Whether youโre planning to chase whitetails, hit a public dove field, or chase small game through the hardwoods, this yearโs guide has the info you need to make the most of Kentuckyโs fall hunting seasonsโand there are some exciting updates for 2025:
New Bear Zone & Season Extension โ A new bear zone has been added, and the extended archery/crossbow season provides even more opportunity for a uniquely Kentucky hunt!
Extended Youth-Only Deer Firearms Season โ Young hunters now get a longer window to head afield statewide with a firearm. A great chance to pass on your hunting tradition.
New Dove Field Decoy Regulation โ Changes to decoy use on public dove fields will improve hunter safety and increase opportunity for everyone in the field.
Important Deer Hunting Info for CWD Surveillance Zone โ If youโre hunting in the Chronic Wasting Disease surveillance zone, be sure to check out the latest guidance and requirements, including how to get your deer tested and an additional hunting opportunity in late September.
Waterfowl Regulation Changes & Public Land Updates โ This yearโs guide includes some changes to waterfowl hunting regulations as well as updates affecting access and use on certain public lands. Make sure to review the details before your next trip afield.
Sublette County law enforcement officials are moving forward with a long-delayed legal case that may culminate in a felony animal cruelty indictment of Cody Roberts for his capture and treatment of a wounded wolf in February 2024.
Specifically, a grand jury is being convened to consider the indictment, WyoFile has confirmed with several sources knowledgeable about the proceedings. Summonses have been issued to select a 12-person jury, subpoenas to witnesses are going out imminently and a decision about whether to indict is expected sometime in August, according to the sources.
State wildlife officials cited and fined Roberts last year for illegal possession of wildlife โ a misdemeanor โ after learning he allegedly struck a young wolf with a snowmobile, taped the hurt animalโs jaw shut and showed it off at a bar in the western Wyoming town of Daniel. But critics complained that he should have faced more severe criminal consequences for allegations that drew global outrage and even a tourism boycott of Wyoming.
Roberts has never commented publicly on the incident. WyoFileโs past attempts to reach him have failed.
Convened perhaps once a decade in the state court system, grand juries are a seldom-used tool that statutorily are kept secret and confidential, said Pat Crank, a former Wyoming attorney general. One purpose of the secrecy is to protect the innocentโs identity, he said, but the structure also allows investigations to advance with subpoena power and without witness tampering, interference and hiding and destruction of evidence.
โA grand jury gives you investigative tools that you donโt have prior to charging,โ Crank told WyoFile. โThatโs why grand juries are such an amazing tool to ferret out criminality.โ
The subpoena power grand juries equip prosecutors with can be especially handy in compelling witness accounts. Crank said he doesnโt know Sublette County prosecuting attorney Clayton Melinkovich, nor was he familiar with Melinkovichโs reasoning, but he surmised the grand jury was related to the difficulty of getting witnesses to speak with authorities.
โNone of those people in that bar who watched him do all that (expletive) that he did to that poor wolf are going to rat off this (expletive) and then be a pariah in Sublette County the rest of their life,โ Crank said. โIโm guessing thatโs probably why he (the prosecutor) did it.โ
Reached over the phone last week, Melinkovich told WyoFile he could not say if a grand jury was convening, and he offered no comment.
Back in March, the county attorney explained that the investigation against Roberts was still proceeding more than a year after the fact. Specifically, he said, the county was exploring a charge of felony animal cruelty.
โThe statute says โan animal,โ and โan animalโ includes a predatory animal,โ Melinkovich said at the time.
The county attorney cited the Wyoming Criminal Code, which has an exemption for predatory species in the animal cruelty laws, but only for hunting purposes. A person who takes captive and abuses a predatory animal is not fully exempt from the felony animal cruelty laws, he said.
The same criminal code also outlines the grand jury process. To indict, at least nine members of the 12-person panel must agree to bring charges. If an indictment is returned, charges are guaranteed โ it immediately becomes the charging document.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department took the lead in responding to the Feb. 29, 2024 incident. The agencyโs investigation and subsequent citation were quickly adjudicated without public notice: Roberts, a Daniel resident, was fined $250 for possessing the wolf, though the investigating wardens could have issued steeper penalties and sent the case to court, but declined to take that step.
When Robertsโ stunt with the injured wolf became public a month later, with photos of him and the injured wolf splashed across the internet, the incident became an international source of outrage. Wyoming even convened a โTreatment of Predators Working Group,โ which included some members of the Legislature, and that group workshopped a bill intended to deter the torture of predatory animals. That bill proved unpopular and went nowhere, but Jackson Republican Rep. Andrew Byron subsequently spearheaded, and the Legislature passed, the so-called Clean Kill Bill, which stiffened penalties for torturing predatory animals that were in a personโs possession.
