Ashland man sentenced to month in jail, banned from hunting for mishap that wounded friend

BLOOMSBURG – A hunting trip gone awry left a Girardville man permanently injured and an Ashland man in jail for a month and out of the hunting blind for a decade, according to a Bloomsburg newspaper.

Michael Walnock, 49, of Ashland, was sentenced by a Columbia County judge Thursday to a month in jail, accused of shooting his friend while hunting coyotes near Millville in 2021.

According to the Press-Enterprise, Walnock pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of shooting at and injuring another person — 51-year-old Joseph Linn, Jr., of Girardville.

For that, he will spend a month in prison, 17 months on probation, and is banned from hunting for the next ten years.

Walnock said he’d fired a shot at what he believed was “eye shine,” striking Linn in the neck.

Linn still has bullet fragments embedded in his neck, the Press-Enterprise reported.

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