In a shameless attempt to avoid punishment for hunting out of season, Dane County backwoodsman Reginald “Rooster” Waters offered a Department of Natural Resources warden over two dozen red squirrels — shot and flayed in the Cherokee Marsh Thursday morning.
Warden Phillip Reno had Waters under survellience for a mere 10 minutes before stepping in to curtail the illicit hunt.
“I heard a few gunshots and a lot of hootin’ and hollerin’,” Reno said. “Typically that means someone’s up to no good.”
Reno was taken aback by the brashness of Waters’ bribe.
“People have offered me money, booze, but nothing like that,” Reno said. “This guy had some balls.”
Reno says the woodland poacher’s punishment will be swift.
Waters will be taken down to DNR headquarters for a full-body poison ivy rub. Later, he will be stripped naked and taken to the wetlands during peak mosquito hours.
“At the end of the day, we’ll tag him and release him into the Canadian wilderness hundreds of miles from civilization,” Chambers said. “It’s a slap on the wrist, really.”
However, Waters says the DNR has already gone too far.
“I know I broke the law,” Cooper said. “But they didn’t have to confiscate my banjo.”
Waters says the squirrels were not killed solely for sport.
“I was going to use every part of those animals,” Waters said. “I was fixin’ to make a squirrel tuxedo.”
Waters says he regrets going squirrel hunting in the marsh.
“I knew I should have just gone dynamite fishing.”
