Monday, December 08, 2008
Why All Hunters are not ALL hunters...
This last week I spent in the woods doing what I love to do. I was deer hunting. and it would have been an excellent week off if not for a few problems. Those problems came from a group of hunters from North Carolina.
20 years ago or so a group of men from North Carolina contacted my Grandpa, and Grandma, and asked to pheasant hunt on their property. As my G-pa was an avid hunter, and these men seemed to him, on the up and up he allowed it, and they became a yearly guest of the family. When my G-pa died, G-ma continued to allow these men to come pheasant hunt. and all was fine. Until a year ago.
Some of the older gentlemen stopped coming either due to health, or not wanting to travel all the way to Clyde KS for some Chinese chickens, either way, their spots were filled by a younger set, and these kids wanted to supplement their hunting of birds with some big Kansas whitetail deer. They asked permission and with a few rules, they were allowed to hunt certain pieces of land. Since they have been coming back for so long they naturally knew some other people in the area, and obtained permission from them as well....for specific parcels of land.
So, all is seemingly good, until last year, when people started hearing reports that these hunters were not playing by the rules that were set down by the land owners and farmers. We were told that they were seen on peoples land that they hadn't talked too, and basically went exactly where they were told to stay off. Including my cousin ad I's favorite hunting spot. It was rumored that the game warden was looking for them as well. Upon hearing that my Uncle made the decision that no one was going to hunt on ANY of our land without clearing it with my cousin...who now has that land set aside for his outfitter company.
Fast forward to this year when they asked the uncle if they could hunt and he told them to check with my cousin....they didn't. Thursday morning while we were in the trees, we watched them drive into one of the restricted parcels, see our truck, turn around and head back to the place they were supposed to be hunting, they drop three hunters off there and head out. We think they are walking the part of the creek that they have permission for, it took us a minute to think it through and if they were going to drop off their hunters in the wrong spot to begin with we guessed that they would be on another off limits parcel of land that connected to the ONLY place they had the right to be.
So we cut our hunt short, hightail it back to the truck and head out to the lower place. As we draw close we see that they had parked both trucks in an off limits are and three guys were walking through the woods. Now these guys had their game well planned out and their stories were straight. When we got there, they all agreed that they were just out for a nice leisurely pheasant hunt with their shotguns and their 6 bird dogs....yes I wrote 6, 6 damn dogs. Never mind that I have been hunting that chunk of land since I was a little kid and there have NEVER been any fucking pheasants there, but that was their story. The cousin told them that he saw them drop off the hunters and that he didn't want them in this piece of land and they said they were sorry and that they would leave immediately. At this point in time we gave them the benefit of the doubt and we drove off to ride the section to hopefully locate a spot for the afternoon.
As we circled back around 10 minutes later, their trucks were still their and they were so deep in the creek we couldn't see the blaze orange that had all over themselves. I guess they just told us what we wanted to hear. During our conversation, they told us of a monster deer that they had harvested the day before and told us we should go have a look at it since it was in G-Ma's garage. Since our morning hunt was ruined, and our honey hole was being trampled by people we were growing to hate, we headed for the bar/restaurant to talk with the uncle who was still there having coffee. On the way, we got a call from another cousin telling us that the highway patrol, and game warden were peeking into G-ma's garage windows...Interesting
We told the uncle the tale of the wayward hunters and he reiterated that it was up to the cousin to set the boundaries, and then we told him about the fuzz peeking in windows, and we all headed over to G-ma's. We looked at the deer carcass and yes it was a trophy, and confirmed their story with G-ma, that they had shot that deer on her land, it had run across the road and expired on someone else's land and they had gotten an earful from some pig farmer for trespassing.
Well this is getting too long. Bottom line is they violated the NUMBER ONE rule of out of state hunting. Treat the people and the land as if they were your momma and your own, and follow the rules set before you.
Ended up that they had shot that deer on someone elses land, which is why they got an ass chewing and that farmer and the land owner both witnessed them breaking the law and they had the deer confiscated, the kid that did the shooting was pointed out by the accusers and he was one of the hunters that wasn't supposed to be hunting deer as he didn't draw a tag, and fined $375.00. When I heard that I was shocked. He should have had the book thrown at him and his ass thrown in jail. The normal fine for hunting with out a license is loss of gun, loss of hunting license for 3 years, and a fine of $1500.00. Then there is also a "Trophy" fine that could have been assessed from between $2500-$5000. That little cocksucker got off easier than OJ.
And all though we can't prove it the coincidence is too great to over look. We found a deer that was shot, gutted and the ass meat cut off, and the carcass thrown over a bridge on the edge of our property. The rack was still on it, and when we climbed down to look at it we saw why, it was only on one side. So we guessed that they saw a rack, shot it, gutted it to make it easier to move, cut the hams off and dumped it over the bridge so they could just take some venison home.
