"Catch a poacher trap" pic's

So people shoot spikes in the head from the road?
Not sure. We stopped to look across the valley to the north for moose and happened to see that mount up there. For a brief moment we were like WTF is that a spike then we realized it was a mount up on the tree so Elkoholic had to go get a closer look. We must have taken like 100 pictures of it and our amazing stalk
 
If you were on public and attempted to tomahawk the decoy would that lead to a citation? Asking for a friend
If you're not breaking a law like shooting from the road or after dark, probably not.

Full body mount bull 100 yards off the paved highway on FS land, midday.
Guy stops, gets out, carries his gun 50 feet off the highway towards the elk, kneels down and starts to draw a bead.
"DON'T SHOOT!"
Guy looks around all directions, doesn't know where it came from. Looks back at elk, starts to draw a bead.
"DON'T SHOOT!"
Guy looks over his shoulder, "WHY NOT?"
"BECAUSE IT'S NOT REAL!"
Guy looks back at elk, gets up, walks back to his truck and drives away.

Was a G&F officer nearby to bust folks or did they just have a trail cam or something set to see how many folks would take a shot?
We always had someone on foot nearby, in a vehicle at a vantage point that could watch the decoy.
 
If you're not breaking a law like shooting from the road or after dark, probably not.

Full body mount bull 100 yards off the paved highway on FS land, midday.
Guy stops, gets out, carries his gun 50 feet off the highway towards the elk, kneels down and starts to draw a bead.
"DON'T SHOOT!"
Guy looks around all directions, doesn't know where it came from. Looks back at elk, starts to draw a bead.
"DON'T SHOOT!"
Guy looks over his shoulder, "WHY NOT?"
"BECAUSE IT'S NOT REAL!"
Guy looks back at elk, gets up, walks back to his truck and drives away.
This happened to my middle son and me when he was 12. We saw a tom turkey strutting from the road. He was standing on top of an old woodpile. We were new to turkey hunting and knew squat about how a tom SHOULD act. I pulled over and parked and we did a perfect Hunter's Ed fence crossing with my son's shotgun. There was a crumbling log cabin on the property and the boy started his stalk keeping the cabin between us and the bird.

It was an amazing stalk. That tom never moved!

As my son melted around the corner of the building and raised his shotgun, we heard someone yelling, " Don't shoot my decoy!"

Our old Sr. CO and a new CO came out of a cedar blind across the road. I was urgently telling my boy to unload and watch his muzzle as they crossed the road and climbed through the fence. They checked our licenses and the Sr. said to my son, "Wow! You did everything right. Well, up until you pointed your shotgun at a dead bird. A lot of people shot at that thing from the road today."

I was so glad my son's first field check was a good experience.

Two weeks later I was calling the same CO on the phone because I had accidentally doubled on turkeys. I gutted the oops bird and froze it whole until he was back in the neighborhood. When he came to get the bird from me, he ribbed me about my son being a better turkey hunter than I was.
 
Saved a mangy coyote once and staged it so it would freeze in a natural position. Had a lot of fun with that, couldn't believe how bad some of the misses were🤣
Man I have a picture of the same type of frozen yote. I need to find that thing. My brother laid under it and it looked like he was fending off an attack. We sent a copy of the pic to our cousins in Chicago to show them what life on the prairie was all about…haha
 
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Opening day of rifle season about 15 years ago I was checking cows and saw a buck in along the edge of our field off the road. From a ways off I thought it was crippled since it just stood there jerking it’s head up and down. I drove around the section to it and it was obviously a decoy. The warden seen me and called. Wardens in Nebraska don’t need permission to go on private ground so he was worried I’d be mad. I told him to have fun. He caught 2 guys shooting off the road, one was in the evening and the guy got a DUI on top of it. Nothing says “hunter” like shooting at a skylined deer with a high powered rifle, out the window, after 37 beers. I think that guy moved to Montana. 🤣
 
My Dads cousin shot one near the Ishi wilderness a few years back. They were coming home at dusk and saw it above the road. He did everything legal and when he shot, the game wardens yelled out don’t shoot. Kind of weird they waited until after he shot. He was ticked, and asked them if they were going to pay for his ammo. Of course they wouldn’t. Sad thing was he was probably in his late 70’s and never went hunting again.
 
The sad part is they (wardens) have to use them at all. I am sure the majority of hunters are all very law abiding but given the chance for an "easy" kill, some succumb to temptation. Human nature I guess.....
 
A warden once told me the story of a guy who spotted their buck deer, drove to the ranchers house, got permission to hunt, drove back to location, got out and put his orange on, crossed the fence and laid down and shot the decoy. All legal. Wardens approach and were about to congratulate him for being lawful- asked to check his license- I don’t have one of those.
 
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A warden once told me the story of a guy who spotted their buck deer, drove to the ranchers house, got permission to hunt, drove back to location, got out and put his orange on, crossed the fence and laid down and shot the decoy. All legal. Wardens approach and we’re about to congratulate him for being lawful- asked to check his license- I don’t have one of those.
Don’t break the rules while you’re breaking the rules
 
Friend of mine was elk hunting in CO in the late 80's. Drove by a decoy coming down the mountain and realized it was fake. He got out and hung an orange hat on it, 1/2 mile down the road got stopped by CO and got a warning ticket for "Vandalizing Government property". Never got his hat back.
 
My first animal archery target was one I got from one of my FWP friends. They were just going to throw it away so I took it. It was one of those synthetic forms that FWP had a taxidermist put a deer hide over it and stitch it up and put horns on it just like he was doing a life-size mount. It was "retired" because it had been shot up quite a bit and was in rough shape. I set it up in my backyard. It got looks from a couple neighbors at first. This was the same couple that would have other "couples" from the same town where we lived "spend the night" at their place quite frequently. That explains a lot.

One of my FWP friends told me about shed elk antlers that they had put micro-chips in them so they could be tracked. The sheds were on a game range. It caught a few before it was opened up for shed hunting.
 
The sad part is they (wardens) have to use them at all. I am sure the majority of hunters are all very law abiding but given the chance for an "easy" kill, some succumb to temptation. Human nature I guess.....

From my annual experiences....I beg to differ.
 
Just my ornery sense of humor, but I say every year we hunt eastern Oregon deer that I want to make a cardboard cutout of a buck and post it up in a small gap in the trees about 100 yards off a road with a safe backdrop. Perhaps close enough to camp that we can hear how often it gets shot. And occasionally walk over and see where the bullet holes are (or aren't) in the cardboard. I'm just afraid that other hunters wouldn't share my sense of humor.

QQ
 
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