We’ve served up some shady hunting stories to our readers, but this one is in a class all it’s own. A Michigan man is facing some harsh penalties after violating the state’s two-gallon bait limit.
A tip from the DNR Report All Poaching hotline led Michigan Conservation Officer Joseph Myers to an old golf course owned by a man named Dexter James Sysak. Upon arriving, Meyers found a hunting blind and the illegal bait pile. “I saw a hunting blind on the right and I could see an orange object through the trees,” Myers said. “It was a grain trailer full of corn with the door broken off and about 100 gallons of corn on the ground.” There was also a large number of sugar beets spread around the blind.
Meyers returned the next day to find Sysak and 3 other people hunting in the blind. Sysak admitted to killing a 9-point buck over the pile. “Sysak had taken a dump truck of sugar beets and two dump trailers of corn and placed them on his hunting property. The actual measure of bait was impossible to count but was estimated at two-and-a-half tons.”
The meat from the deer as well as Sysak’s gun was confiscated. A jury found him guilty of 3 misdemeanor charges; failing to wear hunter orange, over bait limit, and taking a deer by an illegal method. He was sentenced to pay roughly $15,000 in fines, 45 days in jail, and 90 hours of community service to the DNR. He will also have 2-year probation and a sport license suspension through 2022.
Does the punishment fit the crime for this one?
