When are people going to wake up and realize that the actual harvesting of game isnt the biggest factor of the hunt. I would rather watch a guy/gal bust their hump and not fill a tag then find out later they tresspassed or poached an animal for the sake of a job....
I agree, but that is not the model that drives sponsorship and network promotion. I know of a lot of other people that "cut corners." In the second link, it talks about Csonka getting a $5,000 fine for not having a film permit. If that was enforced, most of the shows doing the occasional public land hunts would be hammered.
If a warden sat and watched most of the shows, he would probably be taking copious notes. Sometimes producers try to cover it up, but as someone who produces outdoor TV, you can easily spot the cover up efforts.
Example: A Montana bighorn hunt aired earlier this season. It was a hunter from NC, seemed like a great guy who was super thankful for the tag in Unit 680. Montana law requires a guide to wear hunter orange while in the field. Non-guides are not required to do so. This guy has two guides who in most of the show are not wearing hunter orange. Yet, when they go back and shoot some b-roll and re-enactments, the guides are now wearing hunter orange. It is that kind of stuff that makes me laugh and shake my head at the same time.
Another example: While filming last fall a huge group of elk were coming off private on to public. We are set up and waiting for them to come another 200 yards and be on public. All of a sudden some shots ring out and the elk do a one-eighty back into private. Whoever shot was either trespassing on private or taking 1,000 shots at moving elk in a 25 mph cross wind at elk that were still on private. They then commence to chasing the elk and cross some private to get to them. Three of us watched the entire thing. The next day, the guy rolls into our camp to say, Hello. Little did he know we watched all this and he starts telling the story of how they had a shot at some elk on the hill above us the prior day. I tell him I watched the entire thing and he either was trespassing or likes shooting at moving elk from 1,000 yards and if he had lucked out and hit one, how would he have retrieved it from private. He started with a line of bullshit and I told him he can say what he wanted, but he is wasting his breath on me. I have hunted this spot for years and I know exactly every boundary. Knowing he has no filming permit, I ask him if he is filming and he says, "not really". His brother and father ran into me the day before and went out of their way to tell me they were not filming. Sure enough, I see the hunt is now part of his library that is being published, along with his hunt from the same BLM land the year earlier, for which no film permit was acquired. It is this kind of shit that continues every day.
I could go on and on about stuff like that. Accidents happen, where people make a mistake out of ignorance and that can happen to anyone. Not a good excuse, but the intent is not criminal. Most of the time, the stuff I notice is rather blatant.
A friend of mine is known for saying, "Society did not need to invent the idea of anti-hunters, because along came outdoor TV." Unfortunately, ass clowns like the two guys in these links prove just that.
