Ignoring the monetary fines for a moment...

Did anyone notice that he doesn't even necessarily lose his hunting privileges for the violation? It just triggers a hearing which may or may not result in losing the right to hunt for 5 years.

It seems to me that a good 10 or 15 year loss of hunting rights would be very appropriate since he was so obviously intentional in his poaching.. Let him lose a very significant portion of his hunting time and see if he plays loose with the laws next time.

Couple things that should be noted here. Unit 61 is a well known trophy unit and requires about 9 points for an archery tag. The two units in question are divided by a road. There is no way that someone could accidentally stumble into the wrong unit. Unit 61 is very well marked and you would have to be really stupid to make this kind of mistake.The reason the fines were so high in this case is becausethe poacherviolated Colorado's "Samson Law" when he killed a trophy elk. This was no accident and in my opinion if he loses his hunting priviliges for 5 years in addition to the fines then he will have gotten what he deserves. How would you like to wait 9YEARS to get into this unit only to have some scumbag slip in and poach your elk?

Hey Mitchell Phelps, if you are reading this... thanks for bringing discredit to the sport and making the rest of us look like jerks. I sure am glad they didn't put that in the paper (oh wait they did). It sure does chap my *** when hunters do things like this, not to mention teaching his son that it is OK to hunt wherever and probably whenever you want, and then lie about it. He got off easy if you ask me. They should have suspended his privlages for a min. of five years, and taken his weapons for the same amount of time.