Monday, January 21, 2008

"What would you do?"

Bryan,over at deerPhD has started a weekly article giving scenarios for the hunter to decide what decisions they might make while in the timber or field. If you haven't had a chance to stop in yet, I highly recommend taking a look around deerPhD to see what this author is bringing to his readers. Now, I would like to ask what you would do with the facts I am about to present. This is how I've assumed events unfolded when I went to look later in the day. Heading back to the second day of muzzleloader season I heard three shots , two of them not far from our house. It appeared that the muzzleloaders may have injured a deer that took off running. I found one tiny blood drop at the corner of the fence where they crossed onto my property.... There were tracks of two ATVs, to me it looks as though they were chasing deer, because of where they went in correlation to deer tracks.

Bringing hunter activity from the neighbor's cornfield down into the tree line between our cornfields. Having pictorial documentation of the results of the two shots close to our homestead, I could correlate position of hunter to hunted.
Picture 1
What I would like to know-
1. As a hunter, how far would you go in a chase by foot to get your injured deer in the snow and cold? Would you pursue with an ATV? 2. As a landowner, what would you do if you weren't certain if those who didn't have permission to hunt your property, but had the right to retrieve a kill without firearms, was hunting illegally? First shot wasn't lethal. Here at enotes.com,"Law & Politics" section you can find some interesting facts about what is considered trespassing in 40 of our 50 states. The information is worth checking out to see where you stand as a hunter and or a landowner...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry I just now got around to this post! Thanks so much for the link to my site!!!

Hmmm...I would want to know who this is that's on my property. Every hunter should ask permission before tracking onto property that they don't have permission to be on - and if permission is denied, then they can call a game warden to help get permission to track an injured animal. What bothers me most about this case is that they came onto your land with ATVs - in my opinion that's much worse and more harmful than just walking.

How did it turn out?

CDGardens said...

deerphd - Not a problem. Glad to send people your direction..

Yes, I would assume that the hunter(s) would ask permission. The problem I continually have is that because the guy who farms the field next to us also rents our farm ground, not the timber. The people that work for him believe they can automatically hunt here. He doesn't have any cover on his ground. So, thinking individuals would come to the conclusion that they are taking advantage by hunting the ground from the side I don't see. We often hear gunshots in areas that noone is supposed to be...

As a hunter, I would have allowed them to go after an injured animal on foot. I don't want anything to go to waste. That is why I have raw feelings about the tactics the guys seem to believe are acceptable.

I can only assume who it was that brought the ATV's.

Soon we will be talking to our renter and show him what we have had happen this winter. We will make it clear that we reserve hunting rights on all parts of our ground.

My trail cameras may be on the increase.;)

Thanks for stopping by.