Tresspassing Slob Hunters, Part II

[Dftodd]

No it doesn't.

I replied to the fact that he trespassed because he *assumed* the laws in his new state were the same as his previous state (i.e. a state you are trying to discuss (i.e. where "trespassing" is legal).

There is simply no excuse to trespass while hunting in this day and age as dftodd described in his post #26 which I bolded.

Ah, but I was simply posting on an open forum, about an honest mistake which I had thought I had made clear in my original post #26. There's no need for me to be blasted for said offense. I was also trying to point out that someone may not be up on the local Trespassing laws and may only have access to the local hunting book which spells out game laws. Not property laws. Said offense was over 20 years ago when I was in my teens. And no access to the internet A simple cordial and friendly conversation with the land owner when they found me sitting on a stump took care of that. And FYI, I did get permission from them about a week later when I ran into them at a store to hunt there property when ever I felt like it.

 

[MossRoad]

That guys a pickle short of a samich :banghead: :duh:

The cheese fell of his cracker a long time ago...

 

[MossRoad]

I don't know about Canada, but here in the US, everywhere I've lived the Sheriffs' Departments are understaffed, underpaid with high turnover so they have to allocate limited resources by priority.

We have really, really good city and county police departments here as far a response times go for both emergency and non-emergency calls. I have no complaints. Now getting a DNR officer is another story. Not the officer's fault at all, there just aren't enough of them to cover the areas they are assigned to. So, you call the county police, they show up, usually in less than 10-15 minutes on non-emergency calls (except Notre Dame home game weekends), and if it requires a DNR officer, they get in touch with them. For emergency calls, well, our house was about 4 blocks from a county police post, so 1-2 minutes tops! :laughing: But the few times we've needed them away from town for emergency, longest wait was about 5-6 minutes. Its only about 461 square miles, so about 21 miles X 21 miles. Two major cities with police depts., three-four small town police depts. and county police dept. And they all cooperate for the most part. Its hard to NOT see a cop around here on a daily basis.

 

[BigCountry1689]

I believe with police there are some(very few) great, most are ok, and the rest are playing Pokemon or sleeping. I'm not sure about underplayed. They can retire with great benefits younger the most get to go on there first cruise. We need more game wardens

And most of us die within the first year after retirement( Good return on the taxpayers investment I'd say), the rest are mentally damaged from years of listening to others problems day in and out. Never going to make everyone happy or really anyone for that matter, the firefighters get all the love. I would guess your exposure to law enforcement is probably from a more local perspective as opposed to nationally and considering your other assessments, your view of law enforcement seems less than favorable but its always that way until we're needed. The Pokémon is new I have yet to catch one deputy playing Pokémon.

End of my soap box on this topic as it doesn't relate to the thread, my apologies OP.

 

[MossRoad]

Ah, but I was simply posting on an open forum, about an honest mistake which I had thought I had made clear in my original post #26. There's no need for me to be blasted for said offense. I was also trying to point out that someone may not be up on the local Trespassing laws and may only have access to the local hunting book which spells out game laws. Not property laws. Said offense was over 20 years ago when I was in my teens. And no access to the internet A simple cordial and friendly conversation with the land owner when they found me sitting on a stump took care of that. And FYI, I did get permission from them about a week later when I ran into them at a store to hunt there property when ever I felt like it.

Your story in this thread reminded me of a conversation I had here some time ago. It was a conversation about hunting, snowmobiling, etc... and I couldn't understand why some folks were blasting some guy that was complaining about snowmobilers on his property without permission. I was under the impression that "you can't ride a snowmobile on someone else's land without permission" was universal, but a few folks from a few states where its not gave me an edumacation... and it was an eye opener, for sure. I found it hard to believe that there were states where all land was considered open unless posted closed, but it turns out its quite a few. Hmmmm... live and learn.

So I could see how someone coming from a state with one set of laws could not even think that it would be completely opposite in another state. 100% opposite. How could that be? But it is.

Glad you worked it out with your new neighbors. :thumbsup:

 

[MossRoad]

I believe with police there are some(very few) great, most are ok, and the rest are playing Pokemon or sleeping. I'm not sure about underplayed. They can retire with great benefits younger the most get to go on there first cruise. We need more game wardens

No one calls a cop when they're having a great time. Hello 911? Yeah, we're sitting on the deck enjoying the day, can you send some officers over to enjoy it with us? :laughing: Nope. 99.9 times out of a hundred, its a stressful situation, be it car wreck, burning house, domestic squabble, trespassing hunters, etc.... that's got to wear on a person day-in and day-out.

I think if you spend 40 hours a week for 20 years willing to run INTO trouble to help or protect the general public, you probably deserve 20 and out.

And yes, we need more game wardens here, too.

 

[Dftodd]

Your story in this thread reminded me of a conversation I had here some time ago. It was a conversation about hunting, snowmobiling, etc... and I couldn't understand why some folks were blasting some guy that was complaining about snowmobilers on his property without permission. I was under the impression that "you can't ride a snowmobile on someone else's land without permission" was universal, but a few folks from a few states where its not gave me an edumacation... and it was an eye opener, for sure. I found it hard to believe that there were states where all land was considered open unless posted closed, but it turns out its quite a few. Hmmmm... live and learn.

So I could see how someone coming from a state with one set of laws could not even think that it would be completely opposite in another state. 100% opposite. How could that be? But it is.

Glad you worked it out with your new neighbors. :thumbsup:

Vermont had what they called a land management program. I think one of our Canadian friends touched on that as well. Lots 25 acres or over qualified for the program. And the land owner qualified for a major tax break by enrolling there property into the program. It meant my grandparents tax bill dropped from $10,000 down to $1,600 per year. The conditions were you left your property open to the public (within reason) for out door recreation, and had a forester come in and make a 10 year plan for wildlife management and habitat. It doesn't give someone the right to hunt in your pasture with animals, or in someone's back yard. There's minimum distances covered in the hunting laws for hunting near such places and minimum distances from on occupied structure. Barns included. But, when your talking a tax break of thousands of dollars a year, well, you can understand why someone would enroll there property in the program.

