Poacher
Texas Parks and Wildlife

A Texas Judge Once Sentenced a Poacher to Spend Hunting Season Weekends in Jail

A judge gave this poacher a very unique punishment to fit the crime.

Poaching doesn't pay. And one poacher in Texas learned that the hard way. For five whole years, actually, after a Grayson County district court judge handed down a very unique punishment to John Walker Drinnon that will resonate with any deer hunter who also works during the week.

Apparently the judge wanted to keep the poacher out of the woods completely when the deer are walking, because Drinnon will be required to report to Grayson County Jail every weekend during deer season for the next five years!

Drinnon was convicted of poaching a 19-point buck that scored over 200 inches in 2016. He shot the deer with a rifle from the road on private property in a county that is open only to bowhunting.

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Originally he had claimed he shot the buck in Oklahoma. However, in the day of modern trail camera technology, a big buck is rarely a secret. It didn't take long for someone to show up with evidence that the animal was a Texas whitetail. Drinnon later confessed his crime to U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents when confronted with the evidence against him.

Weekends in jail wasn't the only punishment for Drinnon. He will be on probation until 2022 and was ordered to pay $18,000 in civil restitution.

NEXT: 9 MORE OF THE MOST INCREDIBLY STUPID THINGS POACHERS HAVE DONE