Editor’s note • The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune.
Influential hunting guide Wade Lemon, celebrated for drawing “literally tens of millions of dollars” into Utah’s rural communities and efforts to conserve game herds, was ordered to report this week to a federal prison.
The longtime owner of Wade Lemon Hunting in Holden admitted his oversight “fell short” in two staged hunts — where paying clients were called in after mountain lions had already been tracked and located. In a deal with prosecutors, Lemon, 63, pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor and an infraction for illegal hunts in 2020 and 2021.
But Lemon wants to go to trial in state court, his attorney says, to fight a higher-profile felony charge — which stems from a 2018 hunt in which Donald Trump Jr. bagged a bear and a cougar in two days.
That state case, which was filed in Carbon County and made national headlines, has been delayed nine times while Lemon awaited the outcome of the federal prosecution. The 2018 hunt was part of the inauguration of a conservative, sportsmen-themed political group called Hunter Nation.
Defense attorney Greg Law confirmed before 4th District Judge Brian Bolinder that Lemon wants a trial on the 3rd-degree felony charge of wanton destruction of protected wildlife. Charging documents allege Lemon used illegal bait — “a pile of grain, oil and pastries” — to lure the black bear that Trump Jr. later shot.
Attorneys in the case did not mention Trump Jr. by name at the Aug. 19 hearing, but commented that special care might need to be taken in the trial. Law noted that the unnamed hunting client was a potential witness, but said he wanted to discuss with the judge separately if he needed to be called.
“I guess you could say he’s famous,” Law said. At another point, he said it might be a challenge to seat a jury for the trial.
“One of the parties involved has got some significant political connections, especially dealing with the upcoming election,” Law said. “I think we might need to send out a significant number of jury questionnaires in an effort to try to bring in a panel we could seat the jury from.”
(@donaldtrumpjr via Instagram) A screenshot of an Instagram post shows Donald Trump, Jr. on a hunt in Utah in May 2018. Prosecutors have filed a charge against Utah hunting guide Wade Lemon in connection with the hunt; they have indicated there was no evidence showing Trump Jr. would have known about alleged baiting of the bear he shot.
Republican Utah voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. Bolinder scheduled jury selection to begin on Feb. 10.
But first, court records show, Lemon was given permission to self-surrender Wednesday at the Federal Correctional Complex in Florence, Colorado, to start a two-month sentence for the separate mountain lion hunts he conceded were illegal. He’s also banned for one year from commercial hunts on federal land.
Lemon “employs, and over the years has employed, many younger men as houndsmen and sub guides,” prosecutors said while arguing for incarceration. His “leadership led these men to cheat as well. Wade Lemon created a culture of unlawfulness.”
Arguing against such punishment, Lemon’s lawyers described him as a descendant of Utah homesteaders who has “toiled tirelessly” with his family to become a nationally known outfitter, with no criminal background “but with a history of good deeds.”
Lemon is the first of two prominent Utah guides currently being prosecuted for alleged wildlife violations. Kane County Commissioner Wade Heaton, a former Utah Wildlife Board member, is facing felony charges for his alleged pattern of baiting big game.
‘Still in church’
Lemon, who specializes in big game hunts for bear and cougars, boasts on his website of a “nearly 100%” success rate for his mountain lion hunts.
However, prosecutors argued in federal court, “what the website does not mention is that Wade Lemon has been cheating. His cougar hunts were canned. The defendant was breaking the law.”
Two separate cases against Lemon were filed in state and federal courts in 2022.
A witness had met with state investigators in January 2021 in Meadow Canyon in Millard County and showed them a mountain lion track. Over two phone calls, court documents said, the witness asked Lemon if he had a hunting client ready; Lemon said yes and told him to release his dogs to find the cougar; and the witness reported to Lemon that he had it treed.
When dogs are used in the pursuit of a cougar, prosecutors explained, the licensed hunter who intends to take it “must be present” when the dogs are released “and must continuously participate in the hunt thereafter.”
Lemon arrived with a group on ATVs who walked to the cougar, which the client shot, prosecutors said. This hunter, identified only as Hunter #2, and Lemon “were on the mountain for only 37 minutes before the hunt was over,” prosecutors later wrote, “because the mountain lion had been caught while Hunter #2 was still in church in Sandy.”
This case was filed in state court in Millard County, but it was later dismissed and refiled in federal court along with allegations related to an earlier hunt. In December 2020, prosecutors charged, Lemon defrauded another hunting client on Bureau of Land Management land near Sulphurdale in Beaver County.
Dogs located and trapped a mountain lion, which had crouched in a small cave for hours before the client was called out, court documents said. Duped into thinking it was found right when he arrived, the man shot at it but it retreated further back into the cave and successfully evaded the men, prosecutors wrote.
(U.S. District Court screen grab) This image from an Instagram post is a screen grab from federal court filings. Prosecutors said one of the subguides on a December 2020 hunt posted this photo of a client shooting at a mountain lion, visible at the bottom right.
