The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KUER.
In July 2024, renowned hunting guide Wade Lemon pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor and an infraction for illegal “canned hunts” in 2020 and 2021. He had cornered mountain lions and tricked his hunting clients into thinking the quarry was discovered just as they arrived on the scene.
The then 63-year-old was sentenced to two months in a federal facility, ordered to pay a $10,500 fine and banned for one year from guiding hunts on federal land.
Lemon was a highly successful and politically connected hunting guide based out of Holden in Utah’s Millard County. He helped wealthy clients make dream hunts for big game in the state a reality.
But even after his conviction for illegally rigged hunts, his current website still boasts “nearly 100% success rates yearly” for guided cougar hunts.
And this year, prosecutors reached a plea bargain in state court for charges relating to bear baiting. That happened when Lemon guided a hunt in 2018 for Donald Trump Jr., one of his most high-profile clients.
The Utah Investigative Journalism Project obtained a 160-page investigative report into Lemon by the Utah Attorney General’s Office. This account is based on that report and interviews with current and former state wildlife officials, the prosecuting attorney and one of the hunt participants. Court filings, transcripts and other records were also reviewed.
The Attorney General’s report described alleged illegal and unethical conduct going back more than a decade, but by the time witnesses spoke with an investigator, the statute of limitations had expired on many of the alleged violations.
The allegations include:
- Tranquilizing a mountain lion and stuffing it in a barrel. The lion was released when the client was nearby, but the lion was weak and could barely move and had scratched the barrel lid for so long it “had no claws left.”
- Drugging bears with tranquilizers and watermelons filled with alcohol.
- Paying a taxidermist to artificially increase the size of a mountain lion’s skull so it could be considered a trophy that would bring more business to Lemon’s company.
- Beating, hanging, starving and shooting his own hound dogs when they did not perform to his satisfaction.
While Lemon’s attorneys in the federal case asked the judge to consider their client’s “lifetime of good deeds,” sources in the report described Lemon’s history as a guide much differently.
According to the Attorney General’s report, an informant told the investigator that “Wade Lemon is the most corrupt person he has known,” adding that “breaking the law was like a drug to Wade Lemon and he was addicted.” Another confidential informant who worked with Lemon said he conducted dozens of canned hunts over the years.
So how is it that Lemon avoided being charged sooner? The state’s investigative report did not seek to answer that question, but multiple sources pointed out how well-connected he is politically.
The investigator also examined the 2018 hunt that Lemon guided for Trump Jr. It was held as part of a celebration of the creation of Hunter Nation, a sportsmen-themed political organization looking to rally the support of hunters for Trump Sr.’s 2020 presidential reelection bid.
A year after the Trump Jr. hunt in Utah, the men met again in Texas, hosted by the Houston Safari Club Foundation, where Trump Jr. presented Lemon with the “‘Modern Day Teddy Roosevelt Award’ … for his work and efforts in wildlife conservation, and preserving our hunting heritage,” according to a press release.
Lemon’s attorney, Greg Law, said his client would not comment for this story. Law dismissed the findings of the Attorney General investigator’s report, describing it as “mostly unreliable hearsay with unsupported allegations by disgruntled former employees.”
The report identifies 24 interviews with sources ranging from former employees and family members to law enforcement officials. The investigation also included recordings of Lemon setting up an illegal canned mountain lion hunt for which he pleaded guilty in the federal case, separate from the Trump Jr. hunt.
Law said the investigation was driven by politics.
“The charges against Wade were filed one day prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations,” Law said in an email in reference to the charges resulting from the 2018 hunt with Trump Jr., filed in May 2022. “That should give you an idea of the political motivation behind the charges … his ties to Donald Trump Jr.”
The Hunts:
While the investigator heard reports of alleged illegal behavior going back more than a decade, prosecutors were only able to bring charges on the following hunts, where the statute of limitations had not expired.
