Man charged with having gobble phone app, crossbow in illegal turkey hunt

Alert officers who saw turkeys running through a field Saturday charged a Rock Hill man with illegally using an app on his phone to hunt with a crossbow, South Carolina wildlife agents said.

The suspect, who was out on bond from October drug charges, also was charged with drug possession and illegal weapon possession by a felon, records show.

Shannon Dale Saylors, 49, faces eight charges after the weekend incident off Mount Gallant Road near S.C. 274 west of Rock Hill, according to police and jail records.

Saylors is charged by the S.C Department of Natural Resources with illegal hunting of wild turkey out of season, hunting on private land without consent, hunting without a tag or stamp, and illegally using recorded sounds to aid in hunting, said Aukeem Ruff, DNR conservation officer.

Turkeys can not be legally hunted around the Christmas holidays because the legal season is in the spring, Ruff said.

Deputies on patrol saw turkeys running through a field, then spotted Saylors with a crowssbow, Ruff said.

DNR officers who responded found an arrow that had been shot at the birds. Ruff also said Saylors was using an illegal turkey call from a cellphone.

“He was using hen calls to try and bring the gobblers, the male toms, to him,” Ruff said.

Saylors also was charged by York County Sheriff’s Office deputies with meth and marijuana possession, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and habitual traffic offender, jail records show.

Saylors was out on bond from an October arrest on two drug charges, court records show. He has previous convictions for forgery and being a habitual traffic offender, according to court records.

Saylors remains in the York County jail on all eight charges under a $21,760 bond.

This story was originally published December 24, 2018 at 10:39 AM with the headline "Man charged with having gobble phone app, crossbow in illegal turkey hunt."