Zubba.....I also say "My" dinner.....but I guess I don't really own that, either. It meanders through and eventually leaves me, too.

I think people have a very good idea of my meaning.

Jeff

zubba, your right, there is no legal right to a deer until your tag is on it. That is correct but when one works hard at securing property, feeding, growing and aging animals and when someone shoots it illegally it feels like part of "yours" was taken.

I had the same thing happen to me. My best buck, the one referenced in my Recovery thread. I gut shot him. While waiting for the right time to get down and move another buck ran into me at 10 yards. Bigger than the buck I had just shot. I wrestled with my ethics and came to full draw on the massive buck. I stood there at the ready with my pin behind his shoulder at 10 yards while he racked a tree. I had pressure on my release.......I wanted so bad to shoot this buck thinking I'd never recover the other one......I let my bow down, hung it up and sat down and about bawled. I watched the best buck of my life walk away from me at 10 yards. I thought, maybe just maybe he'll live another year, he's big for a reason and I know regardless of finding my deer it was the right thing to do. I did find my buck.

Anyway, I knew that deer made it through the first week of rifle. I knew if he stay on my landowners property he'd make it.....he was killed in the cut corn field right under my stand by a adjoining landowner who own nothing but open field. NO woods at that spot. The spot the trespasser stood was in a NO hunting Recreation area over 200 yards away from his own line and he shot into my landowners property another 200 yards. I called him a poacher on more than one occassion and needless to say, he won't look me in the eye. Oddly enough, it hangs on his wall. How could anyone be proud of that. [&:] I still think of that buck as my buck. Had I known the outcome I should have shot him but that would have made me just as evil as he was.

I guess a man's outside dog is fee-roaming, too........but he comes back "home" for a reason. It's because he has shelter (cover).....security (he's cared for).....and food/water (food/water).

"My" deer have all of this. It's a figure of speech....but I think it's viable.

Jeff

SB,
I'm not going to argue, simply because it isn't the important part of the story.Ones perspective on things often vary from others. Like I said, it is a bad deal for you, but I wish you luck the rest of the season, and in the future seasons.

There's too much of that in my state too. When the rifle seasons open it appears that people forget how to read, here it's easy. NO TRESPASSING. Sound it out if you have to, the signs are brightly colored too. Morons.

Yeah, there will be some others, maybe better one's!, good luck!!

LOL, Good one.

Jeff

Does your state allow baiting???

Tim

I feel your pain.

My dad has a 20 acre piece of property that is surrounded by woods and farmland. He manages his small slice of heaven the best way you could manage 20 acres. We've taken a few nice bucks over the last 2 years.

Adjacent to my dads property was a 1 acre empty lot that was overgrown. The deer bedded there. Then all of a sudden the Springer rejects that own this one acre and live in the city decide to hunt there. The day before gun season they were out putting down a bait pile and they shot three small deer there on this one acre lot next to my dads property this year. We haven't seen anything this year since these idiots moved in. They are out there every day in the middle of what used to be a bedding area and the deer are now long gone.

So Jeff, I empathize with you. Neighbors can be a real pain in the butt.

Yes, but Jeff doesn't hunt over bait. I see where your going with this, that could have happened but after seeing the area in question, I doubt that is what happened but I can't say for sure.