From my understanding of the trophy buck restitution law any violation is a violation. They nailed a guy a few years ago that shot one on private but it died next to the railroad. He recovered it on RR property so they confiscated the buck.
The case I was talking about.
A Bellevue hunter is facing a record $27,851.33 bill for the large buck he shot with his bow last year in the Willard area.
Lifelong hunter Arlie Risner, 58, believes he has nothing to be ashamed of.
He says he pleaded no contest to a charge of hunting without permission because his lawyer convinced him it was an inexpensive way to take care of a citation from the Division of Wildlife.
He paid a fine of more than $300, but figured that when a year’s probation expired, that would be it and he could get back to hunting and fishing.
Risner said he was stunned when he got a letter demanding $27,851.33 in restitution from the ODNR. He can’t hunt or fish in Ohio until he pays, and if he doesn’t cover the bill, he could face a collections lawsuit from the attorney general’s office.
“I’ve never been in trouble in my life,” Risner said. “I don’t think I’ve even done anything wrong.”
The hunting story
Risner’s deer hunting woes date back to Nov. 10, 2010, when he says he went bow hunting on property owned by his cousin, Marcella Handshoe, along Town Line Road No. 12 in Willard. He hit a large buck with his arrow.
“I hit it good,” Risner said.
He saw the deer leap away, losing the arrow sticking out of its neck.
The licensed hunter followed the buck’s blood trail to CSX Railroad property and found the animal where it had dropped. He tagged it, entering the proper information, and took it to officially check in at a Shelby hunting store.
On Nov. 14, a game warden showed up at Risner’s house, saying Risner had been turned in for hunting on railroad property. Risner said he tried to show the game warden where he’d hit the buck, but his cousin had cut the grass, removing the blood trail.
Handshoe said her cousin did nothing wrong.
“He was on my land and he had permission,” said Handshoe, who said she showed Division of Wildlife agents the trees where Risner took cover when he shot the deer. “I am so upset over this whole issue.”
“I know him as well as I do my brothers,” Handshoe said. “Arlie has always been an honest person. I have never heard anything bad about him.”
Arlie said he did what any hunter would do — follow the deer he wounded and harvest it.
The Division of Wildlife investigator who handled Risner’s case, however, said that there was evidence Risner broke the law.
Jeff Collingwood, wildlife investigator for the division’s office in Findlay, said he was sure of Risner’s guilt. If he wasn’t “100 percent certain,” he would not have sought charges, Collingwood said.
“There’s a fence that separates it,” Collingwood said of the property line.
He said officers found gouge marks from a tree stand on a tree on CSX property that the officer accused Risner of climbing, and found deer bait nearby, within bow shot of the tree stand.
Wildlife officers also found deer guts on railroad property and linked it to Risner’s deer using DNA. A blood trail was found on railroad property, but no blood trail could be seen on Handshoe’s property, Collingwood said.
Risner maintains that he didn’t know he’d set foot on CSX property and said there’s no way he could have scaled the tree Collingwood said he did. Why? Because he’d recently had surgery for colon cancer and there’s no way for him to climb a tree like the one that had marks in it.
Clearly, Risner said, someone else had scaled that tree and put the bait out.
Ken Fitz, law enforcement program administrator for the Division of Wildlife, said it’s irrelevant under the law where Risner shot the deer. If he claimed it on property where he didn’t have permission to hunt, it’s still a violation of the law.
Risner pleaded no contest — technically not an admission of guilt — on Feb. 23 and paid his court fine. The ODNR confiscated both the antlers and the meat