From staff and news services
Here are the some of the highlights from the DNR’s monthly collection of conservation officer tales — or, as they might also be called, "Stupid human tricks."
REMEDIAL MATH, REMEDIAL ETHICS: Conservation Officer Mike Martin (St. Cloud) checked the license of a father and daughter angling on an area lake. The father said he had a license, but not with him. The daughter said she was 15, so she didn’t need a license. When Martin asked the girl for her birth year, she told him 1990. She tried to change her story, but the date she gave still made her 16 and in need of a license.
BEER, BLAZE AND BOOM: Conservation Officer Jeremy Woinarowicz (Thief River Falls) noticed a large cloud of dark black smoke rising from a distant farmyard. Fearing a structure fire, he investigated, finding a Winnebago type RV fully engulfed in fire and three people standing around the blaze drinking beer. They later admitted to lighting the RV on fire to salvage the scrap metal from the shell and frame. While Woinarowicz was obtaining their information for a court summons, the gas tank on the RV exploded, sending a fireball 50 feet into the air. The local fire department put out the blaze.
THAT’S HOW WE DO IT IN TEXAS: Conservation Officer Stacey Sharp (Bemidji) along with CO Mark Mathy (Cass Lake) responded to a Turn In Poachers call of a person shooting at a deer with an arrow from the box of a truck. The suspect and his mother were located. They said that was how they hunted in Texas. The pair said they shot at a rabbit, not a deer.
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PRETEND FISHING: Conservation Officer Aaron Kahre (Minnetonka) was working Lake Minnetonka in the Excelsior area when he approached a portable fish house where a hand auger lying beside the door. Two men inside were sitting on buckets with a fish locator and a jiggle stick in front of them. Kahre asked why they didn’t have any holes to fish through. They said they got tired after about five inches of drilling with the hand auger and decided to just pretend fish before heading home.
