Hallelujah! Biggest Poaching Bust in Nebraska History
Is there anything more satisfying than watching poachers get theirs?
As ethical hunters, we all hate the following things: sudden rainstorms when we’re tracking a blood trail, Chronic Wasting Disease, and poachers. The first two are acts of God or Nature, and thus beyond our control, but the third is definitely a problem we can all help tackle. And if we can’t help, we can at least sit back and enjoy the satisfaction of the biggest poaching bust in Nebraska history. So far, 30 people have pled guilty and more are likely to come, according to this article in the Omaha World-Herald.
“So far…$570,453 in fines and restitution have been assessed, and 53 years’ worth of hunting and fishing permits have been forfeited. Other cases are still working their way through the system,” states the piece, and that’s where we are today. But as satisfying as that sentence is to read, it’s so much more so when you know how the story began.
It starts out with a Nebraska outfitter called Hidden Hills Outfitters. Its co-owner, a 30-year-old named Jacob Hueftle, had apparently decided that the best way to get famous as an outfitter with a 100% success rate was to break as many game and fish laws as possible. From tactics that are legal in some areas (just not Nebraska), to tricks that are illegal everywhere, to stuff that would make the Hatfields and McCoys say “damn,” Hueftle did it all.
According to the Omaha World-Herald, that included baiting. If you live in Texas, chances are you’re scratching your head about that, because that is a legal tactic in the Lone Star State. It isn’t legal in Nebraska, but I suppose a hunter could be forgiven for trusting their outfitter to tell them whether or not it’s okay to do that.
However, for the vast majority of the cases working their way through the Nebraska courts, the hunters absolutely should have known better. Hidden Hills Outfitters sent its hunters out to jacklight deer at night, to shoot from vehicles and roads, and to rifle hunt during archery season.
What’s more, animals were frequently left to waste and rot once their antlers (or horns, for the pronghorn antelope) had been removed. According to the World-Herald, “at least 97 game animals were illegally killed: 30 white-tailed deer, 34 mule deer, six pronghorn antelope and 27 turkeys.” (Of course, because those are the ones we know about, chances are excellent that the real numbers are considerably higher.)
How did the biggest poaching bust in Nebraska begin? Interestingly, the case started with a tip that investigators won’t divulge. Was it a client who was alarmed and disgusted by what he or she saw at Hidden Hills? A rival outfitter who knew that Hidden Hills’ success rate was much too good to be true? We don’t know, but we can raise a glass of our favorite tipple to toast the anonymous tipster. Good-bye to these Nebraska poachers, and good riddance.
I am not saying what this outfitter did was OK, not by a long shot, and illegal activity should be dealt with. But Buckshott00 has a point. An example,
Hunters take a few deer in the Catskills of NY and hang them in the barn on their property. They were tagged and all legal. Then, sometime later a Conservation Officer comes along and inspects the deer hanging in the barn, but the tags are nowhere to be seen! The hunters do not have their tags anymore, so where are they? The barn was not secured/locked. The hunters got fined for un-tagged deer, the deer were confiscated and the hunters lost their licenses for a year. As the deer were unattended for a time ( the hunters were out trying to fill their doe tags) could a CO have taken the tags to facilitate a conviction?
The hunters still hang the deer in the barn, but now lock it up each time they leave. You all decide.
Luckily that’s not how the justice system works.
“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Crazy how many folks are screaming “throw the book at them” as if coming in and pleading guilty isn’t already owning up to the crime. I supposed everyone always drives the speed limit too??
Listen, I despise poachers, but some of you jokers act like you’ve never had a bad encounter with an overzealous or bad CO/GW before, and it shows. Maybe just think about how you’d feel if you won a trip to some New Jersey bear hunt, you follow the rules to the letter and a CO looking for a bust throws a handful of shelled-corn to trip you up? Happens all the time. Or you’re boating an Indiana waterway and suddenly they stop your boat and detain you for a full inspection and shake down just because.
Some of you clowns want to act like it never happens or it’s that it’s some astronomically rare event, but it goes on all the time. So maybe try to temper the outrage with a little understanding huh?
Now watch, I fully expect a bunch of A-holes to come up and tell me how they’ve always followed the law perfectly 100% of the time and they’ve never had a problem and have nothing but good encounters. etc. Probably while hunting private land or the same few acres of remote public land that they’ve always hunted forever and ever as if their experience is universal to all hunting. For those jesters I pre-emptively suggest you get yourself a copy of the book below. Maybe if you can read your way thru it you might have a bit more sense about how to deal with self-reporters
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
All of that and it still doesn’t address the fact that every year the rules and regulations for hunting gets longer and longer making it more and more complicated seemingly in an effort to trip up otherwise careful and safe hunters.
Anyway, for anyone that self-reported or learned they had been doing wrong unknowingly based on different law sets where they typically hunt, I would suggest leniency, but for the outfitters and guides themselves that full well knew what was going on was illegal and did it anyway, yeah the ones that broke the law and continued to habitually break the law because they thought they were getting away with it; throw the book at those guys.
should take their hunting privilege’s away for life
Baiting is not hunting. It’s a Slaughter, and shameful.
So, it’s up to me to post a REASONABLE response, eh?
Yes, good riddance, and that INCLUDES those that participated in this shameful act.
Face it folks, no REAL hunter shoots big game from a vehicle, or jacklights. EVEN if it were legal, it sure as hell isn’t ‘hunting’..
So those that hired this clown and then went along with it deserve what they get.
Any intelligent hunter would question a 100% success rate, just from the knowledge that seeing the game and getting close does NOT guarantee a hit, or that the hunter themselves won’t have a bout of ‘Buck fever’.
No way to cover that in a 100% success ratio.
The name of the game IS to score, if possible, but the nature, and the LURE, of the game is the pursuit, to pit oneself against nature and the odds.
What satisfaction is there in cheating????
What satisfaction is there in cheating? All you have to do is go ask a democrat.
I’m so over it, but that was a good one. Sad but true.
Hey Bob,
In today’s mambi-pambi America your suggestion seems a little harsh.
Maybe a better solution might be to look at the UAE. If someone in their courts is found guilty of being a thief they just cut off their dominate hand. I could fully support that!
God Bless and be safe
Great idea
That’s utterly disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. You are also probably in favor of torturing enemy prisoners of war despite what you were taught about the rules of land warfare in BCT. Fortunately, the constitution and the law are not on your side.
The only way you can get poachers and the like to stop is stop putting them in jail and show to the rest of them that the Old proven days of Justice are back .
Once caught you just hang them .
Like back in the day when cattle and horse thieves were caught .
Stop being soft on all the criminals and there might be more criminals thinking twice before they do it .
The justice system fines the guilty or puts them in jail and the tax payers , pay for the criminals wrong doings .
Saddle up boys.