May 2018: Lemon guides a hunt for Donald Trump Jr. Over the course of a weekend, Lemon helps the president’s son kill a mountain lion and a bear. The case was filed in 2022, alleging the bear hunt was illegal because the guide had baited the bear. In 2025, the case was settled in state court, and the felony charge was reduced to a wildlife violation infraction. Lemon paid a $974.50 fine.
December 2020: Lemon and a co-defendant trapped a mountain lion inside a cave and then released hounds as the client approached to make it seem like a legitimate hunt.
January 2021: A confidential informant treed a cougar and coordinated with Lemon to get a paying client to the location. Lemon instructed the informant to release the dogs “just for effect” when he and the hunter arrived at the location.
Federal prosecutors got a conviction in federal court for the 2020 and 2021 hunt. That resulted in a $10,000 fine and a one-year ban for Lemon on hunting on federal lands in the fall of 2024.
The investigation begins
The Attorney General’s investigation into Lemon began in late 2020, and concluded in the summer of 2021, according to the report. It resulted in multiple cases beyond the canned mountain lion hunts that were transferred to federal court. Lemon was also charged with a third degree felony for wanton destruction of protected wildlife for allegedly baiting a bear for the Trump Jr. hunt in May 2018.
The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources closed the 2018 investigation, but reopened it after The Utah Investigative Journalism Project sought records on closed investigations against Lemon.
Investigators dug into that case and others for months before filing charges. Last fall, Lemon’s attorney told a judge they were prepared to go to trial in February of this year on the case involving Donald Trump Jr. and warned it would be hard to seat a jury given that “one of the parties involved has got some significant political connections.”
But on Jan. 23, 2025, the case was settled, and the felony was knocked down to an infraction for violation of a wildlife rule. Wade was required to pay a $974.50 fine.
Davis County prosecutor Ben Willoughby handled the federal case and one state case that came from the Attorney General’s investigation.
He said the federal case was “hard-fought.”
“We accomplished incarceration, probation, supervision, a large fine, restriction from commercial activity on federal lands,” Willoughby said. “We were able to just get the lion’s share of what we needed in that federal case.”
The smaller fine on the 2018 bear hunt case was in line with state statute, Willoughby said. It would have been easy to dismiss the state charge as part of a plea bargain in federal court, but prosecutors demurred.
“We didn’t want to do that because I wanted a (state) conviction to show that this didn’t happen just in 2021 and 2020,” he said.
Willoughby stressed that in all three cases, Lemon’s clients, like Trump Jr., were victims, stating “they were all duped.”
“They missed all the action by half a day and were just brought in to take the final shot,” Willoughby said.
The 2018 investigation into the Trump Jr. hunt came when state wildlife officers responded to an informant’s tip about possible bear baiting. The informant told officers about a bait station with a camera pointed at “a pile of grain, oil and pastries that a bear had been eating.” The informant took the officers to the station, and in the original incident report, they noted that “all evidence does indicate the bear that Donald Trump Jr. killed was started from the bait station.”
Investigators knew where the hunt began, but they did not see where it ended. In fact, the original report ends abruptly.
“Due to the political nature of the investigation it was advised that we don’t put any trail cameras or surveillance cameras in the area without a search warrant,” the Division of Wildlife Resources investigator wrote.
“It was also advised by DWR administration that we don’t spend time looking for the carcass or kill site of the bear. This case can be closed at this time until further direction is given.”
In 2020, when the case was reopened, it was led by Brent Kasza, an investigator with the Utah Attorney General's Office. But the office passed the prosecution to the Davis County Attorney because of an undisclosed conflict of interest.
Investigator Kasza interviewed Mike Fowlks, the director of Utah Division of Wildlife Resources at the time of the Trump Jr. hunt, who retired in 2021.
Fowlks’ name came up multiple times in the investigative report in connection with cases involving Lemon. In 2009, for example, a division of wildlife investigator was looking into a hunt in Carbon County where Lemon was alleged to have cornered a bear in a tree and built a fire at the base to keep the bear there until the hunter could arrive.
