Who

I dont know about where your from but here, someone comes in and tries to hunt on someones land without being told they can, and get caught. LOL I guess its different in other places. Here I garentee you it wont be a friendly encounter to say the least. LOL Come and ask me, respect my wishes, take care of my property, dont pop a top till you leave, no problems. Dont you will have a problem.
A dog on my property is a stray. I have every right to put it down and will. I would expect the same if it were my own dog. I am responcible for that animal and its my fault if I do not make sure its under my controle. If you hunt this way part of your responcibility is to secure the right to be on the place you hunt, even if it means letting the land owners around you know that your running dogs just in case one does get away from you. If they say no then make sure you and your dog dont go there.
Isn't your job? Why not? I guess that makes you just a part of the problem. Too many people just dont want to get involved. "Not my job man, you do it!" Its every hunters job and responcibility to weed out the bad apples.

700Rem

You have WAAAAAY to much time on your hands....

hometheaterman

I'm just saying how am I supposed to police the rest of the dog hunters in the country? If I road around finding them and the things they were doing wrong and trying to fix it I wouldn't have any time to hunt myself.

The town I hunt in most everyone knows everyone and all of the dogs have a collar with a name and phone number on it. Usually when someone new moves in the guys with the dogs will go talk to them and see how they feel. If for some reason the dogs get away they usually leave their cell and home numbers and ask to please call them if they see it and they will come get it. Works out fine most of the time. There are only a few people that seem to hate dog hunters and have a problem with this.


We own some land in the mountain that we have several times found trucks parked on our land where you can clearly tell someone is hunting on our land however, I've never really gone to confront them as I don't want to get shot walking through the woods during hunting season. However, we have let several guys know that we do not want them hunting on our land along with having posted signs up. There are only 2 people that have permission to hunt up there. Well, a few more could come if they asked me but only 2 have written permission. I'd write the rest permission if they decide to make the trip up.

My uncle has also had a problem with this on his land. He bought some land where the last owner supposedly let most of them hunt. There was a nice stand built there. The people don't seem to understand since he bought the land it's his stand now not theirs. He has give one person permission to hunt there. He put on the posted signs to call for permission and this guy is the only one that has ever called or come by to ask him for permission yet he has caught a few others on that land. He wouldn't care if you called and asked or came and talked to him it just when you do it without asking. I've run into quite a few guys like this that just don't seem to care. Yet the guys that hunt in stands act like dog hunters are the only ones that tresspass and talk like they do it all the time.

It's just a lot more obvious when your dogs are running across someones land or you go on their land after dogs than it is if you get back in the woods in a stand somewhere and don't move. Unless your stand is in a obvious spot chances are you will never be seen nor caught.

Who

And you wounder why farmers and ranchers dont like these things? Getting irrigation pipe ran over, wells shot for the fun of it, unauthorized dogs. Things sure must be different in your part of the country. Here you come onto someones property without permission, trespass, with a gun your poaching, looking in my barns, your stealing and I have every right to draw down on you and hold you till the sheriff or game warden gets there. Killing your dog that you are responcible for, well just a kindness as have you ever seen what the yotes do to them?
If you as a hunter were to contact me asap for my permission to come on my place I might even help look but just to do it or I see some dog just running on the place..... just another stray.

deerdogdude

Drop it already. Lets talk about hunting.., not how bad a** some THINK they are.

hometheaterman

Getting irrigation pipe ran over? Who said anything about that? When going on the others land you are supposed to take your gun or truck. It's you walking across the land. I'm not seeing the problem. Who shot someones well? That just sounds more like some kids causing trouble than people hunting with dogs. I have never seen this kind of stuff go on.

As for the dogs they can't read posted signs so if you can't catch them all before they get to your property there is really nothing you can do. In fact if you are going by the laws it says you don't even have to try to stop them. Although most of the time we do unless it's a situation where someone owns a tiny place and we have on both sides and it just quickly runs through there. If they only own 2 acres in the middle of 100 acres on each side that we own it doesn't make sense to try to catch them. Although we might even then sometimes.

You can't take your gun on the property when going after dogs. So your not poaching. Who said anything about looking in barns? I've never known anyone to go look in someones barn for a dog. How would the dogs even get in the barn? I'm thinking maybe someone else complained about and I either missed or don't remember the post I'm not sure because I never said anything about looking in peoples barns and I agree you don't do that.

