My advice? Tell him to go to court , pay the fine and move on!

I'm not a lawyer , but I can tell you that if he uses the same excuses in court that he gave you , he's going to get the full penalty as he should.

First , he should know the laws! Being a hunter from Wisconsin myself I cant even imagine another hunter NOT knowing about the EAB units! Everyone has been moaning about them since spring and the first thing any hunter with a lick of common sense does is to look up the EAB units to see if it applys to them. Sorry , I dont buy your friends excuse!

And here's the kicker , you said he thought the rules in his area were the same as last year and years past , right?
Well , all zones that are EAB zones this year have been T-Zones for the past several years. During the October and December T-zone hunts you CANNOT shoot a buck in any of the T-Zones with ANY weapon. It's doe only!