SA,
You beat me to my scenerio[8D]
If you come across a deer hit by a vehicle laying along the road in obvious pain and eventually going to die....shooting it to end its suffering makes you a poacher???

OK, here's another doozy.
We have a game law so ambiguous that a survey conducted that called each of the 6 regions in our states game offices got something like 4 different answers. So depending on which area you are hunting in, depends on if you got fined or not. If a guy gets pinched for breaking that law, yet another hunter a couple miles down the road is "legal", is either one a poacher?

CharlieP and rybo,

It's not always as black and white as some here would say that it is. But if the people here are as righteous as they say they are then it's impressive. However, if a 160 class buck is working a scrape line toward me and I know it's getting close to the end of legal shooting hours, and the buck only likes two steps from being where I can shoot him, I am not going to take my eyes off the buck to look down and see if shooting hours have ended yet. If I shoot that buck and look down and see that I am 1 minute past shooting hours, I am not going to consider myself a poacher. It would be intersting to see just how many people here would look at their watch, in the same situation, and then not shoot even though it was 1 minute past shooting time, but there was still pleanty of light to ethically make the shot. Now this is obviosuly a different scenario then some of the others that have been mentioned and there is a much better argument for this being "poaching". However, in the turkey hunting scenario where I didn't have a plug and didin't realize that I didn't have it and me shooting the deer that was literally rotting to death the line is not so clear.

In Arkansas its illegal to spot deer at night - with any method.

Do you know how many times I turn around in the road to shine fields for deer or take curves oddly to see what might be munching on the sides of the roads ?

I'm a poacher ?

Yes stealthy apparently you are a poacher. Why I tend to reserve the term for people who show a blatant disregard for wildlife and wildlife laws, you have been judged by the moral majority of this board to be a poacher

That is not poaching. Poaching is attempting or successfully taking game illegally.

You are merely breaking a game law

Every time there is a story about putting down wounded hurt game.

The consensus is almost 100% that "we" would do the right thing and put it out of its misery - fully knowing it was against the law.

I have - I AM A POACHER

Silent, I'm not really sure what you are trying to get at. Is it a definition of poaching that would suit all of us?

The definition of poaching is simple. Though it may not be acceptable to all of us. An individual who commits the act of poaching knowingly or not knowingly would be considered a poacher for each individual act.

Or are you trying to look the poaching as an adjective to describe or label an indivual. In that case are you asking how my acts of poaching, and/or how serious of an act (poaching) does one need to commit in order to be labeled a poacher?

No I'm sure your story would go something like this if you get pulled over.

I'm sorry Officer. I'm just have an absent mind sometimes and I forgot something at (fill in the blank) so I did a legal 3 point turn that they taught me in drivers ed. What were those animals anyway, Jackalopes?

Both. What is the act of poaching by defintion? Is it simply breaking a game law?
I think the term poacher or poaching is thrown around much to liberally. Breaking a game law doesn't make someone a poacher anymore than speeding makes someone a criminal.