Crank, the former Wyoming attorney general, played a role in crafting and passing the legislation. Because Robertsโ actions occurred before the law was crafted, if heโs indicted, he wouldnโt be subject to the stiffened penalties, which took effect on July 1.
Although the grand jury process has begun, itโs not yet common knowledge in Sublette County. Dave Stephens, a county commissioner, had not heard of the confidential proceedings when he spoke with WyoFile on Tuesday night at Pinedale High School, where U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman was holding an unrelated town hall meeting. Most locals, Stephens said, are ready to be done with the ugly incident at the Green River Bar.
โThey just wanted it to go away, wish it hadnโt happened, donโt want the publicity,โ Stephens said.
But other parties are welcoming the new legal development. Wyoming Wildlife Advocates Executive Director Kristin Combs, who lobbied in Washington, D.C. in response to the wolf-torture incident, was โreally pleasedโ to learn of Sublette Countyโs progress toward a prosecution.
โIโm really looking forward to what comes out of the grand jury proceedings,โ Combs said. โHopefully justice will be served.โ
A grand jury is being convened for Cody Roberts, the Daniel, Wyoming, man who ran down a wolf, taped its mouth shut and showed it off before killing it in 2024, according to a Wyofile report. Convening a grand jury is rare in Wyoming, but not unheard of.
A grand jury is being convened for Cody Roberts, the Daniel, Wyoming, man who ran down a wolf, taped its mouth shut and showed it off before killing it in 2024, according to a Wyofile report. Convening a grand jury is rare in Wyoming, but not unheard of.
Sublette County authorities are calling a grand jury to decide whether to indict Cody Roberts, a Daniel man who ran over a wolf with a snowmobile, brought it muzzled into a bar, then shot it in February 2024.
Thatโs according to a Wyofile report drawing from anonymous sources familiar with the confidential grand jury impaneling.
Sublette County Attorney Clayton Melinkovich, who is bound by confidentiality law, declined Wednesday to confirm whether heโs asked a judge to impanel a grand jury to weigh the controversial act.
Roberts paid $250 last March toward a citation for violating Wyoming Game and Fish regulations against possessing wildlife.
But he could still be charged under a different law if a grand jury sees fit โ and if the newer charge differs enough in its elements from the citation to satisfy a judge that Robertsโ right against double jeopardy isnโt being violated.
The incident with the wolf exploded into international headlines, sparking outrage across the country from sportsmen and animal rights activists, and put both the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and Wyomingโs wildlife management laws under scrutiny.
In its 2025 legislative session, the state passed a law criminalizing cruelty to wildlife.
A grand jury is being convened for Cody Roberts, the Daniel, Wyoming, man who ran down a wolf, taped its mouth shut and showed it off before killing it in 2024, according to a Wyofile report. Convening a grand jury is rare in Wyoming, but not unheard of.
Because They Can Demand Testimony
Indicting people by grand jury is rare across Wyomingโs state courts, but not unheard-of.
Every day across Wyoming, prosecutors charge people via complaint. That is, they compile probable cause statements from law enforcement personnel into an affidavit, find the charges that fit those statements and file them in the local circuit court.
In the case of felonies, the prosecutor must pit his evidence against a defendantโs cross-examination at a preliminary hearing if he wants to show probable cause and launch the case into the felony-level trial court.
That is, unless the defendant opts to skip his preliminary hearing.
With grand juries, the deliberations that lead to a probable cause finding happen behind closed doors in secrecy, without a defense attorney around to ask contradictory questions.
A handful of attorneys who have managed grand jury proceedings say there are different reasons to go that route.
A key reason among those โ and a fair guess of whatโs driving Sublette County to call a grand jury โ is that grand juries can subpoena witnesses and make them talk, said Rock Springs-based attorney Jason Petri.
The Man Who Shoved His Family Off A Cliff
Petri oversaw grand jury proceedings in 2002 in the case of Bob Duke, who had shoved his wife and child off a cliff in the late 1990s.
Petriโs boss was then-Sweetwater County Attorney Harold Moneyhun, who ran the process alongside Petri and the officeโs chief deputy, the attorney recalled.
โOftentimes, a grand jury is useful because, in a normal criminal case the police might go to talk to witnesses or suspects, relatives, whoever โ and you donโt have to talk to the police,โ Petri said. โYou can just say, โI donโt want to talk to you.โโ
But the grand jury can compel people to testify before it, can ask questions, and can decide whom to call next.
Itโs handy when community members may know something about the case but they donโt want to say what that is, Petri said.
That was the case with Dukeโs case, where thereโd been murmurs of him plotting his wife and childโs death long before it happened. Community members also talked among themselves about a crime for which Duke had already been convicted federally: plotting to kill his parents for insurance money, Petri recalled.
