It’s that time of year for all the stories, so many of them unethical or downright illegal. The same people wonder why hunters are views poorly.

Road hunters, flock shooters, shooting way past your ability because the gun and scope can, shooting and then buying a tag etc.

I have nothing against hunting as long as it’s done ethically and legally. I’ve gone myself.

Here in Montana , I'd bet that 1/4 to 1/3 of the big game harvested , are taken illegally. Not talking glaring stuff like shooting at night...Talking about taken on property without permission for access. Or game shot by other hunters, and tagged by another. Shot off the road, etc.

Back in the 70's when we had the high beef prices, I know a person that is rumored to have shot over 100 deer and sold them to the locals.

Sometime later, he got his FFL and now runs a gun business.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C_jk86OY2k

This is a new neighbor that has an illegal feeder up and has been reported to the Game Warden but nothing has been done. You can't have a feeder up after Sept 1 in VA.

He probably plans to shoot the deer from the green house now that bow season is in. He doesn't know that my game camera catches all that goes on over there. I have videos of people hunting on me but I do not know who they are. They even broke the lock off one game camera and stole the simms.

There use to be at least a dozen turkeys and now there are only four. There is no hunting rules by the Home Owners Association but only shooting of pests.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV0k0v5-0-c

We don't have much by way of deer hunting here in central Florida, mostly it seems because of poaching. The only place here where deer are really plentiful is on land owned by Disney, where no hunting at all is allowed.

Unlike the areas from Georgia to Maine where people complain about deer eating the bushes in their front yards, deer in Florida are relegated only to the deepest brush, and in the swamps.

It's frustrating. I have nigh on to 100,000 acres of state owned wild land within a few miles of me. I live on 24 acres, backing up to 1000 acres of hay fields, cow pastures, lakes, swamps and copses of trees. It would be great deer country, if there was a deer population to be supported, but the endlessly proliferating Florida redneck has ensured that we can't have nice things.

The stories are endless. To say that 50% are true would probably be a stretch. The problem with all the stories is that new hunters will try to best all of the BS stories, resulting in more bad behavior.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
We don't have much by way of deer hunting here in central Florida, mostly it seems because of poaching. The only place here where deer are really plentiful is on land owned by Disney, where no hunting at all is allowed.

Unlike the areas from Georgia to Maine where people complain about deer eating the bushes in their front yards, deer in Florida are relegated only to the deepest brush, and in the swamps.

It's frustrating. I have nigh on to 100,000 acres of state owned wild land within a few miles of me. I live on 24 acres, backing up to 1000 acres of hay fields, cow pastures, lakes, swamps and copses of trees. It would be great deer country, if there was a deer population to be supported, but the endlessly proliferating Florida redneck has ensured that we can't have nice things.

My mom lives on 538 in lake county, the Ocala nat Forrest all around her, it pisses me off that the hunters run dogs for deer. That dosent even take talent...

On the other hand bears at her house are a real nuisance but are a protected species...

Get the videos to your local LEO, say they are trespassing, and since they are armed, depending on the state you can claim they may try to harm you. Most self defense laws have burden on the state to DISPROVE you were in fear of your life.

A friend shot his first deer. His family was doing a drive and the deer appeared. He shot twice and the deer went down. Then a out of state road hunter drove up, stopped and shot the dead deer over the hood of his car. He then dropped his rifle, hopped the fence and started dragging the deer off. My friend was just a kid so the idiot thought he'd get away. That was then the rest of the large family arrived. This lead to the police and game warden. Guy was cited for road hunting, firing close to a house, trespassing and illegal transportation on a deer. He forgot to put the tag on the deer.

We had a similar occurrence many years ago on a farmers property. He had over 1000 acres with many Black Angus cattle and was having trouble with wild dogs.

It was in the fall and we were watching a field for any signs of dogs when shots rang out and we noticed a deer moving down the ridge of a field over 600 yards away. It was wounded and slowly moving along. I had a 243 so I took my jacket off and placed it on a fence post for a rest. I figured the bullet drop for that range and aimed at his nose and let off the shot. The deer dropped and we started out since we had to cross about four fences. By the the time we got there, the trespassers had gutted the deer and claimed it. I never did find out where the bullet hit. There were about 6 or 8 of them and we were not about to get in a dispute.

My friend recognized several of them so we reported to the farmer what had happened. He called the game warden and they were arrested and IIRC other violations of unchecked game was found at one place. The farmer was on the Board of Supervisors at the time so they trespassed at the wrong place.

quote:

Originally posted by 41:
Back in the 70's when we had the high beef prices, I know a person that is rumored to have shot over 100 deer and sold them to the locals.

Sometime later, he got his FFL and now runs a gun business.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C_jk86OY2k

This is a new neighbor that has an illegal feeder up and has been reported to the Game Warden but nothing has been done. You can't have a feeder up after Sept 1 in VA.

