HERE IS THE FIRST ARTICLE ON THE MASTE RHUNTERS GETTING BUSTED, SORRY ITS SO LONG.



In November 2000, Frederick Lance von Marbod volunteered a weekend to lead a public "elk-watching" tour in Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge.

A month later, he and his hunting partner, Rodney Hoover -- both state-certified master hunters -- were cited for hunting violations in an elk shooting spree just outside of the refuge.

The incident, combined with another involving two master hunters near Cheney, has rocked the foundation of an elite segment of Washington sportsmen who are expected to present a spit-shined public image and follow the highest ethical standards.

"The rumors are flying to where you don't know whether the master hunters are the cream of the crop or the cream of the crap," said Franklin Betz, a hunter education instructor from Cheney.

The case also has left state wildlife agents and one Spokane County prosecutor disgusted over the legal fallout that wasn't settled until this month.

A year and a half ago, however, all was as calm as elk wintering on a refuge.

The elk-watching tour, which has subsequently become popular, had been advertised by Friends of Turnbull as a chance for the public to join an experienced hunter and a refuge biologist to track elk and learn about their habits and habitat.

Von Marbod is an expert resource. He's the secretary for the Friends of Turnbull group, which does considerable volunteer work to benefit wildlife in the refuge.

He and Hoover are among the handful of volunteers allowed onto the refuge by Turnbull officials to survey elk twice a year.

The two Spokane hunters also are certified "master hunters," a distinction given to sportsmen who complete the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department's Advanced Hunter Education Program (AHE).

The program encourages hunters to go beyond the basic requirements one must meet in order to buy a hunting license.

The "master hunters" must study hunter ethics and wildlife management basics, explore the role of hunters in modern society and improve landowner relationships by volunteering to improve wildlife habitat on private land.

They also must meet minimum shooting proficiency requirements.

Of more than 200,000 licensed hunters in Washington, fewer than 6,000 have taken the initiative to enroll in the AHE program.

Only 1,700 have completed the course since it was founded in 1994.

Those elite few hunters who complete the AHE course and pass the exam -- 33 percent fail the written test -- are rewarded with special seasons that are off-limits to the general hunting public.

"Many of these hunts are in sensitive areas where we want only the best hunters who have the self-control and ethical foundation," said Mik Mikitik, the state hunter education coordinator who engineered the AHE program.

That's the setting von Marbod, 54, and Hoover, 60, found themselves in around sunrise on Dec. 28, 2000.

Virtually all the state's big-game hunters had put their firearms away for the year.

Only the master hunters were permitted in the field to pursue elk with modern rifles during the special December hunt for AHE graduates.

Von Marbod and Hoover had driven through the padlocked gates on a two-mile section of Dover Road that runs between Mullinix and Sterling roads south of Cheney.

Spokane County officially closed this road to public vehicle use in 1976.

Von Marbod and Hoover were among a group of hunters that lease the hunting rights to about 1,100 acres west of Dover Road owned by the Nelson Cordill family.

These hunters have the keys to the gate locks. Once inside the fence, they can soon disappear from public view into their own private hunting world.

On this day, however, someone else was paying attention.

Hoover, von Marbod and the hunting group that has leased the Cordill land maintain a hay stack and spread grain at a bait station near Dover Road to lure elk off Turnbull Wildlife Refuge, a practice that is legal in Washington.

However, on the east side of Dover Road is property owned by the Tom Labish family and leased by another group of hunters. The Labish land is sandwiched between the Cordill property and the Turnbull Refuge.

Hunting is necessary in the area surrounding Turnbull, said refuge biologist Mike Rule, because elk are multiplying. More than 200 elk are taking a toll on area ranches as well as damaging refuge habitat, most notably to regenerating aspen stands.

A general permit elk hunt was attempted in this area for a few years, but few people who drew tags could get permission to hunt because so much property is leased by a relatively small contingent of hunters.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife decided to put the elk harvest job into the hands of AHE graduates.

Hunters who had access to the lands had a plush incentive to get their AHE certification. They could hunt a growing elk herd just outside an urban area with little competition.

Hunting in the area south of Cheney is sensitive because of the mixture of land ownerships as well as the proximity to the refuge, where hunting is not allowed.

Von Marbod and Hoover did not have permission to be on the Labish property.

And they weren't, at first.

Only von Marbod and Hoover know exactly what happened in the first hour of daylight. But after each had fired a volley of shots, three antlerless elk lay dead in half a foot of snow on the Labish property.

A fourth elk had been seriously wounded, leaving a blood trail as it fled into the refuge. Splotches of offal in the blood indicated it had been gut shot.

Having made some poor shooting decisions, the two hunters compounded their trouble. They made at least three calls by cell phone to request help from other hunters involved in their lease who were not hunting that morning. They included Howard Zeutschel, who lives in the Spokane Valley, and Fred Bozanich and Rick Hubbard of Cheney.

But Hoover and von Marbod did not call the state patrol or fish and wildlife agents to report that they had killed more than their legal limit of elk.

They took down a portion of a fence and drove onto the Labish property to retrieve the three dead elk without permission to trespass.

And when two Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife agents showed up after receiving a tip, only one of the three dead elk had been tagged.

Agents Ray Kahler and Rod Bliss, both of whom have subsequently retired from the department, gave each hunter citations for trespassing and possession of an untagged elk. Hoover was also cited for failure to tag an elk, which in itself can entail a fine of up to $1,000.

