# Butler County Wildlife Officer



## Weatherby (May 27, 2005)

is certainly doing his job. I've seen him twice this week at the GMR in Hamilton. Tonight I believe he caught several. 

Thank you for doing a great job!


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## powerstrokethis (Mar 17, 2008)

do you fish the gmr a lot in hamilton?


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## Young Whiskers (Feb 23, 2005)

His name is Aaron Ireland. He has been to both of our Fishing for Friends events at Lake Lyndsay the past two years, and I've got to talk to him several other times when he has stopped by locations where I have been fishing, and the Knightsbridge Dam in Hamilton isn't the only one. 

He genuinely seems to take his job pretty seriously, and for that, I commend him. I still think he could use a little help patrolling the busier (and shadier) areas like the Knightsbridge Dam, but all in all, I think he does an excellent job.

One of the funniest things I have ever seen happened at the Knightsbridge Dam a couple of years ago. Officer Ireland showed up on a busy day and starting checking licenses. Let's just say he got to one guy who claimed to not speak any English. The guy was visibly drunk, and had open bottles all around him. Officer Ireland approached him and asked for his license, to which he replied "No ingles..." He eventually extracted enough information from the guy to realize that he had no license, so he was going to write him a ticket. "Drunk guy" didn't like that very much, so he threw all of his stuff, including his poles and tackle box, into the river. Why he did this I will never know. Officer Ireland had then had enough and wrote him a ticket for littering, and started to take this guy up to his truck, when somebody ran up from behind and handed him the car keys that he had also thrown into the river. "Drunk guy" responded with a clearly audible "Thanks man!" That was the last I saw of him. 

I don't know what ever happened to that guy, but some of his stuff is probably still in the river somewhere, and I still laugh everytime I think about it.

Long story short, he's a good guy, and he does his job well.


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## Weatherby (May 27, 2005)

I don't know if I would call it alot but I'm down there a few times a month.


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## Trophy Hunter (Dec 7, 2007)

I had the honor of meeting Officer Ireland this Friday as he checked my license. He was genuinely concerned with the amount of Smallmouth I had caught. I thought that was great. I also had the honor of turning in a couple of poachers who had numerous flatheads over 35". It felt good to show him my license and to help protect my favorite fishery; the GMR. It's amazing how greedy we are as a society in general. Who knows what motivated those guys to overharvest with blatant disregard for the flathead population. It is my firm beleif that the seemingly insugnificant action is interlocked with the future therefore having a direct impact. With social responsibility for the environment comes a change for the better.


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