He probably plans to shoot the deer from the green house now that bow season is in. He doesn't know that my game camera catches all that goes on over there. I have videos of people hunting on me but I do not know who they are. They even broke the lock off one game camera and stole the simms.

There use to be at least a dozen turkeys and now there are only four. There is no hunting rules by the Home Owners Association but only shooting of pests.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV0k0v5-0-c

is that no feeder up for everyone? or just folks hunting?

as in could you have a feeder out and not hunt, (and not allow hunting) in the area?

when I used to hunt, I hunted with friends and coworkers down in Charlotte Co,

there were stories of guys that would poach and strip the meat, then take it to the Norfolk area or NY NJ to sell

big market in Dogs as well, several hunting dogs were stolen each year
they knew they were stolen, vs killed, runnoft etc since someone had been caught picking a few up with out of state plates

When I lived in North Dakota, my two hunting buddies & myself called opening day of pheasant season "Amateur Hour".

It's interesting that someone on this forum would be bitching about bad hunters.

Every segment of our population has its share of bad actors. Every one. Clergy. Elected officials. Businessmen. School teachers. Housewives. Etc. Every segment. That means there will be some bad actors in the hunting population, too.

For every bad hunter you can show me, I can show you a hundred who get their license and tags, obey the rules scrupulously, respect private property owners' rights and investments, and promote the general conservation effort with their time, money, and talent. When are you going to tell their stories?

It has become popular around here (southeast Idaho) for property owners to post their property. A lot of that is "new" people moving in, buying acreage, and then posting it. They do this for two reasons:

Because of bullshit like I see in this thread -- unfairly and inaccurately painting the whole hunting enthusiast population with a broad brush of irresponsibility/criminality, which makes as much sense as asserting that everybody who owns a gun is evil.

Because they selfishly want to exclude others from getting game that is on their land, thinking they can keep it for themselves.

My 1,400 acres are posted Access Yes (LINK). I've never had a problem with hunters.

Thanks,

Sap

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
deer in Florida are relegated only to the deepest brush, and in the swamps

Except those endangered pygmy deer down in the Keys, who roam the streets and yards like they own the place. Zero fear of humans.

If you want to feed deer all year and harvest one under your feeder in the fall, fine. But don't call it "hunting", keep it to yourself.

I think most tales of long shots are just that, most people can't judge distance. I've probably told the story a before on here, but when I worked at the range it happened all the time. A customer would come to me and ask "Can I move to the 400 yard range?" and I'd just look puzzled. Where? "The 400 yard range." and they'd point. I'd say that's the 200 yard range. "Well how far is that?" (pointing) That's 100. "Then what distance was I shooting at?" You were on the 50.

I mean, beside the fact that they were marked....

quote:

Originally posted by cas:
I think most tales of long shots are just that, most people can't judge distance.

Hell no they can't! When I go hunting I use a laser range finder. When I tell people the ranges we are looking at they always argue and tell me the range finder is off.

Here is the VA law which says no feeders from Sept 1st through 1st Saturday in January.

https://blog.wildlife.virginia...o-begin-september-1/

This new neighbor has had the feeder up since the 1st of August. Even if he takes it down, the deer and turkeys will continue to check the area out for at least a month in my experience.

He is probably going to shoot from the Green House. Several weeks ago, he dropped off a bow and another case that looked like a bow case. Stay tuned for the illegal shooting over bait video.

There is no hunting but shooting only of pests in the Home Owners Restrictions.

One neighbor wanted to hunt on my property so I told him he could but he had to shoot only does and give some of them to Hunters for the Hungry. The first deer he shot was a buck and he only had one bolt and had to go to his house to get another bolt since the deer was not dead. The deer suffered for at least 10 minutes.

Next I find out that some of his buddies are hunting on me which I did not give permission. Next he takes a shot at a deer on the property line and there were houses in the back ground.

That did it and I told him he could no longer hunt on me. Next he tries to cause a boundary dispute by mowing 15 feet over on me since he is pissed at me.

Next he pulls up some of the surveyor stakes and puts his tree stand in a tree on my property. The Sheriff or Game Warden had him remove it. You just don't know about some people.

quote:

big market in Dogs as well, several hunting dogs were stolen each year
they knew they were stolen, vs killed, runnoft etc since someone had been caught picking a few up with out of state plates

Stealing dogs was common in the area I use to hunt back in the 60's. They would take the dogs to NC or further south. Not sure if it still happens today. It would be bad news to get caught by the owner since some of these dogs were worth several thousand dollars back in that time.

600 yards is about the maximum distance for an average hunting rifle. I develop an accurate load for each of my rifles and use a ballistic plot to determine the best line-of-sight path on graph paper and then check several of the distances for accuracy shown by the plot. I then take the information of bullet drop for 100, 200, 300.....out to 600 yards and type it on a strip of paper and then tape it to the bottom of my stock. Then when I need to know how much to hold over, I can refer to the information on the bottom of my stock.