A Michigan-based clothing store who was guiding waterfowl hunts in Rhode Island in 2025 was caught on video by recreation wardens rallying sea geese for his shoppers. The practice, which includes utilizing a ship to fire up, push, or flush birds to ready hunters, is prohibited at each the state and federal degree.
The information, Craig Macphee, was caught on video by Sgt. Joshua Beuth, an environmental police officer with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. Beuth, who can also be an avid waterfowler, says it was one of many extra clear-cut instances of rallying he’s witnessed. Macphee didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Outside Life.
As Beuth’s physique cam footage exhibits (see under), Macphee’s looking get together had arrange a number of format boats and decoy spreads on the Sakonnet River close to Portsmouth. At one level through the hunt, Macphee makes use of his tender boat to circle and push a bunch of buffleheads towards certainly one of his paying shoppers. The consumer then shoots one of many birds over the decoys from a format boat.
‘Textbook Rally, Shoot, Kill.’ Sport Wardens Catch Waterfowl Information Rallying Sea Geese on Video
“It was so crystal clear and concrete that each motion of that boat, and the intent of that information [Macphee], was to drive [birds] to that hunter and supply a shot alternative. Which is precisely what occurred,” Beuth tells Outside Life, referring to the hunt he noticed and filmed from shore on Jan. 7, 2025. “This case was so crystal clear that it’s ceaselessly ingrained in my reminiscence.”
The footage additionally exhibits that afterward throughout the identical hunt, Macphee used the identical method to fire up a raft of scoters. He drives his boat slowly and methodically to circle round after which push the birds towards the identical hunter within the format boat. After a number of the scoters flush extensive, a lone drake surf scoter is left swimming towards the decoys. Once more, Macphee operates his boat to deliberately flush the duck within the route of the decoys and the format boat. Driving straight on the swimming scoter, he retains utilizing the boat to squeeze the hen till it lastly flushes and flies over the decoys. The hunter then kills the duck with one shot.
“Textbook rally, shoot, kill,” Beuth says within the video.
Quickly after, Beuth explains, Macphee wrapped up the hunt and picked up his decoys, and the get together headed again to the boat ramp. At that time, Beuth had all of the proof he wanted to cost Macphee and the consumer with rallying waterfowl. He had additionally seen whereas watching the hunt from a distance that Macphee’s looking get together included a complete of eight folks — Macphee himself, plus 5 shoppers and two assistant guides. That is additionally unlawful based on Rhode Island regs, which prohibit looking events bigger than 5.
Macphee, who operates Tail Annihilators out of Unhealthy Axe, Michigan, had been touring to Rhode Island to information sea duck hunters for the final a number of years. Beuth had heard studies throughout previous seasons from different native guides, who had reported “destructive or much less fascinating interactions” with Macphee on the boat ramp or on the water. Beuth had additionally seen social media pictures from previous looking seasons that appeared to indicate Macphee with a celebration of greater than 5 hunters.
“He was on my radar, you might say,” says Beuth. “So as soon as I knew the place he was that day, and I discovered him and his looking get together, that’s after I settled in to observe him and observe how he performed his hunt.”
Upon contacting the looking get together on the boat ramp, Beuth realized that the 5 shoppers had been additionally from Michigan. They had been all younger women and men, and skilled duck hunters, and so they booked with Macphee’s information service as a result of that they had by no means hunted sea geese earlier than.
In response to the arrest report supplied to Outside Life, Beuth and the opposite recreation wardens current recognized Toby Macphee, Craig’s son, and Brandon Echtinaw as crew members of the operation. The wardens checked the group for compliance, and located that two of the shoppers didn’t have an HIP allow. Echtinaw additionally didn’t have a state or federal duck stamp. The three males had been charged accordingly with civil infractions.
Based mostly on the video proof Beuth obtained, he charged each Macphee and the consumer who had shot the 2 rallied birds with three crimes apiece: two fees of rallying waterfowl, and one cost of looking with greater than 5 folks. He additionally seized their shotguns and the 2 sea geese (a drake bufflehead and drake surf scoter).
Whereas interviewing the get together on the boat ramp, Beuth says he discovered the one consumer who’d shot the 2 geese to be “very sincere and forthcoming.” The consumer may inform by Beuth’s description of the hunt that he had been monitoring them from afar. He confirmed Beuth’s observations about what all had transpired and the way Macphee was working his boat to rally birds.
