Santa Rosa Press Gazette

MILTON — The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission filed these cases between Jan. 19 and 25 in Santa Rosa County:

While on patrol, Officer Mullins was checking a subject who had recently taken a deer. The subject had a cooler full of fresh deer meat, but the subject did not have the meat tagged and did not possess any sex evidence showing that the meat was from a legal deer.

Officer Hutchinson arrived shortly thereafter to assist. The subject admitted to taking a short-horned buck that was under the legal antler size limit for the area. Through the investigation, it was discovered that a second subject had harvested a short-horned buck from this same property a day earlier. 

The officers seized two sets of antlers, the meat from two fresh deer and two firearms that were used to take the illegal deer, along with cannabis and drug paraphernalia. 

Several charges were filed with the State Attorney’s Office. 

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Lieutenant Hahr was patrolling the Escambia River Wildlife Management Area at Salter’s Lake after receiving complaints that subjects had been shooting well after legal shooting hours. 

Hahr heard several shots well after shooting hours coming from a slough between the lake and the main river. 

After crossing the lake at a shallow area and walking toward the shots, the subjects were found shooting at ducks 28 minutes after legal shooting hours. Neither of the subjects had a valid hunting license, waterfowl permit, management area permit, federal duck stamp, and both subjects were using lead shot to take waterfowl. 

Additionally, the subject who owned the boat had not transferred the title to the boat and the registration was expired; there also were several other boating safety infractions. 

Investigator Livesay and Officer Pettey arrived at the boat ramp and assisted Hahr. Both subjects were issued notices to appear for taking ducks after legal shooting hours, taking ducks with lead shot, and citations for license violations and boating safety violations.