Caribou Gear Tarp

Tough weekend

antlerradar

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 23, 2012
Messages
4,066
Location
SE Montana
The worst part of hunting season for me dealing with poachers. Every year I get the pleasure a least once. The rut is the worst. This weekend I got double duty.
The first started with my sister in law. She caught some poachers walking off the road and looking down into a draw. She ran them off. Of course they gave her the "my GPS says this is BLM story" Like I haven't heard that one before. I bet every trespasser I have ever dealt with has claimed they were on public land. She drives back to the house to tell my brother and they hear the shooting. I also hear the shots but thought they might be the outfitter on the neighbors. My brother drives up the road and there they are on the side of the road no more than a mile from where my sister in law ran them off . They take off but a mile up the road they turn around. I have seen that trick a more than once and so has my brother. As soon as he is out of sight he turns around to watch. Sure enough the poachers start driving across our pasture. They see my brother and race back to the county road. He confronts them. Oh no we didn't shoot, we are lost and were just turning around. (as if you need to drive 50 yard off the road to turn around)
I also see them driving off the road. The poachers leave and my brother and I drive to my dads to call the warden and gives him plate numbers. We them went back to look for the deer. It was maybe 200 yards off the road. My brother returns to my fathers house to tell the warden that we found the buck.( pictured) He then returns to wait for the warden and the poachers are back. My brother just drives by, waves and drives to the neighbors to call the warden and tell him that the poachers are back. He no sooner hangs up the phone and there is a knock on the door. It is the poachers looking for a place to hunt. ( shoot first, and then ask. not the first time I have seen that) My brother tells them to wait for the warden and they do. As poachers go they were not pros.
Today I was hunting with a friend and his 14 year old daughter. We were on top of a large hill and we spot a good whitetail buck ( heavy 140 class) 300 yards below us. Two problems. He was 100 yards into the neighbors field and across the county road form us. The poachers in the first pickup shoot him right from the road, drive across the field, through the buck in the back and take off. I race off the hill and confront them. I got license plates and pickup make and model but they didn't stick around. I hope the warden can reconnect with them.
My stories are not that important. This is what is. I have never been interested in outfitter money, but when outfitters talk about patrolling my property and taking over the chore of dealing with slobs. Now that gets my interest.
The rut is the worst. before the rut the older buck are not near the roads in the daylight. During the rut those better bucks are easy pickings.
I would bet the amount of access loss because of people like I had to deal with this weekend is staggering
 
got to re size the picture. I will try to do it in a day or so. It is time for bed. Need to get up early and find a nice buck for the young lady
 
I am still pissed and couldn't sleep
The mule deer buck.

Dealing with people like the ones this weekend is tough. One of the reasons I frequent Hunt Talk and go out of my way to talk with hunters in the field is to connect with real sportsmen. If my only contact was with slobs like the ones this weekend I would get a badly jaded view of hunters in a hurry.
I have 0 tolerance for the gun and run hunters.
 

Attachments

  • 100_0339.JPG
    100_0339.JPG
    192.9 KB · Views: 765
Last edited:
Beautiful buck. Sickening behavior. Sorry you have to deal with these low life tools. Good luck to you and your friends daughter and remember that she is the true hunter in this story.
 
Sorry for the headache the slobs cause, hopefully they are a small minority, but at the same time their actions overshadow the ethical behavior of many true sportsmen & women. I've always been impressed by Aldo Leopold's statement, “Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching- even when doing the wrong thing is legal." Good luck to you and your friend finding that young huntress a good buck and a correct understanding of hunting.
 
I work for the ODFW running a fish hatchery on a coastal tributary. When fishing is good I witness poaching almost every time I walk down to check our fish trap. It's not a small minority of people. Law abiding sportsman are more a minority than anything.

It's hard not to lose faith in people in general when you see it over and over.
 
Four out of ten. That doesn't surprise me one bit. A nice 165 mule deer or 140 whitetail near the county road on our place will not last a day.
The wardens have used the decoy on our property several times. It is filled full of holes in short order. When I have more time I will post up some of the highlights.
 
Your thread is sickening to read. I can't fathom people behaving this way bc myself and people I hunt w/ don't do these types of things. I'm sorry you have to deal w/ this. If I lived closer, I'd gladly volunteer my time for some patrol.

I'm hoping that you will be able to provide updates on the couple of poachers you turned in.
 
Hate to hear that you have to deal with that. But, kudos to you for taking the time to make sure you have all the information to get these folks ticketed.

This year was the first year we've had problems with trespassers on our place. Interestingly enough, they weren't hunting animals, but ginseng. And I think they may have been cooking/growing something just off our place that we haven't found yet.
 
My stories are not that important. This is what is. I have never been interested in outfitter money, but when outfitters talk about patrolling my property and taking over the chore of dealing with slobs. Now that gets my interest.
Most of the ranchers I've talked to that went to outfitting did it primarily because they couldn't handle the hunters, not for the money. I guess if it is just 4 out of 10 it isn't technically a majority.
 
I deal with those types every year on some family land near Kalispell. After doing so, I can understand why some landowners don't like hunters.
 
I am truly sorry you had to endure that crap. It certainly sours your attitude about hunters and causes a feeling of stressful disappointment at people in general. You are to be commended for taking the right steps in holding these trespassers and poachers accountable.

'Just wish other ethical hunters would have been around to assist you or better yet to prevent the trespassing and poaching before it happened and to chastise the perpetrators, before it ruined your day and night.
 
No one needs to feel sorry for me. I have a great life
The first group has been given tickets. I always get the warm fuzzy feel seeing people like them get citations.
No word yet on the second group.
We always press charges on people like them. If you don't they will be back with friends.

Rob. The politics of hunting season is one of the things I do not enjoy about hunting. Far more people deserve some hunting time on the ranch than there is room for. Deciding who gets an invite and who get put off is never fun. Logistics then need to be worked out with my brother and father and there hunters. It get complicated in a hurry.
Some times you make a mistake and let people on that you never want to see again. There are also people that I have turned down that I regret to this day.
 
It's so important to be successful out hunting anymore. It's getting to be all about the kill. I wonder if the shows on TV should have to take some responsibility for this type of behavior?
 
Disgusting behavior. I think a lot of the tv shows have encouraged the idea that hunting is "a game of inches". My friends and I hunt for mature animals but we all understand that the size of antlers pales in comparison to the full experience shared out hunting together. The problem is that some shows and some hunters I know of personally turn the whole thing into a d*** measuring contest which leads the weaker hunters to think they need to kill a huge buck with disregard to rules and ethics. I think about deer hunting every day of the year and chasing big bucks, but without fair chase, the kill is meaningless. My wife shot a buck on Saturday that neither of us will probably ever too. We had a great hunt and stalk and she was so nervous. I told her on the way that There's a good chance we won't be able to get on it, but if we dont, remember it's only a deer. It's about having fun and creating memories.
 
New Mexico used to have a deer license that was good for the entire state, First or 2nd year after changing the license to units, I see 2 biggest bucks I have ever seen cross the highway in front of me.

I glassed them and was totally impressed. Brief thought, only 50 yards off highway. Couldn't do it.

You have to have your own standards. Felt good, but I was tempted. Kind of bothered me that I was tempted.
 
It's so important to be successful out hunting anymore. It's getting to be all about the kill. I wonder if the shows on TV should have to take some responsibility for this type of behavior?
And the magazines before them? What about the record keeping orgs? What about "big buck" contests that have been around for a long time?
 

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
113,163
Messages
2,011,442
Members
36,029
Latest member
Banana Bob
Back
Top