Although the Cook County News-Herald knows that the majority of sportsmen and women are law-abiding folks, there are a few that run afoul of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Conservation Officers. Periodically, the DNR provides a report of some of the miscreants the Conservation Officers (CO) have encountered. The News-Herald shares these stories as a reminder to all to be safe and to follow the rules! CO Darin Fagerman (Grand Marais) reports another weekend, another washout. Some of the avid anglers are telling the CO that they haven’t had much time to fish because they’ve been mowing their grass between downfalls. One fellow said his grass is growing so fast he can almost hear it growing. The mosquitoes are continuing to enjoy such weather. The anglers checked in the last week report very slow action. A nuisance bear call was handled and enforcement action was taken for boating violations. CO Mary Manning (Hovland) handled an ATV trespass complaint near Grand Marais. She worked a back country detail in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area with other officers. Manning also completed annual training, helped out with training for new officers at Camp Ripley and took calls about over-eager beavers and lake access issues. CO Thomas Wahlstrom (Tofte) spent the week checking anglers on area lakes, boaters and monitored ATV activity. The officer returned phone calls and responded to nuisance animal complaints. CO Don Bozovsky (Hibbing) checked one angler who did not have a license or an ID. When asked why he didn’t have a license, the person said he was 16, however when he provided his date of birth, the math indicated the person was 18 (in either case a license is required). The truth came out and the angler was cited. To top things off, no PFDs were on board for the angler and the other two occupants. CO Marty Stage (Ely) worked a couple different fishing TIPS and found the people who were supposed to be taking more than their limits of fish were having trouble catching fish. One local Ely party was catching a few walleyes and had one bag of walleye fillets with the patch of skin on for transportation as per the law, but they also had bags of what they called the trimmings that they said were for their cats. The problem was, the bags of trimmings were larger than the fillet bags. The party was dumbfounded that they couldn’t clean their walleyes in the field without leaving the fillets whole so they could be counted. The law was explained to the veteran fisher people who couldn’t believe the law could be so restrictive for them, and it was determined that if they truly wanted to feed the fillet trimmings to their cats, that they better take them home to do the filleting. WREO Rob Haberman (Emily) took two animals calls over the weekend. A loon was stranded on land and with the help of the landowners was placed back into the lake and was able to fly away. Also, a young coyote pup found its way into a fenced-in garden and lay down to hide itself. Haberman was able to pick up the pup and place it into the woods, where the pup scampered off out of site. CO Tom Hemker (Winona) continues to receive wild animal calls and concerns including rattlesnakes in a yard, deer in a fence, and a baby muskrat found at 1:30 a.m.
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