98% of the time if we go on someones land after a dog we usually do ask them. In most cases most of them are fine with it. However, we don't really need their permission to go. Some want to be *******s and try to tell you that you can't if you ask but for the most part most people are understanding and let you go get them. The other 2% it's either that we can't find someone or we know who owns the land. Actually being that we know who owns the land is almost what it always is but when we don't I'd say it's 98% of the time they go ask.

According to what others have told me and they are ones who usually know what they are talking about it's now a felony here if you shoot someones hunting dog. We have had people threaten to shoot them and that always gets pointed out. I've never verified this myself but according to all of them it's a felony here now if you shoot one. That's not something to take lightly. If you shoot someones dog coming through that would basically stop your hunting with firearms as you can't own guns if you are a felon.

I'm just not seeing all these problems you guys are making it out to be. You don't go on someones land climbing in their barn playing on their tractor like you all make it sound. It's usually walking though a field or into the woods calling for the dog and getting it to stop or come to you. Hook your leash to it and walk back out. It's usually not more than 5-10 minute process if that. It's not like we go snooping around for 2 hours. If we ever are on someones property looking for dogs for 2 hours I'd be shocked as I don't know I can remember it ever taking that long to catch a dog that stayed on one persons property the whole time but it may have as they sometimes catch the dogs after I have to leave.

hometheaterman

Okay, maybe this is what I need to do.

SwampCollie

The laws are a little different in VA Who.

Just say for a moment that you lived in VA.. take your whole operation and move it to VA east of the mountains. If someone KNOWS (that is the key word) that their hunting dogis currently on your property, then they may, without your permission, go on foot and UNARMED to retrieve it. Its the Right to Retrieve law.

That said, there are plenty of loopholes in that general law and that is where you'll have a lot of conflicts.

There are a lot of instances you'll read about, and please understand that by and large this is a small minority of people doing this in VA. Most dog running clubs are law abiding, considerate and respectful hunters. Like anything else... its 5% of the population causing 95% of the problem.

Thanks in part to Michael Vick also, killing a dog in the state of VA is a felony. I am not totally aware if it is still legal to shoot a dog that is actively harrassing your livestock or not, but I know it was once allowed and is allowed in most states throughout the country, and especially out west.

If someone in Texas is shooting up your property, I doubt it has much of anything to do with dog runners. You have inconsiderate rednecks on your hands, and they should be dealt with firmly. But just understand that quite often in VA someone who is trying to retrieve their dogs really is doing just that..... just getting their dogs and trying to get the heck out of there.

hometheaterman

I hunt in VA so that's the laws I'm familiar also.

I highly agree. If your property is getting shot up I would highly doubt it's dog hunters and if it is it's one of the few bad apples. I've never seen anyone going to retrieve their dogs cause any other problems unless the owner is just mad about them hunting in that area. I have seen that often times someone is mad of us hunting in a area that they own land near even though we aren't on their land. We had a guy that owned some land and a house next to the fields we were hunting in and he kept complaining and calling the sheriffs office complaining even though we weren't on his land. Just because we were near it. He told one of the guys that the shooting was scaring his animals. I don't want to scare his animals but at the same time I'm not going to stop hunting on land that we have permission to hunt on just because he owns a small portion of land next to it. I'm not even sure where his animals are as I've never seen them but he said we were scaring them. It's people like that who complain and make dog hunters sound bad when in reality it's that they just don't like hunters anywhere near them or their land. I don't go on his land but I'm not going to stay off the land I do have permission to hunt on just because he doesn't like it.


As for the retrieving dogs not sure what goes on there but it's nothing like that here. It's like said above. You usually walk on get your dog and walk back off. It's not a big deal. It is however, a big deal when a dog that can't tell your land is posted runs across your land and you shoot him.

reswire

One change sure to happen,,, Virginia will start looking into thebusiness entitiesknown as, "hunt clubs". Whether they make a profit, suffer a loss or simply break even, the use of raffles without permits and other money making schemes are catching the eye of the IRS and Virginia revenue agencies. Members are going to have to identify themselves and pay taxes on profits, and yes maybe even get a tax refund if they have losses. Anyway you look at it they will be considered a business as they should, and will be held responsible in a court of law for illegal use of property belonging to others for profit, etc. They will also see members held financially liable for these and any damages and offenses created by any and all members. Can't wait.