Sheriff: Drinking and hunting don't mix

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Nov. 11, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

Beltrami County Sheriff Keith Winger is warning deer hunters that drinking and hunting do not mix.

Winger said the sheriff's department helped the Minnesota State Patrol arrest a hunter in the Pinewood area Monday who registered a .20 blood alcohol content, which is more than two times the legal limit for driving a vehicle.

A property owner in that area turned in the hunter, Winger said. The property owner was going to ask the man, who was trespassing to leave his property, but he noticed how drunk the man was and called the sheriff's office.

"If you're going to (drink), do it in moderation," Winger said. "And do it after hunting."

Other than the drunk hunter, Winger says that the opening days of deer hunting this season have been quiet in Beltrami County.

He said even the number of trespassing complaints, which is the most common complaint during hunting, are lower this year.

"It's been a very nice opener," he said.

In Cass County, authorities announced Tuesday that an autopsy showed that 13-year-old Jonathon P. Hix of Pillager, who had been found dead Sunday evening, died from a gunshot wound. He died one day short of his 14th birthday.

Chief Deputy Randy Fisher said the firearm Hix was carrying -- a shotgun loaded with slugs -- apparently discharged as Hix was either climbing a tree or loading the firearm after climbing the tree.

Hix was one of five people to die this fall because of firearm-related hunting accidents in Minnesota. He was one of two to die opening weekend.