“He additionally appeared extremely annoyed, each at Mr. Macphee and himself, for not realizing within the second that what was occurring was unlawful,” says Beuth. He provides that a number of the shoppers contacted him the following day on the group’s behalf to genuinely categorical how sorry they had been. “They had been seemingly ashamed of themselves for not realizing what precisely they had been collaborating in. And so they felt that that they had let their guard down and put their belief in Mr. Macphee.”
Beuth says Macphee’s responses through the interview had been the direct reverse of his shoppers’. He repeatedly denied Beuth’s accusations, and he refused to take duty for the actions that Beuth had witnessed and caught on video.
“I discovered him to be fairly standoffish, and, I’d say, conceited,” Beuth says. “However his failure to acknowledge his actions wasn’t going to vary this case. I didn’t want him to [admit to] what he did … I used to be going to proceed with the fees it doesn’t matter what.”
The legal fees filed towards Macphee and his consumer had been later forwarded to RIDEM prosecution officers. From Beuth’s later interactions with a prosecution officer, he realized that the fees towards the consumer had been diminished to warnings. Beuth says he and the prosecuting officer felt this was a good deal as a result of the consumer owned as much as his errors, made a donation to a conservation group, and “was to a point a sufferer of the circumstances he was put into.”
He says Macphee’s case was dealt with very otherwise. This was partly due to his angle when charged. However it was largely as a result of, in Beuth’s eyes, looking and fishing guides must be held to the next normal when they’re profiting off a public useful resource. Beuth says he needed to see Macphee convicted, and that personally, he would have preferred to see his looking license suspended.
That didn’t occur. Beuth says Macphee’s legal professional pushed for the case to go to trial. And whereas Beuth was assured he may show his case in courtroom, it’s his understanding that the prosecutor within the state legal professional’s basic workplace didn’t want to go to trial resulting from all the opposite legal instances on their docket.
“These prosecutors have immense caseloads. They’re coping with home assault instances and homicides, and a few ugly stuff,” Beuth says. “And [when it’s] a man capturing a duck from a ship … they’re impossible to truly convey that case to trial.”
Court docket information obtained by OL present that Macphee and his legal professional reached a plea take care of the state on Might 6, 2025. Macphee entered a “no contest” plea to one of many rallying fees, and the opposite two legal fees had been dismissed by the prosecution. Macphee didn’t obtain any form of license suspension, and he was fined $641.75. His seized shotgun, a Benelli Tremendous Black Eagle II, was additionally returned.
Whereas a no contest plea shouldn’t be an specific request for forgiveness, it’s handled the identical as a conviction underneath Rhode Island regulation. That conviction will stay on Macphee’s file. And though he’ll nonetheless have the ability to receive a looking license within the Ocean State, Beuth says Macphee will be unable to acquire a Rhode Island waterfowl information license for not less than three years from the date of that conviction.
Beuth explains that the state’s waterfowl information license was established in 2025, when Rhode Island issued its updated hunting regulations for the yr. Beuth says the information license, which requires passing an in-person examination together with different stipulations, is supposed to degree the enjoying discipline by making certain that each one guides perceive and abide by the identical legal guidelines. He says the brand new license may even assist with monitoring harvest and gauging looking strain.
“It wasn’t to forestall folks from guiding right here,” he says. “It’s extra to only set a regular and ensure we are able to maintain folks accountable to that.”
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Beuth says the state’s fish and wildlife fee had been discussing the creation of a waterfowl information license since lengthy earlier than 2025. He says they’ve seen an growing variety of waterfowl guides working in Rhode Island through the 15 years he’s been with the company.
“Our constitution fishing fleet, these captains are required to have a license as properly,” Beuth says. “This can be a comparable factor. We’re regulating people who find themselves fishing and profiting off the useful resource. So [we decided] let’s do the identical for wildlife.”
Additionally it is Beuth’s understanding that Macphee’s capacity to legally information waterfowl journeys in his residence state of Michigan may very well be (or may have been) affected by his conviction in Rhode Island. Outside Life reached out to the Michigan DNR for clarification on this, however didn’t get a response by press time.
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