MA Jay

I went out Friday night to try a little predator night hunting here in my home state of Massachusetts. I don't get often, maybe 2 or 3 "nights" a year. I was having a good night, not scoring but I had a fox come in right behind me to about 10 feet before I heard it and I called in a group of 3 LARGE raccoons at another spot. My wife had her girlfriends from college over for the weekend, so I was crashing at my parents house .. so I had no reason to be home early, so at 11:20 pm I hit one last spot on the way in.. in Westford MA. I pulled onto the little dirt road I've parked on about 5 or 10 times to deer hunt, it's next to a sub station and has a street light and got my gear ready and headed off into the woods. I did notice when I pulled off the road that a car had slowed down and checked me out when I had pulled off. Anyways, I set up and called for about 20 minutes and all I saw was 2 deer, then it hit midnight and I had to head in, because in Mass you can only hunt till 12. It took me about 15 minutes to get back to my truck .. and I was just about there and walking back into the light of the street lamp when I heard "FREEZE!"

I looked up and all I saw was bright lights and 10 muzzle's all pointed directly at me .... m16's, street sweeper shotguns, 45's and 9mm's. Yup .. 3 Westford town police and 7 state troopers ... 4 members of the SWAT team were even present. I was asked to put my hands over my head, get down on my knees, then I was put in hand cuffs. It happened that the car that had slowed down while I pulled in had been an off duty state police officer, who had circled back and reported he had seen a man leaving a truck heavily armed heading into the woods towards some homes! Talk about someone over exaggerating!

Well after 5 minutes, and checking my hunting license, FID card, drivers license and searching my truck ... they lightened up and took the cuffs off and gave me all my stuff back. They told me in the future I may want to give them a call when hunting their town after dark .. then told me some places they had heard reports of problems with coyotes.
Then they mentioned the biggie ... and I quote "Hey Jay, you may want to give your wife a call as she's a little upset."

They had dispatched 2 rookie police to my house to check if I was home and if my truck had been stolen .. and at 12:00 at night, with 4 half in the bag college friends just about falling asleep ... pulled my wife out of the apartment and asked if I was home .. when she said no, they told her that they were unable to locate me. Which caused her to FREAK OUT! She was thinking accident or worse .. so for 15 minutes before I called home to verify I was alive and ok .. she was fearing the worse. The big problem was I had not told her I was going out .. I hadn't made that wise decision till later.

For a brief moment I got to experience what a coyote must feel like when a he gets a bright spot-light in the eyes and while squinting notices the muzzle of a .223 caliber pointed at his head ... which I would gladly have happen every day, rather than have the phone conversation where I have to calm my wife down for 20 minutes after she thought I was dead from some car crash!

Stealthy_Bowman

Wow, now that's quite a story!

Phil J.

I'm still laughing Jay, that is some funny stuff man, only in Massachusetts would that happen, dang that's funny!!!

Hey, so did that expedite your house searching in NH, I know it would for me!!

Keep at it and good luck

Phil

MA Jay

Phil ... can you believe that???? The flippin SWAT team!!!!

Though to be completely fair, after all my licenses checked out and I showed them the laws that allow me to hunt till midnight, they were very respectful.

and YES .. I have myself a realtor and will be a NH resident ASAP!

Congrats on all the sheds, I may leave the calls at home and head out this weekend to try and find some up my way.

mrfritz44

I was in the Coasties for 4 years up in eastern MassachesNUTS and though I tried to do some hunting, it never had the same feel as it does here in good ole Pennsylvania. You walk outside with a gun in your hand in Massachusetts and the people give you apprehensive stares as though you're going to blow them away. I HATED the atmosphere up there and I'm so glad to be home.

I've done law enforcement with Mass Environmental Police and they were good guys for the most part, but it's as though alot of that state has been programmed by the anti-gun crowd to despise the lawful gun culture.

Fritz

Outdoor

MA Jay
I live over the border in NH...you better move quick.
I have got to ask you ...after it was all over how did you stop from telling them what a bunch of a holes they were?

JimboHunter1

We got checked by the cops one night while fox hunting, but we experienced NOTHING like that. Is your wife talking to you again? []

DLuke

Do you guys really think it was overboard? My dad is a private investigator in Central Maine and this scenario has happened to him probably 100 times in the last few years. Not SWAT teams, but local police with guns "available". He now calls the local police on a daily basis when he will be in thier town, tells them where he will be parking his car, and where he will be in the woods if he is doing surveillance. This is daytime stuff....if he were doing it at night there certainly would be a greater degree of police suspicion. I think it was good police work in this day and age and once the situation was understood it seems things deescalated quickly.

MA Jay

I kind of took DLuke's outlook. They were just responding to a report of an armed man heading into the woods. I think in NH or the midwest the first thought a cop may have had would have been, "probably a hunter let's go check it out" .. but here in Massachusetts where hunting is definitely frowned upon and is not commonly practiced the first thought was "psycho who is going to blow his own head off or someone else's". I didn't find out till yesterday .. but earlier that day about 10 miles away, that was exactly what happened. A man walked into a wood lot and swallowed the barrel of a shotgun.

After I checked out they were respectful .. but I agree, the flippin SWAT team??? Was a little much.

As far as my wife .. well, let's just say I won't be night predator hunting anymore this year! I'll also be the talk of every friendly BBQ I get dragged to this summer with her friends ....

MassHntr

What's wrong with these people?! All that Homeland Security money has got to get justified somehow, I guess. Up in Harvard, MA the locals called the cops during deer season because they "spotted" two guys dressed in orange with shotguns. I got essentially strip-searched by TSA at Logan when I went to Montana with my '.06 for elk. On my way back, the TSA agent in Bozeman didn't even look at the gun. All he said was, "Geeze, that's a nice gun case. I wish I had one like that."