Poachers on my land.
 

I have people coming onto my property and damaging my feeders. Besides Cameras and Signs what else would you suggest.

I have locks on the timers and will put locks on the lids.

What else can I do to catch these guy's?

RE: Poachers on my land.
 

Call the police or the DOW. I had the same thing happen to me one time. A few kids shot up two of my tree stands. I found out who they were and lets just say that I have grown up a bit since that day. I probly wouldn't do that again. I was in High school and they were too. I found them and made sure they would be doing that again...

RE: Poachers on my land.
 

If you live close to your land, grab a few of your buddies and have a little stake out. Try and catch them in the act.

RE: Poachers on my land.
 

Well the Game Warden knows about some of the people I turned in that had shot a deer late at night and got caught with illegal game. He issued a citation. These are neighboring land owners. I think now they are retaliating?

I need the name of a cheaper camera that has a flash that can be turned off and does not make noise when taking a picture?

Also I am going to put up signs that say smile your on camera or this property under video survaillance. I know some spots they have to pass to get to the hunting areas and won't be able to find all of the cameras. Between the hunters we have like 8 or so cameras they won't find them all.

Also I have talked to some locals and I'm going to start parking at his house and riding the four wheeler to my cabin and hiding the four wheeler that way people don't think I'm home. I'm ready to catch these people and all help is appreciated.

RE: Poachers on my land.
 

If the game warden can't help you, buy some more signs.

"Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again."

Check your property often with a shotgun in tow--let them know you mean business.

RE: Poachers on my land.
 

Where do you live?

RE: Poachers on my land.
 

Oops sorry it is a west texas ranch. It is rather hard to frequent the property as it is a 6 hour drive. However I made a vowl that these guy's will be caught, and personally I cannot wait. The property is open range, no fences.

Before they would just turn feeders over, which could have been hogs. Last year everything went ok not much vandalizing.
This year my findings are this.

Feeder one, holds 350 lbs of corn, usually last three months or more gone in one month. Not possible. I think they lowered the feeder using the hand crank and either dipped all the corn out or bucketed it out. Animals cannot reach the feeder it is about 7 feet off the ground. All last year the feeder was not messed with to often by poachers and lasted three months between fill ups. The timer is under lock andkey and soon the lid will be as well. The top of the tri-pod is tied off to a tree it cannot be tumped over.

Feeder two, holds 300 lbs of corn, usually last three months gone in one month. I think they found the ladder I use to fill it up and bucketed the corn out or un bolted the tie down cables and un bolted one leg from the barrel and tipped it over as far as they could. Because the feeder has a boulder on each leg I don't think the tipped it over too far and just bucketed it out after that. When they tried to put the leg back in the feeder they could only get it back in half way "Maybe Kids". What I don't understand is why they would put everything back in place. Like put the lids back on or attempt to put the leg back in the support? The cables are attached to the feeder and down to the boulders. They are tightened with the screw fasteners those were unscrewed as well. Hogs and deer don't have thumbs to unscrew those.

Feeder three holds 350 lbs it was staked down with re-bar someone pried it up and dumped the feeder over. They also picked up the lid and threw it about 75 feet. An animal I don't think would drag a lid 75 feet away from a feeder.

Feeder four holds about 100 lbs or so. It is hunted by a local and was not touched. I have suspicion that it could be the local, but he is allowed to hunt all stands, on the property. He watches the place for me and keeps an eye on things. I though that since his family lives in poverty and he doesn't have a lot of money that he was taking corn away from my personal feeders to fill up his. "who knows" when something like this happens you suspect everything. I brought in three extra bags for him after mine were completely filled up again.

I'm going back late May and hopefully we are still up and running.

The good news, we filled up the feeders on Saturday spread corn and protein out and on Sunday at 8:30 we went up after the first feeding that runs at 7:30 to see what was going on. No a drop of corn left on the ground.

I have an abundance of game including hogs, whitetail, axis, fallow chocolate, turkey, and aoudad. It was reported that red stag have been seen, mountain lion, and rusian bore. But I have no seen any of these.

I know the aoudad are rough on the feeders but not so that they could tump them over after beeing staked to the ground.

RE: Poachers on my land.
 

as a fellow texan i do not understand why you have not contacted the game wardens.they will take care of the problem

RE: Poachers on my land.
 

I am in west texas also and we use the game warden plus neighboring land owners. The warden is always helping us out. We are wide open too and there was alot of poaching and sealing our feeders adn timers until we called him.. He had the sherriffs dept and himself to routinely travel the main ranch road, and made it known that he was always in the area. Since then we have had no problems. We also started chaining up our cattle guards, and put some serious posted signs out. Between all this it fixed our problems

RE: Poachers on my land.
 

dep214, my fourth post stated that the warden has been called. People have even been busted. I think it's why it happened this last time, and now they retaliating.

If it happens again I'm going to call again. I might have the spelling wrong but the wardens name is Sean Harwood. The problem is he is the only warden for three counties. That's a lot to cover by himself.

Real County is where I'm at.