February 3, 2012
By Lonnie Crawford, Guntersville.waffl.com
What some people will do to kill a deer… It happened over the weekend just outside of Guntersville but landed one man in jail.
This guy was hunting off the railroad tracks and was in a vehicle – an electric ATV retrofitted to ride the tracks pretty much undetected at night.
He got caught was because of a shots fired call, and his vehicle broke down on the tracks.
36-year-old Chris Higdon of Albertville was arrested over the weekend, the final weekend of deer hunting season. He was charged with hunting from a railroad, night hunting, hunting without permission, as well as hunting with night vision equipment.
Conservation officers say Higdon had taken an electric ATV and extended the axles so it could line up with the tracks. Then he cut out the centers of the tires all the way around for them to ride on the rails.
He was arrested Sunday night around 10 when officers responded to the tracks near Highway 227 just outside Guntersville when his contraption had an axle break leaving it on the tracks.
Crews took nearly seven hours to remove the ATV from the tracks.
Higdon is now out on a $4,000 bond and is set to go before a Marshall County judge on February 28.