The grand jury โcalled in everybody who might know something, put them under oath,โ Petri said.
That power isnโt absolute, he noted: People who can articulate some potential self incrimination (or spousal privilege) can assert their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
Dukeโs grand jury worked on his case for a month.
At the end, the jurors filed a โtrue bill,โ or green light to indict, rather than a โno bill,โ which is a statement denying the prosecutor the option to charge someone from their findings.
The things those jurors documented remain confidential today, said Petri.
โIn fact, thereโs a box full of the grand jury materials in the county attorney storage room,โ he said. โItโs still taped up and has a big warning sign that says itโs never to be opened unless you have a court order from the district court or higher.โ
Still, word gets out in a small town.
Defense attorneys and others in Green River probably came to their own conclusions when one room in the courthouse was occupied for a month and three prosecutors were missing from daily court hearings, Petri said with a chuckle.
Because Of Nefarious Actors
Former Fremont County Attorney Patrick LeBrun ran a grand jury proceeding in about 2010 while working as deputy for his then-boss Brian Varn, he recalled to Cowboy State Daily.
Another deputy in the office, Kathy Kavanaugh, ran the proceeding alongside him, LeBrun said.
It was a drug conspiracy case with around 30 suspects-turned-defendants.
The prosecutors didnโt choose the grand jury because of its subpoena powers or because of the efficiency that process can bring to cases with numerous defendants, LeBrun said. They chose that charging route because of its secrecy.
Rather than file all 30 cases one by one, in the public and open court, they compiled those cases simultaneously, in secret, so that they didnโt tip off potential co-conspirators before they were ready to charge them all.
โIt allows some due process to occur without exposing the case to nefarious individuals who might like to know about it,โ said LeBrun.
But under normal circumstances, LeBrun said he has preferred the usual route of charging the case in circuit court and having a public and adversarial hearing to determine probable cause.
The adversarial route gives him a better idea how strong the case is, he said.
Petri noted in his own interview that grand juries’ lack of cross-examination by the defense is a criticism many detractors have against their use.
Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric had brought in his own grand jury prior to Fremont Countyโs, so he visited LeBrun and Kavanaugh to help them learn how to run the proceeding, LeBrun said.
In fact, he added, impaneling grand juries was somewhat a fad in that era.
For Efficiency, For Propriety
Sweetwater County Attorney Dan Erramouspe pursued charges in two grand jury cases in late 2015 and early 2016, he told Cowboy State Daily.
The same panel oversaw both cases since the jurors are available for a year after theyโre first called, he said.
One case dealt with a drug trafficking organization and around 35 defendants.
Efficiency was a key reason for having the grand jury oversee that one, said Erramouspe.
Rather than having prosecutors attend potentially 35 preliminary hearings (which range from about 10 minutes to five hours in length), the grand jury compiled enough evidence on all defendants to send their cases to the felony-level court in one batch.
The same set of jurors reviewed evidence in the case of Jacob Anglesey, a former Green River Police Department officer who was ultimately convicted of manslaughter in the death of a 2-year-old boy hurt while in his care.
Having 12 of Angleseyโs peers decide whether he was chargeable rather than making the choice himself was about propriety, Erramouspe recalled.
The case was seven years old. A special prosecutor had already gone through the evidence and hadnโt brought charges.
Erramouspe was new to his career as county attorney and wanted to distance himself from any implication that Angleseyโs charging was political, he said.
The grand jury indicted on a first-degree murder variation called felony murder, which was later pled down to voluntary manslaughter.
A judge sentenced Anglesey to between 16 and 20 years in prison โ nearly the maximum allowed under the law.
New Bear Zone & Season Extension โ A new bear zone has been added, and the extended archery/crossbow season provides even more opportunity for a uniquely Kentucky hunt!
Extended Youth-Only Deer Firearms Season โ Young hunters now get a longer window to head afield statewide with a firearm. A great chance to pass on your hunting tradition.
New Dove Field Decoy Regulation โ Changes to decoy use on public dove fields will improve hunter safety and increase opportunity for everyone in the field.
Important Deer Hunting Info for CWD Surveillance Zone โ If youโre hunting in the Chronic Wasting Disease surveillance zone, be sure to check out the latest guidance and requirements, including how to get your deer tested and an additional hunting opportunity in late September.
Waterfowl Regulation Changes & Public Land Updates โ This yearโs guide includes some changes to waterfowl hunting regulations as well as updates affecting access and use on certain public lands. Make sure to review the details before your next trip afield.
Download or view the full guide online: https://fw.ky.gov/Hunt/Pages/Guides.aspx
Plan ahead, hunt safe, and enjoy another great Kentucky season!
Exposing the Big Game 