doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Thanks to trail cameras.

Not so funny story. I had a Dove field all ready for opening day. Being super excited, I went out the day before to see how many birds had built up for the season. There were 50 plus birds with more coming and going every second. Walked the field and found some SOB had spread cracked corn in the rear corner of the field. This field had mowed sunflowers and wheat. I would never use corn, even if it were legal. So stupid.

I walked to the trail cameras around the field and pulled the SD cards. Then pulled the cards on three other cameras nearby, including the one watching the lane. Had my laptop in the truck. Took five minutes to find find the moron baiting my land. Did not know him. Then watched when he drove in and out of the lane three days earlier. Then saw the game warden had driven up my lane earlier the same day I was there. I was livid for the baiting. The close inspection, by the, warden was no surprise to me as I try to be legal and don't care if I am checked. But I had a major problem so I called the game warden. Half an hour later he stopped by. Showed him the cracked corn. Showed him the video of the baiting being done by somebody else. Not surprised he acted like he might know the fellow. So I showed him the video of the truck coming up the lane with a decent tag shot. He knew the truck he said. So I said I want him dealt with. He said he would drop by for a talk with him. I told him a talk was not in the cards. I wanted charges brought.

So my field was baited and closed to hunting. I found out today this moron had his own field about a mile away. My guess us he did not want me nearby. Hoped I be forced to disc everything under, which I have had to do. No way to remove the corn, "bait", for ten days and still hunt there this year. I was told he was cited by the game wardens today. Not enough. Not that many years ago I'd deal with this myself. Word is he says he was drunk when he did it, does not know why he did it and all the usual things guys say when they get caught doing dumb things. I don't care. Thank God for trail cameras and dumb luck of walking a "safe" field the day before. Without them I'd be cited for baiting, which I did not do and unable prove it or show who did. I was lucky enough to have two other fields to hunt instead so my season was only reduced, instead of ruined. Lesson learned is buy a few cameras and use them. Be safe and watch your backs and "neighbors".

As Eddie Murphy said in the movie "Life". "There will be consequences and repercussions."

He needs to pay for that. Now, or down the road.

There are ways.

There is a special place in hell.

I have caught trespassers on my cameras. I use cellular cameras now. no need to retrieve cards. I can get instant photos in real time on my phone. I use Reveal by Tacticam. No, I dont own stock in the company. !!!
Cellular is the way to go.

Similar story here for me. A number of years ago I was hunting my neighbor's farm. I always hunt doves there. There is an adjacent farm that connects with this one and they always have a big opening day hunt there. We had just set up and the owner of the other farm comes over and tells us that he had been caught baiting his field and the law says you can not hunt within so many yards of a baited field. Just so happens that was half of what we had to hunt on.
To make matters worse him and his friends came over to our part and started shooting doves.
Then also another story. A shooting preserve here in the county has an annual opening day dove hunt. They charge a good size fee but they provide lunch.
Me and my friend got to the clubhouse late that morning and the owner drove us down to the field and pointed out where we could hunt. There were plenty of people already shooting. Well I had just shot a couple of doves when I saw several game wardens coming up to my friend and one came over to me.
At first he wanted to check my license and my gun to see I was legal. Then he proceeded to tell me that he could site me a citation and take my gun for hunting a baited field. He then said he would not do that because he believed we were not aware of it being baited.
Seems the owner of the preserve had spread wheat down the driveway coming in to the field and clubhouse. We were told to leave NOW. Well we went back to the owner to get our money back and he got kind of pissed about having to refund our money

I’ve caught over 75 poachers and trespassers. Most were not even charged. The few that were paid small fines.
Game wardens gave some permission to poach my farms.
It’s a circus here. Resident land owners in Ks are basically under siege from crooked, poaching game wardens. I could wrote a book about the crap they pull. Might do so. Corruption is endemic through out the entire department.
I’ll almost certainly be harassed for posting this.

Get even with them, Richard. Write the book.

Baiting other guys fields and calling the warden was a common tactic on the eastern shore around Chestertown in the late 70s to early 80s. A big guide service had a lot of farms but wanted more because there was a lot of money to be made guiding for geese. They'd send a flunkie out to throw corn around a pit and call the warden. Since most guys set up in the dark they never saw the corn. After it all went down the guide service would approach the farmer and lease the farm the next year. It became common knowledge that you better walk the field with a flashlight before doing anything. Not sure why the wardens never figured out what was happening. (wink)

I miss shooting doves, I have had great shoots in Georgia, Illinois, Texas but they are not allowed in Mich, where I live now. I have thought about trying to find a field to lease in Indiana but one of my first thoughts was how could I keep others off if I wasn't there. Sorry you had those problems, hunters were supposed to have more ethics.

At $250 per gun to shoot them out here now, I can see where the economics of it would start to motivate that sort of behavior.

Yet another monetized resource...

Big game and fly fishing out here already suffer from that.