Thread: Hunting ethics and laws

I'm not sure why, but deer season (particularly firearm deer season) seems to bring out the worst in people each year. Don't get me wrong, I love hunting... Most of the time.
What I have a problem with is people trying to make things better for themselves by making things worse for their neighbors. Just because a deer is in your property doesn't make it your animal. It doesn't become yours until you shoot it and put your tag on it. In the past three days I've seen neighbors attempting to herd deer back into the center of their property on a side-by-side, and 4 times I've witnessed them driving trucks through bedding areas to bump deer away from the property lines. I share one if those property lines, but I'm not the only one who has noticed it. I'm not the only one this happens to, I'm sure.
Is it legal? No. Its hunter harassment and its also illegal to pursue deer in a motorized vehicle (at least where I live). The people that I've watched are not hunting. Though they do hunt on that property. Worth noting that their property is several hundred acres mine is 10.
How is this sort of behavior acceptable on a personal level? I don't understand the thought process behind it. Yes, I've seen a few nice bucks on my place this year, but if someone else got one (or both) of them by hunting ethically and legally I'd be first in line to say congratulations. I put as much effort into my hunting season as almost anyone, and probably more than most.
If anyone can add some illumination to my view of these behaviours I'd be happy to have it. Stepping off the soap box now.

I fully agree with you that those are some serious butthole moves. It’s supposed to be fun.
I’ve only ever had one small encounter with a bone head while hunting, and it was indirect at that. I was a guest on a business partners hunting club and bagged a wall hanger eight point. Just luck really,...I knew nothing about the place and was simply told where to climb. This turned out to be near the border. The next day apparently two bozos from the adjoining land came to my friend’s stand and proceeded to squawk and huff about the “nice eight pointer” that they had been after. One guy even slammed his hand down provocatively on his sidearm. Nothing came of it,...but what an idiot show. Some folks forget it’s supposed to be fun. And when you’re just a normal guy, sitting in a tree, on permitted land,...you should be free to enjoy yourself without a bunch of flack from small minded yayhoos. Soap box descended now too, haha.

I feel for ya. I now hunt my little five acre patch, and it’s bordered mostly by four hundred acres,..owned by one guy. This fellow’s family owns over 12,000 acres and is a “tree farmer”. He’s a super nice, genteel soul. I know he sees my stand and salt lick there on my place, but with five acres,...everything’s near the border haha,...and he has never said a thing. I figure he knows that I know he has all that other land and doesn’t disparage me my little spot.

And on a positive note,...there’s a good chance those tactics your neighbor is using are not really doing much to diminish your luck. Deer are oddly both predictable,...and weird. Activity like that just might drive The Boss to you one day. That’d be a sweet revenge eh?
Keep us updated on your progress.

Always remember this and act accordingly...there are far more horse's asses in the world than there are horses. And IMHO, if a hunter or fisher in today's culture ventures out into the woods without a sidearm, especially alone, in case the aforementioned HA's get really squirrelly, well, I was taught in my LEO academy that it is always better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.

I've had more than a few events with fools in the woods in the over 50 years + years I'm hunted and they all are about the same . You have to be very careful with how you deal with some of them , I had a big 6 pointer come out of the woods from the property next to our lease and walk down to road straight to me so I dropped him within 20 yards of my stand , I was putting a rope on him to drag to were I could gut him and not have it under my stand when this guy pops out of the that property running at me yelling that was his Deer . It got a little interesting at that point , He didn't have a rifle but he did pull out a knife and said he was going to gut his Deer and if I got in the way he'd gut me too.
Well my rifle was strapped down on the 4 wheeler but he didn't see the 1911 45 on right hip , Will I quickly showed him the front of it and he stopped in his tracks and started to cuss at me , I told him drop the knife and go , He said what if I don't , I let one rip past his ear and he ran than , I picked up the knife and dragged the deer all the was back to the trucks , My buddy I was hunting with that day had been watching ever since I shot the deer and when that fella showed up he put down the binoculars and put crosshairs on him he said just in case. We gutted the deer and then we were over run by the Sheriff Deputies and that little toothless fool Yelling that's him that's him .
They took him down the road some and asked us what happened , Well this were I tell people to shut up and talk to a Lawyer . But before I could say anything my buddy pulls out his badge and said I saw it all and this is how it went down . Once they saw that badge things got a lot calmer . The Deputy said that guy claims I took the deer from him at gunpoint but our story sounds way more credible , I said I'll do it one better , It should all be on my trail cam on my stand , This was a early cam that had a memory card so they let and a Deputy go get it and they looked at it on there computers in the car , The Deputy comes back and said it was all there as I said . He asked me if I wanted the press charges because you can have him for trespassing , attempt assault with a deadly weapon , attempted theft , Making false statements to a police officer to start with . I agreed , Well they brought him back and told him he was under arrest he went out of his mind.
My buddy and I weren't going to renew the lease so pissing off the members of the hunting club next door with prosecuting there buddy wasn't a problem and I turned out he was a felon and then they took his truck and found 2 handguns and a rifle made for more charges .

