“I don’t want you hunting this outfit.”

[Wildabeest]

Would it be theft of antlers thought if the elk was killed on his property without permission? They had no right to be on that property or take that elk. It may have been taken by a hunter but it may as well been a dead head since they did it illegally

It was a different elk on the same hunt. There’s no evidence that the elk the rancher took was taken on private.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I really didn't get the vibe this was a mistake like the wandering dot isn't exactly over you. Or a boundary is so far off in relation to OnX.

I hear that, I just think sometimes if you go looking for a fight (hard to reach public access, hunting tight to the boundary), you just might find one. These guys did. Hard to feel bad for them.

All I know that I had an experience with OnX and private property lines where I was bird hunting a creek bottom and had a rancher’s fence a hundred yards or so in front of me. Looked at OnX as I headed towards the fence and assumed that the line was where the rancher had his fence. Never crossed the fence or even touched it as I hunted along side it down the creek bottom, checked my GPS somewhere along the route and my ONX track showed me to be twenty plus yards onto private property even though I was five plus yards on the public side of the fence.


I moved away from the fence until I was on public as defined by OnX and continued my hunt. Did I trespass, or was OnX wrong? I dont know to this day. What would have happened if I had been confronted by a warden and charged with trespassing? I don’t know.
I do know enough about potential situations we encounter with hunting that I have a delineation in my judgement of other hunters that doesn’t automatically apply the “poacher” or “criminal” label in some scenarios and does in others. I’ve been on the wrong side of legal in accidental or unintentional situations enough to know that some of those scenarios could have been spun to paint me in a negative light if folks wanted to.

I killed a cow and a calf one hunt when I only had one elk tag. Greedy poacher…. Except for the fact that I thought the calf was actually the cow that I had just shot and didn’t realize that the limping was from another hunter’s bullet days before. The fact that my cow was lying dead thirty yards away from me as I watched this calf limp away in low light was unknown at the time. I backed out and spent a cold night in my Suburban because I didn’t want to push the elk I thought I had wounded onto private property and not recover it. Went back in the morning and gridded the hillside until I saw the calf bedded and finished it off thinking I was completing the action I had started.

That’s when I realized this was a different elk and took care of field dressing that calf before retracing my track the night before and found the cow I had shot lying less than thirty yards from where I was when I saw the calf limping away 300 yards from me. At that point in the track there wasn’t any blood for me to follow and my best interpretation of reality wasn’t what was actually true. So I killed two elk when I had one tag. Am I a poacher because of it?

The warden that I self reported to when I got back to civilization was satisfied to write me a warning citation and confiscate the carcass of the calf. I’ve never had any further ramifications from a legal standpoint since that incident. I have to say that multiple other scenarios of how I could have handled that situation crossed my mind afterwards. Self reporting eliminated legal repercussions but it didn’t change the facts of anything I did when I was breaking the law unintentionally.


I didn’t self report the potential trespass. Am I a trespasser? I don’t know. I just know that I don’t have as cut and dried opinions about the actions of others that are outside of the law and not in character with what I see as representative of the rest of their actions as I used to have.

 

[Wildabeest]

All I know that I had an experience with OnX and private property lines where I was bird hunting a creek bottom and had a rancher’s fence a hundred yards or so in front of me. Looked at OnX as I headed towards the fence and assumed that the line was where the rancher had his fence. Never crossed the fence or even touched it as I hunted along side it down the creek bottom, checked my GPS somewhere along the route and my ONX track showed me to be twenty plus yards onto private property even though I was five plus yards on the public side of the fence.


I moved away from the fence until I was on public as defined by OnX and continued my hunt. Did I trespass, or was OnX wrong? I dont know to this day. What would have happened if I had been confronted by a warden and charged with trespassing? I don’t know.
I do know enough about potential situations we encounter with hunting that I have a delineation in my judgement of other hunters that doesn’t automatically apply the “poacher” or “criminal” label in some scenarios and does in others. I’ve been on the wrong side of legal in accidental or unintentional situations enough to know that some of those scenarios could have been spun to paint me in a negative light if folks wanted to.

I killed a cow and a calf one hunt when I only had one elk tag. Greedy poacher…. Except for the fact that I thought the calf was actually the cow that I had just shot and didn’t realize that the limping was from another hunter’s bullet days before. The fact that my cow was lying dead thirty yards away from me as I watched this calf limp away in low light was unknown at the time. I backed out and spent a cold night in my Suburban because I didn’t want to push the elk I thought I had wounded onto private property and not recover it. Went back in the morning and gridded the hillside until I saw the calf bedded and finished it off thinking I was completing the action I had started.

That’s when I realized this was a different elk and took care of field dressing that calf before retracing my track the night before and found the cow I had shot lying less than thirty yards from where I was when I saw the calf limping away 300 yards from me. At that point in the track there wasn’t any blood for me to follow and my best interpretation of reality wasn’t what was actually true. So I killed two elk when I had one tag. Am I a poacher because of it?

The warden that I self reported to when I got back to civilization was satisfied to write me a warning citation and confiscate the carcass of the calf. I’ve never had any further ramifications from a legal standpoint since that incident. I have to say that multiple other scenarios of how I could have handled that situation crossed my mind afterwards. Self reporting eliminated legal repercussions but it didn’t change the facts of anything I did when I was breaking the law unintentionally.


I didn’t self report the potential trespass. Am I a trespasser? I don’t know. I just know that I don’t have as cut and dried opinions about the actions of others that are outside of the law and not in character with what I see as representative of the rest of their actions as I used to have.

Yep. Anybody’s guess on the below as to whether that homeowner built his outbuilding on state land or OnX is wrong. That fence line predates the home and is 30’ into the state land according to OnX and extends thru the next private parcel to the east.

On the east boundary of that state section is the Gallatin / Park County line - again OnX is showing the state land boundary well off of the actual county line, amd showing bordering private land in Park County actually extending into Gallatin. That’s not likely as it would be a nightmare from a county tax standpoint. Further north of the state land parcel, OnX shows the property boundary going right thru the middle of a house whereas the county line is showing a more reasonable place the property line would be.

Given all of that, my guess is that OnX is wrong on the actual property boundaries.

 

[elkduds]

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