From the story, this was a guy who was hardly flush with cash to begin with. A $1,000 fine was probably pretty substantial to him. Add to that the fact that he's kind of an idiot. Decided he was going to butcher a 1,000 pound elk with kitchen knives. He even thought he might drag it somewhere???

Were I the judge I would have treated it differently if he'd been part of a poaching ring or if he'd "hunted" it. In this case he had these elk walking around his neighborhod and one day he decided he'd take one of 'em. Now please don't flame me. I'm saying that its wrong, but its stupid wrong. One of those "dumb crime" stories. Sort of a different kind of poacher from someone who's selling bear gall bladders for oriental cures or someone setting up a stand out of season.

We talk about poachers giving hunters a bad name. This guy kind of gives poachers a bad name!

Regarding the jail time, I wouldn't think of it as free room and board. A friend worked for the local police department. As part of a charity fundraiser she bought a "dinner" in jail for her and three friends. One a slow (ie: non-weekend) night we got a tour of the jail, fake booking photo, and a jail dinner, in the holding area. After an hour I was more than ready to go. You think about spending 60 days in a space smaller than your bathroom. Not so glamorous.

One thing though - kind of puts the question of whether a 270 is enough gun for an elk. The pinhead used a 22!