exactly what law did he break, from what i gather here, the only thing he is guilty of is writing down the wrong county on the tag....

He was hunting in an AR county. Shot a deer less than 13" wide. He thought he was in his non AR county.

are u sure, the way i read it, he was hunting in a non ar county, shot a deer in a non Ar county and wrote the name of the AR county on the tag and then got toasted... ill go back and read again, u do the same.

Mis read--apologies stick

nah hawgnutz look on his previous posts (the original), i think he did shoot the deer in an AR county but thought that the AR county he was in was not an AR county. He broke the law... negligence is a form of mens rea..... sry for arguin u stick

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1054961/Re_13_spread_got_me#Post1054961


here is the first thread about it.

stick n string... this is ur one chance to rub this in my face that i was wrong lol!!

u better take advantage of it

Nah. I try not to do that if I can help it.

ur no fun.... cable and killer wouldve jumped all over this chance....i guess u are a better man than them.

Well fine then, I told you so!

there u go lol.

Couldn't help myself. I guess I am not better than the two you mentioned earlier. HaHa

im sure u are.... doesnt take much.

Don't shoot one under 13 and you don't have to worry about it period.

This post was to let everyone know the possible fines for shooting a buck under the AR restrictions. Its not to decide if I am quilty or not. I am quilty and pled quilty in court. We learn from our mistakes or someone elses mistake, so I hope yall have learned from mine.

Thanks for posting your experience.

SWK - thanks for sharing, and having to put up with some of the crap here. You did right by letting people know about your mistake. I know the GW in Eastland, seems like a fiar guy to me, he just had to follow the law.

Actually, if you have any federal tags (duck, migratory bird, etc.) on your hunting license, it becomes falsifying a FEDERAL document which is a much bigger deal.

A guy got hammered on this recently when he went to purchase a replacement license after claiming to have lost his. His intent was to get more tags for his one-buck county. I heard about it from a friend, but I assure you that guy ended up with some massive fines.

I lost my license this year and when you fill out the form to get the replacement, it explains to you at the bottom of the page that if anything on the document you just filled out is false, you have committed a felony under Federal law.

SWK, I only point that out so that more people can learn from what's been posted in this thread. I know your situation was just an honest mistake and appreciate that you have shared your story so that others here might learn from it.

AR is not going to work! We need to teach hunter how to age deer not spread.Here is a 5 and half year old buck with a 10 inch inside spread

Good luck on that. Nice buck...at least he made it to 5.5 years of age. That is about twice as long as of a large percentage of deer killed in the State. And that makes him a trophy. I can show you hundreds if not thousands of 5.5 year olds that were wider than 13"'s. How many can you come up with that are less than 13"s. I have only seen 4-5 posted on this forum. Can you show me hundreds if not thousands?

EXACTLY..... there is no0 perfect rule. This rule is as easy as it gets. This is a rule that will cover 98% of the herd in texas. Most mature bucks shot every year are wider than 13", and that's just the way it is.

I see people every yearsaying they think a deer is 3.5, 5.5 ....but it seems that some of these same people that say it's too hard to judge spread want the state to go to an age based system? right.....

there are going to be deer seen every year that should be shot, but if half the east texas hunters didn't have the "if it's brown it's down" attitude, we never owuld have needed a policy like this.

[quote=swk]I shot the deer in eastland county thinking it was legal. The majority of the 155 acres is in callahan and we put up this stand in eastland up this year. I got the counties mixed up. Since I got the ticket I started thinking, if you shoot a deer in a non AR county and the deer dies in a AR county what county goes on the tag? When the Game Warrden was writing me the ticket I told him that I got the counties mixed up. He told me it is a felony to purposely write the wrong county down. It's falsifing a state document. [/quote

There's a lot of great game wardens out there but he sounds like one of the one's who give them all a less-than-stellar reputation among outdoorsmen. What an arse.

I have read a few complaints about "the Ar's will protect the mature deer with a spread with less than 13" spread".Like the picture above.Which is a very small % of the buck herd. For a deer to reach that age in years past would be a feat just in its self. The TPWD could add an addendium to say "That if a buck is harvested and it has a inside spread of less than the 13" rule and the hunter believes that the deer is a mature buck, they could pull the jaw and have it sent to a company that ages deer by cutting the teeth in half and counting the rings. If the buck is,lets say 4.5 years of age or older, than the hunter doesn't get a ticket. The hunter would have to pay for this test so it doesn't cost the state any money. If the deer is less than 4.5, the hunter is stuck with a ticket and the money it cost for the aging test. Just an option that could be considered to make more people happy.

The Game Warrden was not from Eastland or Callahan. The Game Warrden recommended that I get the minimum fine per the prosecuting attourney. Could he have not wrote me a ticket? Probably, but he was doing his job and I respect that.