Bobdale

I would like to hear if any of you have had problems with neighboring landowners or hunters deliberately and maliciously sabotaging your or the general area deer hunting with noise, odors, habitat destruction, or whatever else. During the last two years, we have had two neighboring landowners/cattlemen (who jointly pretty well surround our 400 acres) deliberately " declare war" on us and other area hunters near and during deer season by letting multiple dogs run loose and constantly chase and bother the deer, by " calling cattle" (yelling, honking, and shooting 20-30 22 shots in a row) right at prime time sunrise and sundown, by inappropriate burning, by arranging for the county road crew to perform noisy work in the immediate area, by themselves trespassing and hunting over our food plots, by setting up stands and hunting right on our borders (in our face, so to speak), by arranging for their cattle to be right on our borders and conveniently cross the fences into our land (they have devastated our food plots a few times), by inappropriate running of vehicles into surrounding fields, and by who knows what else. There is absolutely no doubt that this is a concerted and joint effort to significantly hurt the quality and aesthetics of the area hunting and we' ve had about all of this that we can take. Their dogs have become a major problem in running through our land during the season but they can always counter that they are simply pets and not deer dogs per se. These guys have actually been heard to say that they were deliberately trying to sabotage the hunting. They were reasonably good neighbors before this started but have now infuriated not only our group but others in the area.
We are ethical hunters and have repressed the urge to " get even" . We have always tried to be good neighbors and have never had any real run-ins with these guys. I really don' t think that talking to them would solve anything at this point; everybody knows that everybody knows what' s going on. Do we have any legal recourse? What are your similar experiences? What would you do? What would be thge most effective and rapid way to stop this behavior in its tracks? Should we resort to similarly questionable tactics (a dose of their own medicine)? Your frank comments would be most appreciated. Thanks.---Bob Dale (Arkansas)

timbercruiser

A number of states have hunter " Harassment" laws, have you checked to see if Arkansas does? First thing I would do is contact the game warden and county sheriff. Contact the animal control people in your area and see if they will help set live traps for the dogs. They arranged for the animal control people to pick them up and put them to sleep. If you can prove the cows are being run onto your property there may be legal recourse for damages, otherwise have a bar-b-que. I would try the legal way first, then I would roll some dogs and whip some butt when I caught them on my property.

halcon

I believe your best option would be to seek legal council . There are laws that protect your rights as you described if you lived here but the laws could be different where you live . That makes it hard to give advise to someone that could live in another state .

MarkIIVT

Damn straight this happens alot. In Kansas we have very limited Public land...only 3% of total. For the last 4 years in the area we hunt we have had " Bird" hunters walking the draws at about the right time to scare deer off and stinking up the place. They are not wearing orange (during centerfire Season!!!). They end up chasing the deer off onto leased land and posted land.

Also have the terrace jumpers in their 4 wheel drive PUs..usually tresspassers.

We also have this guy we call " Motorboat BOB" and his outboard asault boat. He is supposedly waterfowl hunting. He must have get a boatful of geese during deer season, but he must take a boatful of ammo with him. The sounds are clearly different too. Most are shotgun, and the rest sound like handgun. He must fire about 500 shots in the morning alone...plus he buzzes the cove all day.

This year we had a new wrinkle....POWERED PARASAILER, not only spotting deer, but driving deer off private and public land. We have only 69 CO for the entire state...about 82,000 Sq. Miles.

It is really out of control during the Centerfire season in Kansas

Nomercy

I also once had a problem with a neighboring land owner. It' s a little different problem with him though...he owns land that is divided from mine by a creek, and the only access to either of our properties is a dead end unkempt road, since he owns all of the property on one side of the road and the eighty that it leads to, he assumes that he owns the road, and that the creek must be his as well, even though I did hire a surveyor a couple years back to exactly divine the property lines, and I figured out he owes me about 15yrs of back wheat for farming 5acres of my property that border the creek on ' his side' . He does a great number of things to screw up my hunts, as far as I can tell just because I get better game every year only 100yrds from where he hunts, he' ll not tag a single deer all season, and I' ll bag out with goodly deer, not to mention he' s just disagreeable anyway. He' ll ride his quad around in his wheat, down his section of the creek, the #*%@ took the cores out of my valve stems when my truck was parked on the side of the county property road (got back at him for that real good though [>:]), one time when I was parked on the side of the road, he blew off a magazine full of rounds around my pick-up, which was a good deal, since a buddy and I actually saw him do it, he got fined for wreckless discharge of a firearm and attempted destruction of property, along with harassment...he still hasn' t learned yet, but the last two seasons he' s gotten quite a few calls in the twilight hours from anonymous callers that his cattle are out at another pasture away from my hunting spots, so he' s too busy rounding up cattle to come bother me while hunting. I keep telling him he needs to build stronger fences, so he doesn' t have to get his cattle in every weekend. He' s pretty certain I do it, but not even Dick Tracy could prove anything, and we' ve both pretty much come to agree that all' s fair in HUNTING and war. I have other hunting spots that are better, and several that are just as good, I just stay there to bug the heck out of him, and to make sure he doesn' t just decide during hunting season all of my property is his (which has been a problem with other land owners). It' s really quite funny to see how riled up he gets when he sees me dragging a fat gal out of the brush up into the truck when he comes out empty handed so often.

silentassassin

Bob,

Declare war on them back. Leave a deer leg and a gallon of the old style anti-freeze out for the dogs. Shoot a couple of cows, if you catch them in your food plot. Bury spikes where there trucks come through. Take a camera with you and if you catch them on your property you can present the picture as evidence. If they want to go to war, then take em

model722

Shoot them, just kidding . I would definatley try to do it the legal way. If you do put stakes in the ground and set other traps be carefull. If someone gets hurt by a trap that you set you could get into trouble, plus you would be opening yourself up for a law suit. Sometimes people are just plain a**holes and there is nothing you can do about it.

benhuntin

I had that problem a few years ago. The neighboring landowner was placing human hair clippings around my foodplots. I had noticed the hair a few days before and I happened to catch him one night when I went back to the property to find a peice of my tree stand that I lost the morning before. He even had a hand held sprayer with him. Dont know what was in the sprayer. We exchanged a few words and he left. Never had problems again.

PABowhntr

Personally, I would follow the legal route despite what the little devil on my shoulder urges me to do. Following through with it legally keeps you on the " right side of the fence" and does not allow you to sink to their level.

Ruger1

I agree, you have lots of legal recourse here. As stated many states have anti-haressments laws in place for hunters. It sounds like to me you don' t even have to do that. Trespassing a destruction of others property equals jail time plus reimbursement. The hitch here is you fellas are going to have to persue it and push it. It' s not going to happen any other way. By the way - in many states harvesting a deer on ground you do not have permission on DOES constitute poaching.

Here in Kansas we are coming across more of this. These are the slobs that give us all a bad name.

Dave