deer grow from a six pointer to a real monster. Not only was it big, it was smart.
The closest encounter he had during hunting season was when the big buck was moving in low light conditions along some cedar trees. It was near the stand where Tony was sitting, but the buck spotted Tony, dropped on all four knees and crawled behind the cedar trees and out of sight. On another occasion, during muzzle loading season, Tony watched from his tree stand as the big deer joined a group of deer along the edge of a field. It was after shooting hours so he could only watch the big buck with his binoculars. He was amazed at the size of the animal compared to the other deer standing by him. Tony watched that deer for four years just waiting for the right opportunity to have a shot at him.
Tony is also a shed antler collector and between his trail camera and two years’ worth of sheds he found, he had an excellent record of what the deer looked like.
Two years passed and Tony never saw the buck again, never heard of anyone shooting it, and assumed it had been killed. Then he heard about the arrest of a hunter shooting big bucks illegally on Sherburne Refuge and started to wonder if that was one of the bucks he had been scouting.
It was at the Minnesota State Fair that he saw the big buck on the Wall of Shame display. His heart sank. That was the buck he’d been hunting for almost five years. It matched the buck exactly on his trail camera. It was not that Tony believed this was his buck, but he felt deprived of the opportunity to hunt it again because someone had illegally taken it.
This is the back side of poaching, illegally hunting or fishing and depriving honest and ethical outdoor folks the opportunity to harvest their game fairly. It affects all of us.
To help protect Minnesota Resources turn in game and fish violations to Turn in Poachers (TIP Hotline 800-652-9093). TIP can also now be found on Facebook.
