GREEN RIVER - Investigators say local sportsmen in the Kemmerer area in southwest Wyoming helped locate and convict a Texas man who admitted to trying to poach a mule deer earlier this month.

Wyoming Game and Fish Department spokeswoman Lucy Wold said in a media release that Micah S. Morales, 30, of Jasper, pleaded guilty in Lincoln County Circuit Court on April 16 to shooting twice at a mule deer with his .22 rifle from his vehicle.

The poaching attempt occurred on the evening of April 9 alongside Highway 189 south of Kemmerer.

Wold said Morales, a contract worker for Total Western, was in the area working on a boiler overhaul at the Naughton Power Plant at the time of the shooting.

Game Warden Andrew Countryman said the case was solved with the cooperation of local sportsmen and wildlife officers.

He said wardens were alerted to the case after a sportsman reported seeing the incident.

Countryman said Morales was with another contract worker at the time of the shooting. Wardens interviewed the worker, who admitted he was with Morales and another employee when the incident occurred.

The co-workers told wardens he was confident Morales had hit at least one deer, but no carcass was found at the site by searchers a week later.

Morales was charged with attempting to hunt/kill wildlife from a highway and wanton destruction of big game. He was ordered to pay a $5,060 fine, to serve 12 days in jail and he had his hunting/fishing privileges in Wyoming and 31 other states revoked for nine years.

Contact southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino at 307-875-5359 or gearino@tribcsp.com.