rather_be_huntin

What a year its been. Started out by getting an elk but that trip went a little south, I'll tell more about that when I get the pics developed.

This past weekend was the opener for general deer season. We have a spot on public land that we sit every year and rarely leave without some meat. Well opening morning got to our spot and to our displeasure another group of hunters set up only 250 yds down from us. We were in plain sight but oh well its public land. But to make it worse they were talking loudly and laughing.

An hour later a couple of bucks came jumpin up the draw. The other hunting party was closer and unloaded what sounded like a box of shells. The deer never flinched and continued in our direction. For whatever reason the other party stopped shooting, probably too far away. So my partner and I shot 3 shots and brought down both deer. My partner getting the bigger of the 2, a nice 3x4 buck.

We hiked over to the spot and he found mine first and started cleaning it as I looked for his. Short time later I found it and started cleaning it.

This is where it gets hairy. 2 hunters from the party down the draw show up and immediately try to claim the bigger deer. I politely explained to them what had happened and that they had missed and we clearly killed both deer. They stated that they saw it first and it was thiers. Well to make a long story short 9 people eventually showed up from their party and surrounded my partner and I. We tried to have an intellegent conversation but they were obviously lacking some of thier own. Finally one guy raised his rifle with one hand in our direction and said, "This is our deer, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Being my friends deer he decided to walk away. He is a police officer and I was dissapointed that he didn't want to do more but he said he didn't feel like killing anyone over a deeror getting killed ourselves. As we left the area they had already contacted a Ranger and complained that we had tried to steal thier deer. The Ranger found us and immediately recognized my hunting partner as a Ranger who used to work in our very area. We told our side of the story but the Ranger did not take down any info from the other hunting party.

We went out for 3 more days and did not get another deer. Have any of you been in this situation and what did you do?

Power

Luckily for me I've never been through this. I do take one extra step just in case though...

I carry a candy wrapper from those bite-size candies I always have when hunting (Snickers, Milky Way, etc.). When I get an animal I stuff the wrapper up it's nose, where no one would ever think to look. Use a stick to get it way up there. That way, if there is ever an arguement I'll back off, get a Game Warden, and confront the people at that time. I'll make sure to let the other side tell the story first and then I'll tell them my side, including the specific candy wrapper. That way you know who was the first one to the animal and that holds a lot of weight if someone else shot the animal, they should have been the first one to it generally. If nothing else it should give you some credit about who shot it.

Edited by - Power on 10/22/2002 15:08:37

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jjt

rather
this happened to me this year public land to many hunters and a lack of ethics
in a nut shell
we were hunting elk all i had was a cow tag so it should not have been to hard to feel
opening morning i seen 4 cows head over the hill on the other side of the draw so i hiked back to my truck and drove down the ridge to the next draw where i sat down at the top of the ridge
there was a young man looking for his fathers elk that he had dropped below me so i traveled a 100 or so yards down the ridge as to get away from him a little and where i could still see the eklk come out of the trees
well out came a cow so i shot her she was standing 120 yards brodside (probably the best shot i have ever had at an elk)any way i hit a little off about an inch and did not take out the shoulder bone
she was hit very well though and could not run she took only a step or two this is when it went to hell
the kid that was looking for his fathers elk, the father, and some other hunter seen the elk standing there after my shot and opened up on her
it was horrible they finally stopped shooting when they had destroyed 90% of the elk
i went down to look at her and was completely discusted there should have been 150 lbs of meat off this animal ill bet there was only 30 or 40
the kid had already tore his tag and was in the priocess of tagging the animal
im glad cause i didnt want to waste my tag on a wasted animal
while i was there i counted 6 holes in the animal besides the one deadly shot i had put in her
after it was over i went back to camp gathered my camp up and went home i will return after the regular season is over at the end of oct

my tag does not expire until dec 31

gleninAZ

I hate these stories as they are the underbelly of the sport. Your buddy is a weenie for not dealing with these guys and getting the message across. I have a good freind that was a cop for 20 years but he also ran away when I got beat half to death in a race riot during the late 60s. These a@h-les could have been legally harvested in AZ for pointing a gun at someone. Sad thing is that this whole gang of buddy hunters will do the same thing next year. That's why I gave up rifle hunting and stick to the bow.

rather_be_huntin

Superslugger, we did try and find the other party after contacting a Ranger but they were history. However I was also shocked at my partners lack of desire to identify himself and to defend his deer while on the hill. He had hand his hangun with him on the hill and if I was in his shoes and someone pointed a rifle in my direction, it would have probably ended a little differently. Out of the 9 there were only 2 guys who were being aggressive, the others probably would have ran. But it was his choice and thats the one he felt comfortable with.