Needless to say, they are no longer welcome anywhere near Clyde KS EVER again. It isn't hard to piss off a whole town when that town is only 700 people strong.
Oh and pics will come later...too much fun!
20 years ago or so a group of men from North Carolina contacted my Grandpa, and Grandma, and asked to pheasant hunt on their property. As my G-pa was an avid hunter, and these men seemed to him, on the up and up he allowed it, and they became a yearly guest of the family. When my G-pa died, G-ma continued to allow these men to come pheasant hunt. and all was fine. Until a year ago.
Some of the older gentlemen stopped coming either due to health, or not wanting to travel all the way to Clyde KS for some Chinese chickens, either way, their spots were filled by a younger set, and these kids wanted to supplement their hunting of birds with some big Kansas whitetail deer. They asked permission and with a few rules, they were allowed to hunt certain pieces of land. Since they have been coming back for so long they naturally knew some other people in the area, and obtained permission from them as well....for specific parcels of land.
So, all is seemingly good, until last year, when people started hearing reports that these hunters were not playing by the rules that were set down by the land owners and farmers. We were told that they were seen on peoples land that they hadn't talked too, and basically went exactly where they were told to stay off. Including my cousin ad I's favorite hunting spot. It was rumored that the game warden was looking for them as well. Upon hearing that my Uncle made the decision that no one was going to hunt on ANY of our land without clearing it with my cousin...who now has that land set aside for his outfitter company.
Fast forward to this year when they asked the uncle if they could hunt and he told them to check with my cousin....they didn't. Thursday morning while we were in the trees, we watched them drive into one of the restricted parcels, see our truck, turn around and head back to the place they were supposed to be hunting, they drop three hunters off there and head out. We think they are walking the part of the creek that they have permission for, it took us a minute to think it through and if they were going to drop off their hunters in the wrong spot to begin with we guessed that they would be on another off limits parcel of land that connected to the ONLY place they had the right to be.
So we cut our hunt short, hightail it back to the truck and head out to the lower place. As we draw close we see that they had parked both trucks in an off limits are and three guys were walking through the woods. Now these guys had their game well planned out and their stories were straight. When we got there, they all agreed that they were just out for a nice leisurely pheasant hunt with their shotguns and their 6 bird dogs....yes I wrote 6, 6 damn dogs. Never mind that I have been hunting that chunk of land since I was a little kid and there have NEVER been any fucking pheasants there, but that was their story. The cousin told them that he saw them drop off the hunters and that he didn't want them in this piece of land and they said they were sorry and that they would leave immediately. At this point in time we gave them the benefit of the doubt and we drove off to ride the section to hopefully locate a spot for the afternoon.
As we circled back around 10 minutes later, their trucks were still their and they were so deep in the creek we couldn't see the blaze orange that had all over themselves. I guess they just told us what we wanted to hear. During our conversation, they told us of a monster deer that they had harvested the day before and told us we should go have a look at it since it was in G-Ma's garage. Since our morning hunt was ruined, and our honey hole was being trampled by people we were growing to hate, we headed for the bar/restaurant to talk with the uncle who was still there having coffee. On the way, we got a call from another cousin telling us that the highway patrol, and game warden were peeking into G-ma's garage windows...Interesting
We told the uncle the tale of the wayward hunters and he reiterated that it was up to the cousin to set the boundaries, and then we told him about the fuzz peeking in windows, and we all headed over to G-ma's. We looked at the deer carcass and yes it was a trophy, and confirmed their story with G-ma, that they had shot that deer on her land, it had run across the road and expired on someone else's land and they had gotten an earful from some pig farmer for trespassing.
Well this is getting too long. Bottom line is they violated the NUMBER ONE rule of out of state hunting. Treat the people and the land as if they were your momma and your own, and follow the rules set before you.
Ended up that they had shot that deer on someone elses land, which is why they got an ass chewing and that farmer and the land owner both witnessed them breaking the law and they had the deer confiscated, the kid that did the shooting was pointed out by the accusers and he was one of the hunters that wasn't supposed to be hunting deer as he didn't draw a tag, and fined $375.00. When I heard that I was shocked. He should have had the book thrown at him and his ass thrown in jail. The normal fine for hunting with out a license is loss of gun, loss of hunting license for 3 years, and a fine of $1500.00. Then there is also a "Trophy" fine that could have been assessed from between $2500-$5000. That little cocksucker got off easier than OJ.
And all though we can't prove it the coincidence is too great to over look. We found a deer that was shot, gutted and the ass meat cut off, and the carcass thrown over a bridge on the edge of our property. The rack was still on it, and when we climbed down to look at it we saw why, it was only on one side. So we guessed that they saw a rack, shot it, gutted it to make it easier to move, cut the hams off and dumped it over the bridge so they could just take some venison home.
Needless to say, they are no longer welcome anywhere near Clyde KS EVER again. It isn't hard to piss off a whole town when that town is only 700 people strong.
Oh and pics will come later...too much fun!
