Thats way south of me Im on the taylor, nolan lines

I'm really surprised that the game warden did not do more then just issue a citation, especially considering that they were caught with a deer at night.

Most game wardens are extremely hard on poachers, especially when they catch them redhanded. Two years ago the local game warden stopped me at one of my ranch gates and told me that he had been seeing a black ford pickup every evening parked next to my gate on the west side of the ranch. The warden told me that he knew I didnt let many people hunt the ranch and had a pretty good idea that this guy was poaching. After I told the warden that I did not know anybody that drove that type of truck, he told me that he would do me a favor and catch him with in the next week. Well true to his word, he set up a little "sting" and caught the guy shooting at a robo deer on my ranch. The poacher argued with me for about 10 minutes that I did not own the ranch, and that he had 100% permission to hunt there LOL. Well any way, the poacher ended up lossing his rifle, his hunting lic., and had to pay a couple thousand dollar fine, plus he had to pay me because I pressed charges on him. If it wasent for that warden, I probably never would have known that there was a guy hunting my ranch almost every night.

If I were you, I would bother that game warden to the point that your annoying him until he does something (other then issue a warning) to end your poaching problem.

By the way, do you need any help with your axis, fallow, and aoudad problem?? hint hint lol j/k

When you do catch them, you need to press tresspassing chargers on them. Once you do that word will get around that you not playing games. We did that many years ago on our lease here in NJ, and after that never had a problem. Also, as a police officer I tell people to do the same when I'm called out, and it always works, or it gets me a place to hunt.

I hunt out in West Texas. On opening weekend of turkey season a big storm hit that area. It is possible that the storm did the damage. Depending on the type of feeder mechanism you are using, a strong wind can blow the corn off the pan and drain the feeder, but still leave it standing. I had this happen last year and put wind guards on my feeders to prevent it from recurring.

Never thought of wind siphoning out the corn, but unscrewing the cable tensioner is impossible and leg bolt is impossible without tools.

The last I heard Texas still has the "horse law" on the books , use it .
Nothing deters a poacher better than making his life more important to him than stealing . Once a poacher turns up with extra holes in him the word gets around about "that place" pretty quickly .

You heard wrong. You use deadly force on someone commiting a property crime in the daytime and you are going to have a lot worse problems than some vandalized feeders.

BoBo, I do feel for you, it is damned frustrating. I have some property in Real County as well, right off Highway 41, about 12 miles west of Garvin's Store. I had some folks running four wheelers on my place. Never caught 'em, but did fence them out.

If it's locals, it could be happening any time, but if it is someone from town, it will probably happen on a weekend. Keep the Game Warden and County Sheriff aware of the problem, have them file a report for a paper trail. Try to fox 'em, and see if you can catch them, then call the DPS or County.

One of my best friends is a State Trooper. I'm going to start taking him more often and see if he can file a report for me.

Oh I wish he could drive his truck out west. The presence of it would be awesome.

I purchased some locks yesterday to lock the lids onto the barrel. I'm also thinking about trying to weld the legs instead of using the bolt. However I would have to use a generator. Has anyone ever used a generator with an arc welder?

The 3 S's is always an option, and a damn good one for poachers IMO

you can get to the old pot holes the size of bath tubs and so on but if you hit them you WILL kick yourself in the you know what but lookout that you dont get in **** for hurting them the last thing you want is them to use the law on you