Kasza asked Fowlks about the case, noting that the original investigator believed Fowlks had decided to close the case. Fowlks told the investigator he didn’t recall putting pressure on anyone to do so.
When asked about closing the 2018 Trump Jr. hunt investigation, Fowlks said it wasn’t his decision, and he heard that it was closed by the division because of a problem with a warrant and to protect an informant.
Kasza also asked Fowlks why he decided to go on a bear hunt in 2020, guided by Lemon’s company, after he knew of the investigations against him over the years.
“He informed me in hindsight he wished he hadn’t gone hunting with Wade Lemon,” Kasza wrote, adding that Fowlks told him that “he did not observe any illegal activity during his hunt.”
Investigator Kasza said the interview with Fowlks wasn’t easy.
“We had to specifically ask him the question to get answers, but they were not freely given.”
In an interview with The Utah Investigative Journalism Project, Fowlks stated the bear hunt with Lemon’s company was not a gift, that he paid for it out of his own pocket and that Lemon wasn’t on the hunt with him.
Fowlks also pushed back on the idea that he shut down that 2009 hunt investigation in Carbon County for trapping the bear in a tree.
When the Attorney General investigator interviewed Hal Stout, the division of wildlife officer who investigated that case, Stout described it as a “slam dunk” case that should have been prosecuted.
“That’s Hal Stout’s opinion, but I had five investigators on a statewide investigative committee who said ‘no,’” Fowlks said, referencing a group of investigators he brought together to get their opinion.
According to the Attorney General’s investigative report, Stout was part of that panel, and he told the investigator that Fowlks steered the group toward closing the case.
“[Stout] believed the investigators were conditioned to follow the lead of the chief which is what happened when Chief Fowlks gave his direction on the case,” the Attorney General’s report stated.
Lemon’s political connections
Fowlks was one of multiple sources to tell the Attorney General’s investigators that Lemon had the backing of Don Peay. Peay is the founder of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, who, for years, was a powerful voice for Trump’s political efforts in Utah.
In a 2023 Deseret News article, Peay said he also helped Trump Jr. build support with rural red-state voters who couldn’t relate to the Manhattan real-estate developer.
“I also helped Don Jr. nationwide, mostly plugged him into people. Don Jr. is the reason his father became president,” Peay told the reporter. “Don Jr. delivered that last two yards in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.”
Peay was present during the 2018 bear hunt with Donald Trump Jr., but he was not interviewed during the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources’ original, brief investigation.
When Kasza followed up with the original division of wildlife investigator, he said he was told no interview would be taken of Peay back in 2018.
According to the report, the investigator challenged that “someone needs to find out what side of the fence Peay sits on, the side of the law, or the side against the law.”
Multiple sources in the investigation spoke of how Lemon and Peay had a mutually beneficial relationship.
Fowlks said that Peay brings clients to Lemon, who in turn brings in big-money clients to aid Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife.
Katie Lemon, Wade Lemon’s daughter-in-law, said the relationship between Wade and Don Peay was based on money.
“Katie told me when Don would have a hunter, he would call Wade Lemon to make the hunt successful, at any cost,” Kasza wrote in the report.
One of Lemon’s employees, Chase Hinkins, explained to investigator Kasza that Lemon would buy hunting tags from Peay’s Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife.
“He’s Don’s bread and butter,” Hinkins said.
Peay said the 2018 case looking into the Trump Jr. hunt was politically motivated.
“That’s a bullshit case and you can quote me on that,” Peay told The Utah Investigative Journalism Project. He said that since he was there, he knew that it was a legitimate hunt.
Willoughby points out that the 2018 hunt was located in Carbon County at the same property where Lemon was investigated in 2009 for treeing a bear and trapping it in the tree by building a fire at the base. Investigators in both cases found Lemon’s station for baiting the bears in the same location.
“Not only were the facts the same, it's the same [location], the same bait stations, it’s the same conduct,” Willoughby said. “A decade had passed but the same facts were occurring.”