"We see cases like this quite often," Kahler said. "But we don't always get them handed to us on a platter. And we don't expect this from AHE hunters."

The legal outcome was not what Kahler expected, either.

After more than a year of legal maneuvering, Hoover and von Marbod were recently allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges.

Judge Christine Cary approved prosecuting attorney Brian O'Brien's recommendation that the hunters be let off with no fine or jail time, even though the original citations involved gross misdemeanors that could have resulted in jail time and substantial fines.

Their sentence involved probation, losing elk hunting privileges for a year, and 40 hours of public service, which von Marbod plans to complete by doing more volunteer work at Turnbull.

"That's a disgraceful sentence," said Kahler, who was hoping he could testify in court on the case. "This was a slam dunk, in your face, you're guilty violation."

"I worked over a year on this with the defendants' three different attorneys," said George Gagnon, the initial county prosecutor to investigate the incident. "I truly felt more should come of it, but I was promoted to a different job and off the case."

Von Marbod said he would have contested the wildlife agents' evidence in court, but several hunters who came to the scene concur with the lengthy incident reports Kahler and Bliss wrote for the court.

"The ground was covered with snow so an amateur could clearly see what happened," said Bozanich.

Hubbard was particularly distressed because von Marbod and Hoover lured him into a situation for which he also could have been cited.

"These guys have just poked every sportsmen in state in the eye," Hubbard said.

"Lance said he called me to help because he didn't want to get blood in his new Suburban. I didn't know what they had done until I got there."

Hubbard said none of the elk was tagged until he showed up.

"These are people I've known and liked; we've had Christmas parties together," said Hubbard, who was obviously torn by the incident. "But they knew I wasn't happy about it. I told them I'd only haul legally tagged animals in my rig.

"Lance is a charming man. You want to be on his side. That's why I was out there. I wanted to help him.

"But even before this, I didn't like the way they where conducting themselves and didn't want to hunt with them," Hubbard said. "I quit the lease."

Zeutschel sides with Hoover and von Marbod, saying they're getting a bad rap for an honest mistake.

But Zeutschel also said, "I was out there to pick up elk. I wasn't looking around."

Franklin Betz, who leases the hunting rights on the Labish property, was looking around, though. He guided wildlife agents through the property before they made the citations.

"By the hair in the snow, you could tell where (the elk) were shot and where they fell," Betz said. "The tracks of the hunters and the elk were clear."

Agent Kahler also took a close look.

"That's the type of situation where we like to give hunters some slack on trespassing because we know that elk are tough animals and they don't always go down immediately," Kahler said.

But this case had too many other factors to overlook that, he said.

Hoover and von Marbod made no attempt at the ethical obligation to follow the wounded elk, Kahler said.

"The elk was bleeding profusely," he said, noting that it had been shot in the abdomen, which usually results in a slow but sure death. "After we wrote the tickets, I followed it nearly until dark and decided to turn back."

The entire case could have been cast in a different light had Hoover and von Marbod simply called wildlife agents to report the incident, Kahler said.

Von Marbod is well-connected in the area. Kahler said he even had the home and cellular phone numbers for wildlife agent Bliss -- private information rarely afforded to sportsmen.

But while they called at least three of their friends after killing the elk, von Marbod and Hoover never contacted wildlife agents or the state patrol, a standard incident procedure AHE hunters are supposed to understand, Kahler said.

According to department records, which may not be updated for the most recent hunting season, six AHE graduates have been formally cited for wildlife infractions. Four of them have been from Spokane County.

Stan McGrew of Spokane and John Lund of Medical Lake, both master hunters, were cited for hunting elk with modern rifles even though they held tags designated for hunting only with muzzleloaders.

Wildlife agent Mike Sprecher said he recognized there was some confusion in the hunting regulations that year, but that the hunters did not admit their guilt in his first contact with them.

They each forfeited $250 bail and Sprecher recommended that they lose their AHE certification for at least three years.

He said McGrew contacted him last week to suggest that was unreasonable.

"The AHE seasons are privileges for the best of the best," Sprecher said. "I don't think losing that certification is too harsh."

Mikitik said Fish and Wildlife agents prefer to give hunters the benefit of the doubt when possible.

He said AHE certification was not revoked in the case of a hunter who accidentally shot two elk in Western Washington.

The hunter was fined, but the AHE program showed leniency "because he immediately reported the mistake," Mikitik said. "That's the kind of behavior we're trying to encourage."

Despite the few blemishes on the AHE program, Chuck Ray, the current AHE coordinator, has high hopes master hunters can step forward to be ambassadors.

"My idea is to use AHE hunters to help open lands that are otherwise closed to hunting," he said. "Landowners might give some access if they know the hunters coming onto their land are trustworthy."

He knows, however, that some poor behavior by a few AHE elk hunters in the Margaret Unit in Western Washington contributed to the Wildlife Commission removing that hunt as an AHE perk.

"You're going to find the majority of AHE participants are good, ethical people coming into the program," Ray said. "There's always going to be a few coming in for the wrong reasons.

"I don't know how to eliminate them up front, but we can pull their cards if they get in trouble."

Kahler said he has written a letter recommending that von Marbod and Hoover lose their AHE certification.

"The bottom line is that two guys pulled three elk out of somebody else's field and a fourth clearly was wounded and went the other way leaving a clear blood trail," Kahler said. "They called their buddies instead of us. We charged them with possession.

"To let them off is like giving free reign to guys to go out and start pulling the trigger."