By Terry Witt -Spotlight Senior Reporter

            Levy County Commissioner Rock Meeks complained Tuesday about state game wardens citing dog hunters with such a large number of tickets in Goethe State Forest this season that he considered it nothing short of harassment.

            Deer hunting with dogs has been a traditional sport for many in Levy County and Goethe State Forest has always been a place where dog hunters could enjoy the sport and the beautiful scenery.

            Meeks told his fellow commissioners at their meeting Tuesday that the 11-day season this year was pure misery as hunters couldn’t escape getting tickets from the game officers.

            “I was there, I hunted there. I saw it and they were writing tickets like crazy,” Meeks said. “It’s the first year it’s been like this when you could not enjoy yourself and have a good time because FWC was sitting around every corner writing tickets.”

             Meeks said he didn’t get a ticket but a lot of hunters he knows did get citations for driving on closed roads or having guests along with them that drove their own vehicle. He said FWC has never enforced the rule requiring guests to ride with the hunter that brought them and he said there has never been strict enforcement of roads closed.

            This season, there were plenty of tickets given for both types of violations rather than warnings to let hunters know enforcement was increasing and tickets would be given in the future.

            Meeks said hunters are required to wear orange vests while hunting in Goethe State Forest, and as far as he knows, horse riders and other people engaged in recreational activities during hunting season are also required to wear the orange vests in Goethe. He said the rule apparently doesn’t apply to some non-hunters.

            “I saw this year a certain group of people who were in there during hunting that did not wear orange,” he said. “If I as a hunter get caught in there without an orange vest I get ticketed.”

            In the past, Meeks said roads closed to vehicle traffic in Goethe were well marked and hunters knew they had to avoid driving on them. He said the majority of the closed roads weren’t marked this deer hunting season and hunters had to use poorly designed state brochures to try to figure out which roads were closed to vehicle traffic.

            “It used to be roads were marked, they were distinctively marked roads closed to vehicles. Now there’s not those signs anymore and they don’t properly mark the roads they can’t be on, so it looks like a regular road just like any road in there and whenever you drive down it they run you down and write you a ticket,” Meeks said.

            FWC requires dog hunters to use a track and training collar to watch where their hunting dogs are going and to prevent them from running onto private property, but Meeks said there are blocks of woods that are so large there are no access roads and hunters can’t get close enough to their dogs to stop them.

            “It’s a $50 fine if you drive on a closed road to keep your dog from going on private land, and if you don’t go on a closed road to stop him and he goes on private land, it’s a $300 fine,” Meeks said. “It’s kind of a no-brainer why people drive on closed roads, but if it’s not distinctly marked you have to stop and look at a brochure and say, is that road on the brochure; well, the brochures aren’t that great. It’s kind of hard to decipher whether that road is closed up.”

            Meeks said he attempted to contact FWC management when all the problems were occurring but they were all conveniently out on Thanksgiving vacation. He said it’s not over.

            He said there will be discussions with FWC.

            “As far as residents of Levy County, they go there because it’s a really good place to hunt. It’s really a place to enjoy with your family during the Thanksgiving holiday,” Meeks said. “It’s a really good place to hunt when you’re not being harassed by FWC. It’s just a beautiful place to be in Levy County. The timberland is beautiful, it’s managed, it’s burned, it’s what old Florida used to look like. The Division of Forestry takes good care of it, but I think the Division of Forestry needs to revisit some of that closure and stuff and try to take better care of citizens that live in the county and use it, at least for those 11 days.”

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Board of County Commission Regular Meeting December 7, 2021; Posted December 7, 2021