Peay said he’s had a productive relationship with Lemon over the years and that there’s been nothing inappropriate about it. He also said that he was interviewed back in 2018 by a Division of Wildlife Resources investigator, despite what was claimed in the Attorney General’s investigative report. That report, however, makes no reference to an interview with Peay.
“He’s really a great human being,” Peay said of Lemon. “He’s done a lot for wildlife conservation in the state, he’s probably gotten $20 million to $30 million in conservation revenue to the state.”
He said guiding the hunt for Trump Jr. as part of the launch of the sportsmen-oriented political group, Hunter Nation, is what made him a target of investigation.
“He’s an honorable guy and he was targeted because he guided Trump Jr., period, end of statement,” Peay said.
Allegations of dog brutality
While animal cruelty was not necessarily the focus of the investigation into Wade Lemon, four different sources described shocking instances of abuse of his own hound dogs.
One former employee told Kasza, “he personally observed Wade hang dogs by their throat from a tree, and beat the dogs with a stick until they died.” The informant witnessed this at least three times.
Another informant said he witnessed Wade Lemon use a rock to “beat a dog until its eyeball popped out of its head,” beat dogs to death with sticks and rocks and even beat puppies to death if they barked when they weren’t supposed to.”
Katie Lemon, Wade’s former daughter-in-law, saw Wade punching a dog that would have died if his son had not restrained him.
One former employee said another hunter who used hounds to hunt big game had warned the informant that Wade Lemon would “kill your dogs” if he wasn’t careful. The informant passed on what he heard to Wade Lemon, who then said, “I’ll show that son of a bitch,” and proceeded to go to his own dog pen and shoot one of his dogs with a pistol six times from close range. Lemon then dropped the dead dog off in the middle of a road where the other hunter would see it.
“The [confidential informant] told me Wade did this to send a message.”
State oversight
The Utah Department of Natural Resources declined a sit-down interview to discuss concerns about how investigations into Lemon were handled over the years.
Chase Pili, a captain over administrative services at the Utah Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Law Enforcement, said the agency “no longer employs the leadership involved at the time of these investigations, and we can’t speculate on the circumstances or conversations you asked about.”
This included sections of the report in which Lemon bragged about duping Division of Wildlife Resources wildlife biologists.
One former employee of Lemon’s said he would kill mountain lions in hunting units for which he did not have permits. The source said the state wildlife biologist in the area “was an idiot and they lied to him all the time,” and that Lemon “would lie about the unit all the time, but the DNR never followed up on carcasses and he always got away with it.”
Another source told the Attorney General’s investigator that Lemon had made a deal with a conservation officer so that “when they would have an illegal mountain lion,” they would take it to a particular officer, “who would lie on the DWR form and check it in.”
Pili said the Department of Natural Resources couldn’t comment on the allegations “since these individuals are no longer employed by DNR, and we are unable to verify the conversations and circumstances mentioned.”
As for the 2018 case that the Division of Wildlife Resources closed, Pili said the “political” concerns were about placing cameras on private land since the issue had come up in the legislative session that year. But “in later reviewing this investigation report, there were aspects of the investigation that we wanted to better understand, which led us to requesting the external review by the Utah Attorney General’s Office in 2020.”
The Utah Investigative Journalism Project requested the report in 2020, which was closed at the time. By reopening it and giving it to the Attorney General for review, the office was also able to deny the record request, since it would then interfere with an ongoing investigation.
Even though years had elapsed, when the case was reinvestigated, evidence was found to charge Lemon for illegally hunting the bear off of bait back in 2018.
While Pili said the “political” concerns raised by the original wildlife resources investigators had to do with policy debates at the Legislature, one of the investigators was more blunt.
When asked about the 2018 hunt that included Peay and Donald Trump Jr., the investigator said he wasn’t allowed to gather appropriate evidence or interview witnesses like a normal case.
This was his assessment:
“If the hunters would have been coal miners every person involved would have been interviewed, and the case would have moved forward, but because of the important people involved, the case was shut down.”