I gave him my deer because I had already shot an elk two weeks earlier. I'll be going out this weekend to try and fill my deer tag but I'm going to go and enjoy myself and maybe use that candy wrapper trick.

Hk45USP

First off to those who called the guy more or less "dumb" for not identifying himself, I say you are the one who is dumb.

I too am LEO. Me against 9 other hunters??? Lets look at this closely on why the cop would PROBABLY lose in the long run:

1) one vs. nine.....enough said
2) he's out in the middle of nowhere. They shoot him and bury him. Just another "lost hunter" that was never found.
3) He ends up fighting for his deer by killing the guy who pointed the gun at him. Now the dead fella's friend gets pissed and trys to shoot the cop. The cop wins and kills the second guy. Where does it end? Still 7 guys left. Are you confident that those 7 will be on your side????
4) If you killed the guy with the rifle, how much you wanna bet all the other 8 are going to come up with a story that YOU (the cop) were the AGGRESSOR and the dead guy was just "defending" himself.
5) I've never ever know a lone cop or person that was surrounded by 9 armed guys and wone a gunfight. Do you know anyone like that? Oh yeah, let me guess....superman.

Bottom line...Why are you guys criticizing the cop? You too as citizens have every right to make a citizen arrest up on that hill. Why don't you tell those 9 guys that you're taking the deer and anyone who gets in your way will be arrested for a theft crime.....

Let me guess....because you don't have a piece of metal (badge) in your pocket, you feel that you don't carry some type of "special power" that makes you invincible, like you believe the cop should have. Let me tell you something...that badge just makes the cop look weaker. Because.... most crooks know that when an off duty cops id's himself, he's now under "rules" on when and where or what he can do legally to make an arrest. They know that the cop isn't going to do something out of policy etc....

Whereas if it was a citizen that stepped up against that guy who was pointing the rifle he could have acted just as "hot" as the bad guys. Basically appearing "larger" and "nastier" than them. Calling their bluff in other words. Cops don't have that luxury.

I say, getting into a gunfight with 9 other people isn't worth a little venison. Although I definately would have gotten the ranger (and more help) to go back with uniformed cops to arrest the guy who committed the deer robbery. That would have been a smarter thing to do.

schmalts

You left out some important details in your story that may change things. First, Was there only one bullet hole in this deer? Second if there was more than one hole where was it?
Reason i ask is how did these guys find the deer without a blood trail? And if there was only one hole in it where was it, because if it was in a lung, heart , neck or spine, you really had no arguement if it was hit there by them it never would have ran that far and you could have argued that point.
Is there more to the story?

gleninAZ

HK-What was that about? I didn't say the guy was dumb but maybe someone else did. You just made my point about cops being just like the rest of us and some are a bit timid and some are tough as nails. If an officer is afraid to identify himself against the odds and press the law then he needs to be something else. For me I always have a piece of metal in my pocket and it's not a badge. Has nothing to do with deer meat and everything to do with holding your ground. Guess I'm a little more redneck than you. Good shooting.

rather_be_huntin

The deer had two holes in it. One in the neck and one in the bread basket, double lung shot. Don't know if it hit the heart or not because I had it only half cleaned when they got there. The other group had shot at it many times and thier story was one guy shot at it 4 times and admitted to missing all of them. And another guy shot 3 times and admitted to missing all of them. The third guy however said, "I shot once and it dropped." He wanted no part of any discussion that he either didn't hit it or hit a weak neck shot. They openly admitted that they only could have hit it once. They would not even look at the deer when I said it had two holes in it. It is possible he hit it but I watched the thing run all the way up the hill and it never flinched. In fact my partner made the comment that maybe they were shooting at something else because the deer seemed spooked but they did not seem to be running like they had injuries. They stopped shooting and we started a few seconds later. They found the deer because we were cleaning it. We shot it only 100yds away from where they were looking for it. I tried to tell them that the fact that I knew right where it was also proves we had shot it. They searched the area above us (100yds or so) for nearly 20 minutes before I heard one say, "lets go see what they're doing down there."