THE HUNDRED POUND DOE

By Sgt. Robert Buatt

The November muzzleloader season this past year at my hunting lease in Avoyelles Parish was successful for a few, frustrating for many and costly for at least one individual.

From early November until the opening of muzzleloader season I had been taking photographs of deer with by brand new game camera. Technology makes this very easy. All you have to do is put out a pile of corn in front of your camera and it takes the deer’s picture when they come in the middle of the night to eat. The nocturnal feeding makes deer hunting very frustrating for hunters. Many of the deer I photographed were does with their fawns, and the fawns in the photographs were still pretty small and still had their spots.

I was on my days off and at my camp during the week for muzzleloader season. As we all know, wildlife agents are off during the week more than on the weekends. This is nice because the woods are much less crowded with hunters. This may perhaps set the stage for someone to be more comfortable with bringing out illegal game because there is less chance of them being seen.

My first morning there was a little foggy. I sat in my deer stand with the anticipation of seeing a nice buck. It was probably about 7:30 a.m. or so when I saw two nice does at the end of one of my food plots. They were about 125 yards from me as I watched them for a short while. I could see the two deer pretty well considering the light fog we had. I passed on shooting one in hopes of seeing a nice buck. During the course of the morning I heard several shots in different directions. The shots sounded encouraging because some hunters were being successful.

By mid-morning I became bored and decided to head back to my camp. On the way I stopped at my buddies’ camp to see if he was one of the lucky hunters this morning. He wasn’t. After a short visit I headed for my camp. I guess it must have been a little after 10:30 a.m. as I headed down our little road on my 4-wheeler. Just ahead of me two ATV’s pulled out in front of me from a side trail. The two guys looked at me then quickly turned away and never looked back again. You see, it doesn’t take long for everyone on your hunting lease to learn that you are the “Game Warden”. I guess these guys were hoping that I didn’t see the little hooves sticking out of the ATV basket.

I followed them for a short distance and they never looked back - their heads were fixed looking straight ahead. After they turned off the main road on to the trail leading to their camp, I whistled and both ATV’s stopped. I drove up next to the ATV with the little hooves poking out of the basket. There was hunting gear piled on top of the deer. One of the guys, we’ll call him Slim, walked up after he got off the other ATV. He seemed very nervous. I said, “Well I see ya’ll got one this morning.” Slim said, “Yea we got it early this morning.” I asked, “Is it a little buck or a doe?” Slim said, “It’s a doe.” “Well let’s see it”, I suggested. Slim hesitated and moved some of the items on top of the deer around a little. “Well!” I said. Slim picked up a bag on top of the deer and all I saw was spots in front of my eyes. “Uh oh it’s got spots”, I said. Slim said, “But it’s so close you can’t hardly tell” as he pointed to the spots. I looked at the guy sitting on the ATV with the fawn; we’ll call him Joe. “Well Joe”, I said, “Did you kill this one?” Joe’s eyes were as big as saucers as he just shook his head no. I asked, “Ya’ll both know I’m a wildlife enforcement agent?” Joe and Slim said they knew who I was.

I read both the Miranda warning and asked who shot the spotted fawn. Slim confessed to killing the little deer. It probably didn’t weigh more than 25 pounds. I told Slim to load the fawn on his ATV and follow me to my camp. Slim didn’t seem happy at all but he did what I told him to do. I told Joe to head to his camp and if I needed him I would send for him. Slim and I got back out on the main road and headed to my camp.
When we got to my camp I called the Region 3 office in Pineville and told Capt. Peter Oliver what I had. Capt. Oliver said he would send Sgt. Russell Dauzat to my camp to take care of the violation. I told Slim, “Well Russell is on his way so go ahead and get out your driver’s license and hunting licenses so we’ll have that when he gets here.” Slim pulled out his wallet and started looking through it. Any agent with any experience can pretty much tell when someone is stalling because he doesn’t have his hunting or fishing license. This is what Slim was doing. He looked up and said, “Uhhh I don’t have my big game and my muzzle loader licenses.” I asked, “Why not?” Slim looked up at me and began to give an excuse of just getting in from Texas where he was working and he didn’t have time. I said to him, “Well you had time to buy your basic hunting license, you should have bought the others then.” Slim looked at me a little crossways then said, “Yea you are right.”

While we waited on Sgt. Dauzat to arrive I invited Slim into the camp and made a fresh pot of coffee. While we sat and drank coffee we visited. Slim told me all about how he has deer hunted since he was eight years old. He is in his middle thirties now. Slim said, “You know it was real foggy this morning and it was hard to tell how big this deer was. I thought the deer weighed at least a hundred pounds when I shot it.” Slim went on to say, “Bobby, you heard the shot at about 7:30 this morning when I shot the deer and you know how foggy it was.” Slim said, “The deer was at least 25 or 30 yards when it stepped out in front of me.” “Well it wasn’t too foggy for me to watch two does at over 100 yards and see them good enough to tell what they were”, I said. Slim was a friendly sort of fellow and just wouldn’t shut up so I just let him talk. Boy, did he give me a few good ideas about what I’m gonna do next year right after the squirrel season opens. Some fellows like to brag. I guess he kind of forgot who he was talking to.

My brother, Lou was at the camp and got to hear all what Slim had to say. He found it very interesting. Slim tried to gain a little sympathy from Lou about all this but that didn’t work. Lou acted just sympathetic enough to keep Slim talking.
It wasn’t too long before Sgt. Dauzat arrived. I told Sgt. Dauzat what we had and showed him the fawn. Sgt. Dauzat asked me if I wanted to have Slim transported to jail and booked. I told Sgt. Dauzat that Slim was pretty cooperative and seemed rather friendly so I didn’t think we needed to bring him to jail. Besides Slim is a local from there and he would not skip out on showing up for court. Sgt. Dauzat went up to Slim and told him that we were doing him a big favor by just writing him a ticket and not bringing him to jail. Slim was very thankful for that. When it was all said and done Slim walked away from there with a ticket for the spotted fawn, tickets for not having his big game and muzzle loader licenses, and a civil restitution summons for the illegally taken deer. He also left the woods with a little less equipment than he went in with because we seized his muzzleloader and the fawn too.