Natural Resources Police Nabs Poacher, Investigates Tree Stand Fall

The Maryland Natural Police charged a Pennsylvania man with deer poaching in Montgomery County and investigated a tree stand fall on the Eastern Shore.

______________

A hunter was injured Friday in Dorchester County after falling about 20 feet from his tree stand.

Robert Jeffrey Ketchum, 64, of Dundalk was airlifted to Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury and then taken by ambulance to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore for surgery for a broken hip.

Ketchum slipped from his stand off Buttons Neck Road in Woolford shortly before 5 p.m. and was on the ground for about an hour before help arrived. He was tended to by Church Creek Volunteer Fire Co.

Ketchum was not wearing a safety harness.

______________

On Saturday, a Pennsylvania man was charged with poaching two deer in Montgomery County.

Vernon R. Fisher, 35, of Trail Gap, received citations for failing to record a kill on a harvest record and failing to report a kill within 24 hours. He also received two warnings, one for failing to record a kill on his harvest record and the second for discharging a firearm within an urban area.

Officers stopped Fisher in Boyds. The rack on the back of his vehicle held two white-tailed deer, which Fisher admitted he did not check in. Fisher told officers he killed the antlered deer with a 20-gauge shotgun off Muncaster Road, within Montgomery County’s urban zone, where hunting with a firearm is prohibited.

The antlered deer was seized and donated to the Frederick Rescue Mission.

Fisher will be scheduled for a date in Montgomery District Court. If found guilty, he could be fined as much as $3,000.