ORIGINAL: moosehornhunter
Rick James....The problem with Vermont is the poachers. In Maine, we call people from vermont varmints. And for good reason. The majority of varmints that hunt in Maine are poachers....they hunt all night and sleep all day. A very effective strategy, but highly illegal. I have witnessed it first hand. When I pull in to a road at first light looking for a fresh track, and see a truck full of hunters with vermont plates pulling out of that road, It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they are up to. Then, when you drive the road and see nothing but fresh tracks, boot tracks, coming out of the woods to the road....well, you get the picture. Vermont has quite the rep around here as being a state that is chock full of poachers, not just a few. And when there are that many, they can definately have a huge impact on deer numbers. And lastly, look at every state that surrounds Vermont. All of them are full of deer, big deer. Your wardens should start working third shift, and leave the law abiding first shift hunters be. Then you might see a difference.
I agree somewhat, however PA has a much larger problem with the poachers believe me. A lot of it happens in VT, but I grew up here and never saw as much of it as in PA. When the AR came into affect, there are so many areas where people own hundreds of acres of private land, with no access to it from roads and people shoot them and cut them up without doe tags right on the property, before it even leaves the property, it is in a cooler or freezer. I don't think the main problem in VT is poaching, maybe further up north, I think the problem is the lack of farmland these days and lack of mast producing trees.