HUNTERS' SHOOTING BAFFLES OFFICIALS - BOY, FATHER MAY HAVE STUMBLED ON POT
PATCH

It was supposed to be a family outing, a deer hunt in the rugged forests of
El Dorado County where Bill Hunt and his relatives have owned property for
years.

By the time it ended Sunday, Hunt was in serious condition and his
8-year-old son in critical condition from gunshot wounds, and authorities
were trying to determine whether the pair had stumbled across a marijuana
garden being grown secretly on their land.

El Dorado County sheriff's officials announced Monday that they had found
recently harvested marijuana plots on the property and were searching for
two mysterious men who were in the area at the time of the shootings.

However, officials cautioned that they still were not certain whether the
shootings were drug-related.

"Some of the facts don't make sense," said El Dorado County Undersheriff
Jeff Neves.

In fact, investigators still did not know Monday exactly where the
shootings took place or what kinds of weapons might have been used.

Interviews with authorities and family friends indicated that the incident
began Sunday morning several miles from Georgetown, where Bill Hunt, 42,
was on an outing with his 8-year-old and 4-year-old sons and his brother,
Donald, 34.

"They've hunted for generations," said Christopher Hipkin, a friend of the
Hunt family and a forest consultant for them. "This was like a
father-and-son bonding thing where you take your boys out and teach them
gun safety and wilderness skills."

The shootings occurred around 10 a.m. Sunday after the party set off in
search of deer on the Hunts' 470-acre property near the Blodgett
Experimental Forest.

Bill Hunt, a dairyman from the south Sacramento County community of Herald,
was carrying a .307-caliber hunting rifle and was with his boys walking in
the forest when they came across two men who were carrying a shotgun,
according to an account the 4-year-old gave authorities. Neither boy's name
was released.

The 4-year-old told investigators that the two men led him to a bushy area
and told him to stay there to be safe from attack by bears or mountain lions.

They walked away, and the boy heard two gunshots. The boy then saw his
father and brother returning, both with gunshot wounds, and the two men
helping the pair. The two men led them to the family truck and helped them
inside.

Meanwhile, Donald Hunt, who was hunting in a separate area, heard Bill
Hunt's truck horn blaring.

Donald Hunt raced back to find Bill Hunt and his 8-year-old son suffering
from gunshot wounds. The elder Hunt had been shot in the abdomen, his son
in the face.

The wounded pair and the 4-year-old were in the truck, with Bill Hunt
leaning on the horn to signal for help. Outside the vehicle, two
unidentified men were trying to unhitch a trailer the Hunts used to haul
their all-terrain vehicles.

Authorities believe the men were trying to remove the trailer to help the
Hunts drive faster, but the men vanished after that, and officials have no
idea who they are or whether they are connected to the shootings.

Donald Hunt was driving the truck, using his cellular phone to summon help,
when they came across a Georgetown Fire Department truck returning from a
false alarm.

"If they hadn't been there, Donald would have had to drive all the way to
Georgetown for help," Hipkin said.

Instead, emergency technicians with the fire crew were able to administer
oxygen and call for helicopter transport. Bill Hunt was taken to Sutter
Roseville Medical Center in critical condition and was upgraded to serious
condition Monday.

His son was taken to the UC Davis Medical Center, where he was in critical
condition late Monday.

Family members at the hospitals declined to be interviewed, but friends
said the Hunts are a friendly and generous family who treasured time spent
with their children. Bill Hunt is a volunteer firefighter, and his wife
volunteers in an area school library.

"They're wonderful people, always helping others," neighbor Shirley
Grannell said as she choked back tears.

Investigators had little to go on Monday to explain the shootings, but they
believe there is a possibility the hunting party unwittingly came upon a
guarded marijuana plot.

The steep, rugged terrain of heavy forests is largely uninhabited, with
much of it belonging to a large family trust and the University of
California's Blodgett tract.

Authorities are trying to determine whether the two men who helped the
wounded Hunts into their truck were marijuana guards who shot the pair and
then decided to help them.

Sheriff's officials said that they found 50 to 75 marijuana plants in a
small plot Sunday night, and that they discovered additional plants Monday
that had been harvested in the past couple of days.

However, they were unable to pinpoint the site of the shootings or
determine how far from the marijuana fields the attack may have taken
place. They also could not say whether the pair had been wounded by someone
firing at them or from a booby trap set to protect the marijuana.

Shootings in marijuana gardens are rare, officials say, and the use of
booby traps has declined from the early to mid-1980s, when they were common.

The only shooting in recent memory involving a marijuana field was several
weeks ago, when state authorities joined with Madera County officials to
raid a marijuana field and ended up shooting and killing a guard who opened
fire as they approached, officials said.

"Certainly, the folks tending these large gardens will protect them," said
state Department of Justice spokesman Mike Van Winkle. "We've made 130
raids this year, but that's the only violence in the gardens.

"Most of the time, these folks are out there for a month or two at a time
and they get to know the territory real well. They get to know where they
can go to hide where nobody's going to find them."

Van Winkle said there have been no state marijuana raids in recent years in
El Dorado County. But Neves, the undersheriff, said that in the past month
sheriff's officials had discovered two separate marijuana gardens -- one
with 1,000 plants, the other with 1,700 -- on property adjoining where the
shootings took place.

One fully mature plant can yield a pound of high-grade marijuana that can
wholesale for as much as $5,000, Van Winkle said, and state raids so far
this year have turned up 25 weapons at such sites, including fully
automatic rifles.

Past raids have turned up booby traps that included shotgun shells placed
at face height and triggered by trip wires, he said.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer warned last year of the dangers to
innocent people from such marijuana fields, Lockyer spokesman Nathan
Barankin said Monday.

"That does occur," Barankin said. "This is potentially a large danger for
hikers and campers and hunters."

Because authorities had been unable to find the mysterious pair by late
Monday, they planned to interview the 4-year-old again.

Investigators are perplexed that neither of the men who helped the wounded
Hunts into their truck apparently had blood on their clothing, and by the
fact that Bill Hunt's rifle was not recovered.

"There are any number of sequences of what happened," Neves said. "We have
no information on which we can draw conclusions."

Staff writers Ted Bell, Andy Furillo, Ralph Montano and Jennifer K. Morita
contributed to this report.