For all you internet heroes out there. Here is Ron's side of the story. It is amazing how fast MOST people will just trash someone based on very little information. Ron handled this exactly how he should have. Wyoming did NOT!!
Hi guys, I'm addressing the elephant in the room since no-one else has posted it. As many of you probably know due to the recent media and social media crap storm, I was investigated and cited for wasting a big game animal last year in Wyoming. I thought the whole thing was bs and told them I'd see them in court. I did and kicked their ass.
I have been out of service much of September but wanted to clear up some details surrounding my 2025 bull elk. The media and social media firestorm of coverage regarding the investigation, charges, trial and subsequent acquittal has been surprising to say the least. I’m just now able to address it.
On September 19, 2025, I was bowhunting elk on National Forest land with good friend Adam Miles. We made an excellent stalk and I shot a large bull elk shortly before dark. The hit looked good and the bull only went a short distance before bedding down. We watched until we absolutely couldn’t see anymore. The bull was still alive, with his head up, so we backed out, planning to return at daylight.
Adam and Mary Miles and I returned first thing in the morning with packs and knives, ready to work. We approached carefully, making a lot of noise, pistols in hand. Grizzlies are thick where we hunt and we didn’t want to surprise one. The bull was laying in an open area right where he bedded the night before. When we got to him, it was obvious that a grizzly had been there. The guts were protruding from his side and there were bite marks everywhere. There were also two piles of grizzly poop within a few yards. We are very experienced hunting around grizzly bears and know what their poop looks like. Based on factors that I’ll explain below, we determined the meat was inedible and that a grizzly was likely laying in the timber nearby. I was damn proud of this bull and the stalk that it involved. Photographs are extremely important to me so we rolled the bull over, smoothed out the hair as best we could and took several photos with Mary standing guard. Adam said he could have the head off in minutes so we chose to also do that. You don’t eat the head and the fact that there were other hunters in the area who might have made off with it helped us make that choice, otherwise we would have returned in a week or so for the head. I punched my tag even though I could technically have continued hunting for another elk. I killed my elk. I didn’t want another one.
We elk hunt public land. We live on wild game. We don’t buy beef. We are not afraid of grizzlies. We respect them and spend our Septembers with them. We have MUCH experience dealing with them. We’ve been charged many times. We can’t shoot the dang bears if they claim a carcass or try to run us off one which has happened to us and I’m sure, many others. We are not lazy hunters. This would have been our easiest elk packout ever. In the past 12 years, our hunting group has packed 56 elk out on our backs. The longest pack was 6 miles and the total distance of all the packouts was more than 150 miles. I have personally been involved with processing and packing my own animals, as well as friends and family’s: Approximately 10 moose, 8 sheep, 4 mountain goats, 4 bison, 6 caribou, 119 elk, 166 deer and 61 antelope. I had absolutely no idea of those numbers until going through my photographs. It’s probably contributed to my 8th back surgery coming up in 5 days.
So here is why I fought the charges and the jury found me not guilty.
1. In 2016, Mary Miles killed a bull and before we found it, a grizzly did. She contacted the game warden (prior to the current one) and he advised her “If you can sneak in and grab the head, do that, but do NOT take the meat. It is contaminated and unsafe to eat.” A simple internet search backs that opinion.
2. The Game and Fish regulations state: The department may require substantive proof from any person who fails to retrieve from the site of the kill all edible portions of a big game animal as the why the edible portions were not removed from the field. I believe we provided adequate photographic evidence. When asked what would be considered substantive proof, the department could not define it.
3. On the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s website, under the bear-wise section, there is a video showing two hunters approaching a kill. When they observe a disturbed carcass, they turn and walk away. The video says “Play if safe. Never attempt to scare a bear away.”
This whole thing was a waste of my time and money, the jury’s time and inconvenience as well as the court’s. It has greatly tarnished my reputation and wrecked my confidence in the department. I’ve always had an excellent relationship with them and have served on local working groups. Could I have done better? Yes. When I had service, I could have called the warden and let him know the situation. However, we have done that with other department personnel when we’ve had grizzly bear issues in the past and their replies have been “Well it’s that time of year – the bears are hungry.” There is no legal requirement to notify the department. We thought we’d handled the situation properly. That probably wasn’t fair to the new warden. We don’t know what he might have said. Hopefully the department will make some much needed changes or additions to their regulations. I doubt they will.
So there it is for better or worse. I know many have already formed opinions. I’m not trying to change those, only bringing forth what actually happened. It has not been properly portrayed in the media. Thanks to all who have supported me. It truly means the world to me.
