So many jackasses, so little space to name the Jackass Of 2011, the person who most exemplified wanton disregard for not only game laws but the reputation of our sport as well as general jackassery last year.
There was Rex Rammel, the former Idaho gubernatorial candidate, who was convicted in July of knowingly shooting an elk in a unit he did not have a tag for. He blamed the guy who sold him the tag, IDFG and generally anybody but himself. Fellow gem of a Gem Stater, Christopher Pluntz, was caught turning in rainbows landed elsewhere for over $6,000 in reward money given out for trout only taken from Lake Pend Oreille.
Over in Oregon, there were the two bozos who not only shot the State Police’s robo deer, but A) tried to haul one home for butchering or something, and B) spiked another as if it were an overgrown, antler-bearing football.
And don’t forget about the Willamette Valley joker who poached a mess of deer, left body parts around his yard, and then, hearing the wardens were due, sacked the mess up ... and hucked it into the North Santiam.
Then there are those who in 2011 were stripped of their hunting privileges for life – James Cody Stearns of Hoquiam, Enoch Ray Robertson of Richland, Ore., Shane and Rory Donoho of Springfield, and Idaho hunters Anton Kapeller and Darren Tubb of Tasmania. Kristopher Lynn of Sandy lost his for five years while Jorey M. Peterson of Hermiston, Adam M. Schreiber of Alsea, and Kyle Immel and Seth Lawrence of Lebanon won’t be hunting for three years.
But the Jackass Of The Year can only go to Anthony “Tony” Mayer. In June he admitted to the 2009 killing of a bull elk without a tag, without an archery permit and out of season.
The kicker?
He runs a Web site called saveelk.com.
Jackass Of the Month
We kick off a whole new year of Jackass of the Month with Samuel Henley, 18, of Tasmania who this past fall, on his first “hunting” trip to Idaho, not only fired at a trophy bull elk four days before the start of season (he missed, his partner killed it), but several days later killed two wolves with one tag.
He and his mates were thrown in jail, and upon his release, he claimed on Facebook, “What else are you ment (sic) to do when a wolf is about to kill you.”
Only problem is that Idaho conservation officers had been watching the crew the entire time, and Henley had actually baited the wolves in ... with wasted elk meat.