Atv's and snowmobiles were a grey area. If a snowmobile trail crossed your property, then you could pretty much expect to see them regularly. I had friends who had issues with folks leaving the trail and hot rodding across there fields. Most of the time those weren't locals that were doing that. And would usually results in the law getting called on them. Or the private club having to come back out and temporarily fencing off the access to the fields or risk losing access to the property for there trail.

Most people up there won't run an atv on someone else's property unless they know the property owner. And if they are crossing someones property that they don't know, then they offer a certain respect to the person and take it easy and don't damage the property. The nice thing up there, was 90 percent of the forest land was national forest or International paper land. Out in the woods on a atv or snowmobile, you ran more of a chance of getting on the wrong side of a game warden then you did a land owner

 

[TripleR]

I believe with police there are some(very few) great, most are ok, and the rest are playing Pokemon or sleeping. I'm not sure about underplayed. They can retire with great benefits younger the most get to go on there first cruise. We need more game wardens

Retirement in the bigger departments may be OK, but for county and departments in most places outside St. Louis and Kansas City at least in Missouri pretty much sucks. I worked for a state agency, but worked closely with various municipal and county departments and saw the financial problems these men and women had. As to state officers, Missouri has the lowest paid state employees in the US.

We have really, really good city and county police departments here as far a response times go for both emergency and non-emergency calls. I have no complaints. Now getting a DNR officer is another story. Not the officer's fault at all, there just aren't enough of them to cover the areas they are assigned to. So, you call the county police, they show up, usually in less than 10-15 minutes on non-emergency calls (except Notre Dame home game weekends), and if it requires a DNR officer, they get in touch with them. For emergency calls, well, our house was about 4 blocks from a county police post, so 1-2 minutes tops! :laughing: But the few times we've needed them away from town for emergency, longest wait was about 5-6 minutes. Its only about 461 square miles, so about 21 miles X 21 miles. Two major cities with police depts., three-four small town police depts. and county police dept. And they all cooperate for the most part. Its hard to NOT see a cop around here on a daily basis.

You are indeed lucky, a retired LEO friend of mine is disabled and was plagued by constant break-in at least two with her in the house. She called 911 with them in the house and was told they couldn't get anyone out for 4-5 hours and maybe not until the next morning. The thieves just kept carrying her stuff out knowing they were in no danger of being caught. Several times throughout my career, I radioed for assistance and was met with dead air or told no one was available to assist, once I was within ten blocks of the SD and PD.

 

[Richard]

I live on some land that is surrounded on three sides by a lake. Because of that, TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) is our neighbor.

I once went to a public hearing at TVA and got in line to speak. (interestingly, you had to register at 8:00 in the morning but, speaking didn't start until something like 2:00 or 3:00 and even then, you only had 90 seconds to speak before someone would come behind you and (gently) escort you away from the podium. They did have cameras capturing the event but I don't know that it was televised)

We have treaspassing hunters here too.

Without getting into the minutia of our situation, here's what I suggested.

I went to this TVA meeting....sat around ALL day so I could be sure to be there at speaking time (wasted a full day at work)

When I got up to speak, I made the observation that I was the FIRST "home owner" that was talking. Virtually everyone else was a lawyer representing this or that group or, the Audobon society or something like that. Not a single person was a "neighbor" of TVA as per their self introductions.

I've heard (but never seen any proof) that a house across the lake had a bullet in it.

My comment to TVA was since different weapons have different ranges of leathality, why not use concentric circles.

If you are in bow season (and I have no idea how far an arrow will fly, let's say 100 yards, 300 feet) why not impose a 100 yard/300 foot BUFFER that you MUST have between point of shot and any TVA boundary.

In other words, you MUST be inside the border, on TVA's land by 100 yards to shoot an arrow.

When black powder season opens, (let's say the range is 500 feet) then you must be INSIDE the border on TVA land by 500 feet

Open season? Again, I have no idea how far a deer rifle bullet will travel... half mile? quarter mile?

Whatever it is, then THAT becomes the distance you must be inside TVA land before you can fire.

The logic is, if you are "over there" and see a deer and decide to take a shot.... if you miss, that errant arrow/bullet will peter out on TVA's land BEFORE hitting my house or, a house across the lake.

It would become a bit of a self limiting situation as certain parcels of land would be good for bow season, black poweder season BUT, simply too small for open guns. Other tracts of land would ostensibly be larger and able to handle larger fire arms.

Interestingly, when I was done speaking, I was the ONLY (and I do mean only) person that actually had the crowd applause. Prior to me speaking it was silence as people got up to speak, then left.

I also had several people come up to me afterwards to talk more about my ideas (none from TVA of course....and of course, nothing has ever been done to impliment what I think is a fairly practical and reasonable way to manage what land can be hunted with what)

Think about it.... You have a public parcel of land next to you, it's 5/10 acres. Do you want some yahoo hunter shooting a high powered rifle on that tract of land not knowing how much alcohol he's consumed that morning? Even if he's stone sober and 100% serious minded, there is a reason they call certain things, accidents.

TVA is a miserable neighbor (and without measuring, I'm guessing we have a common border with them that is between half a mile and a full mile)

 

[1965]

A deer rifle is deadly for more than a mile. That is why we can't use them in my area to hunt deer because the area is too populated, only shot guns, bows and muzzle loaders. However we can use up to a .270 for coyote, which I do and that doesn't make any sense.