MINNEAPOLIS — The odd-looking deer hunter caught the eye of conservation officer Brad Johnson.

Johnson, who patrols the Silver Bay area in northeastern Minnesota, spotted the hunter sitting in a power-line clearing in the woods near Finland, Minn. So Johnson hiked in to check his license.

"I was walking in and was about 100 yards away and I noticed the guy is not moving a muscle. I kept walking up to him and about the time I'm about to say hello, I notice it's a dummy, stuffed with straw, sitting in the chair. He has a BB gun with a scope, blaze orange bibs and a sweatshirt. His head was a soccer ball with a ski mask and sunglasses."

And a nametag: Buster.

"I was laughing so hard," Johnson said.

That's because he knew Buster was a practical joke sprung on a hunter who had been going after a big buck, reportedly about a 10-pointer, that had been seen in the area.

"Everyone in town got buck fever," Johnson said.

One hunter put up a deer stand on public land near the power line, to the chagrin of some other hunters.

Those hunters eventually assembled "Buster" and set him out near the end of the hunting season.

A note to hunters who might be thinking about trying something similar to actually preempt a hunter from accessing a spot or to "save" yourself a place on public land: "That would be illegal activity, and we'd do something about that," Johnson said.

Oh, and Buster? Johnson hauled him away and his owners claimed him later.

The case of Buster the Hunter was just one of the unusual, sobering or sometimes comic reports from Minnesota conservation officers. The fall hunting season tends to bring out odd encounters.

Here are a few other cases:

• Officer Thomas Sutherland of Hill City was awakened by five shots outside his home. A poacher? Nope. Minors who were drinking and firing their gun at a radio tower's lights. Citations were issued.

• Officer Jeff Humphrey of Cloquet put a deer decoy out, and sure enough someone came along the road and shot at it. Turned out to be a grandfather and his 13-year-old grandson. "Grandpa decided that road hunting and shooting from the road would be a way for the grandson to get his first deer," Humphrey reported.

• And then there was the deer stand that stood 27 1\2 feet above the ground in Aitkin County — well above the 16-foot limit. When asked how high he thought it was, the hunter replied: "I think about 13 feet."

• Officer Scott Fritz of La Crescent responded to two separate cases involving trophy bucks that were locked together. In both cases, one of the bucks had died before they were found. Houston Nature Center will put one of the pairs on display, he reported.