Authorities say a tipster led them to a group of six men from Louisiana and Mississippi who were illegally poaching deer along the Iowa/Missouri border.  

Sixty-five-year-old Paul McCulley and 36-year-old Michael McCulley have pleaded guilty to the unlawful taking of deer in Iowa.

Iowa officials say the McCulley family came to southern Iowa last week. But on the day before Iowa’s shotgun deer season opened, the men went across the border into Missouri and shot three does and a buck — and butchered those deer in a garage in Blanchard, Iowa.

An Iowa conservation officer received an anonymous tip about the poaching. She called in a Missouri conservation agent and the two staked-out the garage, watching as the men butchered more deer. Authorities say a search turned up three deer racks and three large coolers packed with the meat of seven deer. 

Two other McCulley men have been assessed $15,000 in damages in connection with the deer poaching in Iowa. Missouri officials say the six men are guilty of 17 different hunting violations for illegally shooting two bucks and five does.