SCRIDER1

I was hunting with my 9-year old boy Saturday evening in a stand we placed near a rubline about 45 yards from our property line. It borders a neighbor's field. We don't know the folks over there really well, but we do know that they ( or somebody accessing from thier land) uses our property pretty much anytime they want. We find horse tracks, places where they cut cedar fence posts, places where they get rocks, places where they store round bales on our place, etc. It ticks us off that they use the land without permission, but as long as they dont poach we figure best to leave well enough alone (we have very rarely run into poachers during hunting season). Well, Saturday evening at about 4:45 a truck comes through the field and stops about 60 yards from us and we watch a guy and little boy about 5 years old get out. Neither one of them had any orange on. The man had a red hat, at least, but no orange. The little boy was in full camo. We watched them crawl through the fence onto our side of the property and start wandering into the area we were trying to hunt. The little boy was almost impossible to see. Well, I unloaded my son's gun and told him to stay put. I climbed down and took off after them. I was only 20 seconds behind them, but I couldnt locate them. Finally, I see some movement on the other side of a brush pile and there is the guy hunkered down with his gun up acting like he thinks the noise I'm making is a deer. He finally sees my orange and stands up. I introduced myself and asked him if he had permission to hunt the property (I knew the answer). To his credit he said "no." Then I said "Well, where are you headed, then?" This time he lied, saying "I guess I'm lost." Then I asked him if he was the neighbor who owned the property next door and he says "no." I'm getting really mad now, but I don't want to chew the guy out in front of his kid. I wanted to tell him how dam* stupid it is to bring that little kid out there at dark, in camo, with no orange on and tell him the get the h*ll back in his truck, but I didn't. I just tried to let him know by my expression that he wasn't welcome. I didn't ask his name, because I figured he would just lie in front of his boy if I did. I just told him to go ahead and hunt the rest of the evening (maybe 30 minutes) and to stay in that area so I would know where he was. I left him and went to where his truck was parked hoping to get a liscence plate number, but it had no tags. So, with our hunt ruined, my boy and I left. They did not come back the next day.

Questions: What should I have done differently, if anything? And what should I do if they come back and I catch him again?

pocomoke

Questions: What should I have done differently EVERYTHING!!!!

You will have continued troubles for sure. You have apparently condoned their trespassing and misuse of your property for some time now so you basically created this monster.

You can never give a trespasser any chances,period. I cant believe you let them stay. That guy was laughing big time at you. When I run into a trespasser on my land they leave thinking they may have just met the devil himself. As you found out,they will lie right to your face.

mlang

Take a cell phone & call the police next time, and don't leave it at that, press charges.

erope

The first thing I would of done was call the police, or DNR and tell them you have trespassers, provided you had a cell phone with you.While waiting for them, I would of got therelicense plate #, and because they didn't have that, get the VIN#, should be easyto track them then.

You were toonice about the whole thing IMO.

highcountrysp

Next time call the police or the warden. Especially since they didnt have plates on the truck. We used to have people tresspass on our land all the time and they would fight over who actually owned the land. You let them disrespect you by allowing them to stay on your land.

stubblejumper

While you think that he is the worlds dumbest poacher,he probably thinks that you are the worlds dumbest landowner for letting him get away with tresspassing all this time,especially after you caught him hunting on your property and didn't throw him off the property.If you do nothing ,he will continue to take advantage of the situation and it will only get worse.

moosehunter21

I would have had torn a strip off of him either way, if his kid was there or not.

SCRIDER1

I should have been more clear. I dont own the land myself. I have permission to hunt it along with my cousin, whose father-in-law owns the land. We've told the landowner about the neighbor's use of the land for fence posts, horseback riding, hay storage, etc and he doesnt seem to worry too much about it. He does not live on the land. It is a remote patch of land surrounded by farms people live on full time. Neitherthe land owner or us are there much...a few days a year at most. I could have been a hard a** about it, but whose the say the guy wouldn't shoot me? He could be a nut for all I know. I could have called the cops, but with 30 minutes to go until dark, they'd never have gotten there in time. I could have gotten the VIN number off of the truck, but to do that I would have had to trespass to get it. I'll tell the landowner about it and he will likely do nothing about it. Sorry I brought it up.

121553

I would not call a tresspasser a poacher. Breaking a law maybe but not a poacher in my book, but I'm sure others may disagree.
As far as if you handled it properly I think you showed him a lot of respect in front of his son and as if you handled it properly, that would depend on you and the location. I myself have two treestands on the backside of my property over looking the public national forest. If I were to catch someone in one of my stands there, I would just let him know I'm the owner and wish him good luck. I can understand if your hunting a sector of land where hunting is limited and competive and you you don't want any competion, but I just don't have that problem out here. But I would of given him a royale a$$ chewing about the fluroscent orange issue.

Bobby

bawanajim

Not only that but now his kid thinks its alright too.Next time he is drinkin with his scumbag friends he will tell them not to worry about that land owner he won't do anything but invite you to stay.You just opened pandora's box!
W.T.F.you state that you know people are stealing from you,hunting your land & cutting your trees then when you catch the slobs you ask them to stay.
You put your self & your sons lives in danger because you don't have bahls or brains enough to have these slobs busted.
He pointed a gun at you,his kids in camo do you really think they are safe hunters!!![:'(]