The Honest Poacher
0n Thanksgiving Day 2007 I was dealing with the normal deer gun season complaints when I received a call about someone trespassing northeast of Barnsdall. The call started off usual enough, with a complaint from the landowner of a pickup truck parked on his land with a box of 30-30 shells on the dash. I was working in an area that was just south of Barnsdall so it was a short drive to where the complaint came from.
The landowner met me at the gate and showed me where the truck was parked on a lease road that crossed his land. I was looking into the truck for evidence of what the guy might be doing or had done, when I spotted a deer tag on the dash. The tag was folded in a way that you could see the back of it through the windshield. You could see that the hunter had filled out the record of game portion of the tag. The hunter filled out the tag that he had harvested a deer at 8:00 a.m. on the 17th of November, which was the opening day of gun season, with a gun. The deer tag even showed that the deer had been checked in at check station #7402.
While I was looking at the deer tag through the windshield the hunter came walking down the lease road carrying a rifle. The first thing I noticed about the hunter was that he was not wearing any blaze orange at all, which if you are a hunter you know that you're supposed to have on at least 400 square inches of orange. The hunter walked up to where I was standing with his truck and I introduce myself to him and ask to see his hunting license and deer tag. The hunter got his hunting license out of his wallet but said he didn't have a deer tag. At this point I ask the hunter if I could take a 
look at the deer tag on the dash and he said yes. I got the deer tag off the dash and looked at the front of it and notice that the deer tag had been purchased at 8:25 a.m. on the 17th of November. Now I'm not the smartest guy, but even I can figure out that something here isn't quite right. I've got evidence in hand that he harvested a deer at 8:00 a.m. and purchased the deer tag at 8:25 a.m. the same day. I began to question the hunter about the deer tag and the times on the tag. After a few minutes of questioning the hunter admitted to harvesting a deer early in the morning on the 17th, then driving into Barnsdall and purchasing a deer tag, and then taking the deer to Bartlesville to check it in.
The hunter was issued a few citations for his indiscretions. I then followed the hunter to his residence where I confiscated the deer meat and the antlers from a small buck. It always amazes me that a simple case such as a trespass complaint can turn into a bigger case like this one involving an illegal deer.