Louisiana: Hunting guide pleads guilty to harassing hunters

VENICE, La. (AP) — A Louisiana hunting guide has pleaded guilty to harassing duck hunters and shooting their decoys.

The 32-year-old local guide from Buras was trying to make the other duck hunters leave public land in Venice so he could hunt there, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries enforcement spokesman Adam Einck said in an email on Tuesday.

“It is public land, so it is first come first serve and the duck hunters he harassed were already set up in that area,” Einck wrote.

A judge sentenced the man on April 12 to pay a $1,075 fine, a $200 civil penalty to the department, and restitution for the decoys, the department said in a news release on Tuesday.

He was arrested on Dec. 26, 2021, and pleaded guilty April 12 to illegal discharge of a firearm, criminal damage to property, and harassment of persons lawfully hunting, the statement said.

Agents arrested him after getting a complaint from duck hunters in Venice on Dec. 26. They also were given a video of the man driving his boat at high speed into a decoy spread, verbally harassing the hunters and pulling a loaded pistol and shooting the decoys.

In addition to the fines and restitution, the man was ordered to take anger management classes and placed on one-year active probation and one-year inactive probation. He also was barred for one year from acting as a hunting guide on land owned or administered by the Plaquemines Parish government.