Funny, I live within a state park district here in Ohio. I have 17 acres of hard woods behind my house. I can leave my front door, walk through the woods 1.4 miles and be in park.

The stuff I see is unbelievable. Mostly city people coming out to hunt.

I've had folks out back chasing deer and had a few wounded bunkered down out back.

Sad.

Originally Posted by FSHNERIE

Funny, I live within a state park district here in Ohio. I have 17 acres of hard woods behind my house. I can leave my front door, walk through the woods 1.4 miles and be in park.

The stuff I see is unbelievable. Mostly city people coming out to hunt.

I've had folks out back chasing deer and had a few wounded bunkered down out back.

Sad.

Friends use to call them k-mart hunters that just hunted deer gun week / one reason I quit hunting for several years, only had access to public land that who knows who you were sharing the woods with .
One reason they put a limit on rounds you could use pursuing deer.... reality you only need one for the right good shot.... not launching 5+ at a running deer 120yrds away with a shotgun slug

Hunting deer seems to warp peoples' minds. I have a significant acreage, but half the people who hunt with me seem to think that the best place to hunt is near the outer edge of the property (not so) and I continually remind them that I have good relations with the adjoining landowners, and for them not to jeopardize the situations. I don't know how many times I've heard hunters say that the adjoining landowners are using some new, secret juice to get all the deer over on their side or have planted some new Nigerian hybrid bromeliad that hypnotizes the bucks to feed all day and lose their fear of humans. Well, I've poured out the (expensive) juice and planted the (expensive) hybrid and never found anything particularly better than what I've been doing for the past fifty years. I guess folks want to believe in the rainbow gold just over the hill and the Loch Ness Monster(which would make a studly full body mount.)

I also get tired of the excuses I've heard from the people whom I catch trespassing: "I'm lost."," Didn't know the land was posted", "I'm trailing a wounded deer (show me the blood trail)", "Uncle Beaneye (Who?) said I could hunt here", and the all time favorite, "I'm looking for a lost dog." When I hear this one, I always want to point at the gun slung over his shoulder and ask, "What are you going to do when you find him? Shoot him?

I heard the lost dog excuse once when I lived in Michigan. They weren't far from one of my ladder stands when I found them. They had already taken my stand down and carried most of the pieces to the side of the road.

My dad's home place was gradually surrounded and overrun by suburbs, but back in my days there strangers hunting there frequent, to the point of cutting gate locks. I was most personally offended by those uninvited fishing the little pond I begged him to build hard, hard, hard. Dad was most offended at the guy who took a chainsaw to a standing tree for firewood, and then told him "no one was using it," even more than the people attempting to "rescue" "barn wood" from the barn we were still using! Mom was most offended by whoever dug up every single peony bush from around the front porch.

Originally Posted by midwestexile

My dad's home place was gradually surrounded and overrun by suburbs, but back in my days there strangers hunting were frequent, to the point of cutting gate locks. I was most personally offended by those uninvited fishing the little pond I begged him to build hard, hard, hard. Dad was most offended at the guy who took a chainsaw to a standing tree for firewood, and then told him "no one was using it," even more than the people attempting to rescue "barn wood" from the barn we were still using! Mom was most offended by whoever dug up every single peony bush from around the front porch.

Lol. This sounds way too familiar. I had a similar issue last spring that resulted in me confronting the offending individual and letting him know that he needed permission from the property owner, him getting in my my face and then backing his truck up at me with the tires spinning. I let the sheriff take it from there.