Lemon would charge between $5,000 and $7,000 for cougar hunts, according to prosecutors. “Legal mountain lion hunts can involve risk and long days with uncertainty,” they wrote. “‘Canned hunts’ are much more profitable.”
When a hunter was brought close to the site of a trapped lion, Lemon would release more dogs to follow the trail “just for effect,” according to the November 2022 federal indictment, which had three counts.
An updated document later accused Lemon of five counts related to violations of the Lacey Act, which makes it illegal for anyone to engage in interstate commerce in regards to wildlife taken in violation of state law. In these cases, the hunters came from Utah and Texas, and a cougar pelt was shipped to a taxidermist in Montana and then sent back to Utah.
In April, though, prosecutors agreed to dismiss that broader indictment and filed a new document charging Lemon with one misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, related to the cougar killed in January 2021, and one infraction for improperly using dogs in the December 2020 hunt.
In a statement filed with his guilty plea to those counts, Lemon admitted he “knowingly engaged” in the two canned hunts.
‘Good men must face the consequences’
Davis County prosecutor Ben Willoughby, who was assigned to handle both the state and federal charges against Lemon, said he could not comment on the still-pending case in Carbon County involving Trump Jr.
But he stressed that people need to understand that the hunters in the federal cases are victims. “These hunters were tricked; they really are the victims of fraud,” Willoughby said. “They think they are going to go on a hunt but the hunt already happened before they even get there.”
In statements to the court, Lemon’s friends pointed to his support of veterans and work with charities.
Don Peay, a longtime GOP donor and powerful champion of hunting-related causes on Utah’s Capitol Hill, said Lemon “has been hands down, the most generous in contributing money, effort, and energy to make [Utah] lands and wildlife better and more abundant across the entire state.”
A social media post from Wade Lemon Hunting shows Donald Trump Jr. in Utah to launch Hunter Nation. (Facebook)
Lemon and his family “have brought literally tens of millions of dollars into Utah to conserve wildlife habitat and game herds. They have also brought in equal amounts of revenue into Utah rural economies,” added Peay, founder of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, which raises money for state conservation projects by auctioning off Utah hunting permits at an annual expo.
Lemon’s lawyers also argued the prosecution alone — which threatens the reputation and even existence of his business — was punishment enough.
“The small, tight-knit community of outfitters is well aware of the charges that were filed,” they wrote. “So, too, are prospective clients looking for big-game hunts. Wade Lemon and his company have lost potential clients, and the financial effects continue to mount.”
Willoughby said U.S. District Judge Dustin Pead took into consideration Lemon’s age, his lack of criminal history, and the evidence presented “about what a good man he is, a good father, good neighbor and good community member in Holden.” But, Willoughby added, “Judge Pead reminded him that ‘good men must face the consequences for criminal acts, too.’”
Pead sentenced Lemon to serve two months in jail, which was less than the three months sought by the prosecution. He also ordered Lemon to pay a $10,500 fine and to comply with a one-year commercial ban from guiding on federal lands.
A cougar hunting guide and houndsman who worked for Lemon pleaded guilty to assisting with the December 2020 canned hunt. Kacey Alan Yardley, 47, of Enoch, was sentenced in July to six months of probation.
Past investigations
Lemon’s hunting business has been repeatedly investigated by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
On Sept. 3, 2020, The Utah Investigative Journalism Project requested files on closed investigations against Wade Lemon Hunting. The Utah Department of Natural Resources provided information on cases dating back to 2009 — except for the case on the 2018 Trump Jr. hunt.
DNR had decided to reopen it and denied the records request, stating a release would interfere with the now “open” investigation. That case was initially handled by the Utah attorney general’s office.
However, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes has close ties to former President Donald Trump, the father of Trump Jr. Reyes campaigned for Trump and flew to Nevada to investigate election results after his 2020 defeat. Reyes’ entire office declared a conflict and handed off the investigations of all the hunts to the Davis County attorney’s office, which led to Willoughby’s assignment to prosecute them.
Lemon was contacted in 2022 by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project about the hunt with Trump Jr. and commented, “As far as I knew, everything was aboveboard,” before quickly ending the call.
According to charging documents in that case, illegal bait of “a pile of grain, oil and pastries” was discovered with a trail camera pointed right at it. The camera had “WLH” (for Wade Lemon Hunting) written on its side and Lemon’s own telephone number on it, according to court documents.
In 2009, DWR officer Hal Stout reported that on a hunt near Nine Mile Canyon in Carbon County, Lemon’s employees had treed a bear by building a fire at the base of it so the bear wouldn’t escape while they tried to rush a hunter to the spot. He reported that they were there so long that some of Lemon’s employees built a chair out of rocks for Lemon to sit on while they waited for the hunter.
No charges were filed after that investigation.
Lemon was also investigated for an alleged “canned hunt” involving a cougar in 2011, which also did not result in charges. And in 2016, he was investigated for allegedly taking a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep from an off-limits area on Mount Nebo. That case was dismissed because DWR had not updated its guidebooks and a DWR employee had given Lemon confirmation that he could lead a guided hunt on the mountain.
Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.
