Some college wrestlers got into trouble when they tried another sport and didn’t follow the rules. Iowa Department of Natural Resources conservation officer Randy McPherren says the four men were arrested Tuesday in Monroe County for poaching. He says they were taking turkeys without a license, or didn’t tag turkeys they did take. Last Sunday, one of them shot a deer out of season, and two others admitted to shooting at pheasants out of season. The men were identified as 20-year-old Kevin Riding of Hinckley, Utah; 21-year-old Clint Kelly of Payette, Idaho; 23-year-old Joseph Evano of Rancho Cucamaonga, California and 20-year-old Dustin Aguillared of Youngsville, Louisiana. The men are past or current members of the wrestling team at William Penn University in Oskaloosa. McPherren says it was a combination of not knowing the rules, and breaking some they did know.He says they were kind of “clear in left field, is what it boiled down to. Needed some tuning up so to speak.” Cole, Evano and Kelly pleaded guilty in Monroe County Court Wednesday morning to possession of an illegal turkey/failure to tag and received a 347-dollar fine. Riding pleaded guilty to taking a tom turkey without a valid license and for a deer out of season, and received a 19-hundred dollar fine. Aguillared has two charges pending. The D-N-R also seized four shotguns and one rifle used by the men. McPherren says they discovered the illegal acts after an anonymous phone call. He says those types of calls are an important tool. He says information from other hunters and landowners is one of the ways they make their big cases, and he encourages people to continue calling. You can make an anonymous call to the poacher hotline at 1-800-532-2020.
