Feel free to post the "you are a dumbass" comments here but hopefully I can save some other new hunter some stress.
I got my first bull elk in I Idaho last fall on state land. I came up through public land early in the dark and waited for daylight. I got my bull first thing in the morning and got it tagged and bagged very early. I spent the next several hours moving the game bags around to keep them cool while waiting on the other hunters in the group to call it a day. I had the proper tag, weapon and location. As the day progressed I started feeling the need to expedite getting the elk to the processor. See where I am going with this?
A very thin strip of land along the highway below us had been private Potlatch Latch land for decades and the gates were open and the public routinely used the road to access public lands above it. This land is now owned by the billionaire Wilks Brothers and was on OnX. I rode down an unmarked road on my bicycle and the gate at the very bottom was now closed and locked. It was marked private on the opposite side and visible only when on the other side. I should have turned around and rode back up. The gate was about 100 yards from the highway so I tossed my bike over the gate and rode out to the highway. I was on that land for about 90 seconds. Unfortunately for me Idaho Fish and Game drove by as I was getting the elk loaded into a truck to get it to the processor. At this point I still had no clue of the gravity of the situation!! I felt no cause for concern and with a smile went to meet the officer to provide my ID and documents. At that point in my 58 years I had never even had a parking ticket and was new to hunting.
I got a ticket for trespass to hunt and thanks to the Wilks brothers Idaho trespassing laws became a VERY BIG DEAL in 2018. There have been attempts in the legislature to not allow people to buy very small parcels of land to block access to thousands but thus far the billionaire lobbyist have blocked it. The ticketing officer told me I better get an attorney. What?? I rode my bike across a dirt road where there were no people, structures, or farmland and I did not damage anything.
Fast forward 4 months and the best offer from the county prosecutor was loss of my elk, $1500 fine, loss of nationwide hunting privileges for a year, 90 day suspended jail sentence, 40 hours of community service and 1 year of probation. One would think I cut a lock, shot my elk on private land and rolled around in the dirt with the officer. My friends were hunting the same area the day after I got my ticket and the officer was there confirming where my elk carcass was. It was of course exactly where I told him it was. The charges were strictly for being on private land. If I heard this story I would say someone is full of $hit because something is missing here. It is not. I worked side by side with law enforcement for my career and I definitely passed the attitude test and left nothing but bicycle tracks on private land.
I intended to go to a Jury trial based on the charges and it wasn't until the last hearing the prosecutor dropped the suspended jail time and probation. Fortunately the judge was a decent person and advised me, after I pled guilty, of an Idaho law that will show this case as dismissed in one year and will not show up anywhere.
I think the officer had an ax to grind with one of the people in our camp and I got caught up in it.
IMPORTANT LESSONS
1. Know where you are in Idaho and stay off of private land. It is the hunters responsibility to know.
2. SHUT THE **** UP!! The officer did not see anything and had no proof. I was just a naive dumbass. I have friends that are cops and judges and they have always said never say anything. He kept me there for over an hour questioning me a building a case. At one point I said "can I just go to town and plead guilty and pay my fine?" At that point I thought I was dealing with something like a parking ticket. Guess what video clip he submitted without context? If I could do it again I would have provided my documentation politely said nothing else. I will never share seemingly harmless information again.
Okay there is my humiliating story. Hopefully someone learns from this and turns around when onX tells them to and remember STFU! I cant imagine how terrible it would have been if I had damaged private property or shot my elk on private land!
