I'm not sure, but I believe someone (possibly Hands) posted a question like this before...and if so...my apoligies...but..........

Just because I have never tried creating a poll question before...and also to get your thoughts..... This goes straight to ethics...but, would you turn in a poacher you actually saw in the act of poaching or breaking game laws ? .... And before you answer...think about this... It could be anyone...someone you have never seen before, someone you had seen around, an aquaintence, or even a friend... (We will leave out a family member, because that goes into a whole nother can of worms)............... But, would you ?


I started the poll, and so as not to "tilt" the numbers, I am not going to vote.

You know you bring up an excellent question! I was gonna be quick to vote yes but thought about it after reading your post. Not so much that it would matter who it was but more about the circumstances. I have had many arguments with guys at work about this mostly because I have a big problem with our game commission. I have no problem with a person that needs it shooting a deer they may not have a tag for as long as they use it and need it. No one owns those animals-and if you want in our state you can kill as many does as you want as long as you keep buying tags.
So it would depend on the situation-if I saw some slob shooting deer just for the hell of it or for their horns I would turn them in no matter who it was-that is totally disrespectful of nature and a waste of a natural resource. Sorry if I went off on somewhat of a fit-I just feel that those animals belong to us all not a select few to do with as they think is "best"!

Iron Fox... I asked this question at a couple of other forums...and several people gave basically the same answer at you.......... One fella said that it would depend on the circumstances...If the fella was really in need, say to feed his family for instance, he would over look it.

wE TURNED TWO IN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS.Don't know if they ever got caught though.

Poachers are thieves just as surely as someone that breaks into your house.

I would, depending. If it was someone I KNOW, and that someone was on their butts and needed food to live, or to feed their family...I'd probably show them the last place I saw some sign at. But, if it's anyone I don't know...or someone I do and I know they are doing it just to do it, just to kill or for antlers, or on the road...then yeah, I'd make the call. I'd make the call even if it was kin on MY lease, nevermind their situation. Stealing food from the state and stealing food from me are two different things, in my skewered book of morals. Ask and ye shall recieve, but....other than that, they provide meals in the pokey.

I went ahead and said "yes"...the hungry folks I know do well enough during the season (whether themselves or donation from neighbors who do better) that that won't even come up, the "poach to survive" issue.

Hummm It says on the board that the last post in this thread was made by Hands yesterday (Nov. 4)....but I look in the thread and the last post is by Hands alright...but it is dated Oct. 31... I'm corn-fused.

I think it was with that hiccup that happened yesterday (or whenever) when eli was trying to sort some new boards on. I noticed that myself.

I have someone poaching on my lease right now. I have had all my stands stolen since last December. Right now is not a good time to ask me this question. I just walked in the door from a day of "Posting" my lease right up to the poachers back yard.

I knew he was in there for years and have done nothing. I got wind that he was the one that stole my stands, 1000.00 dollars worth. I went in yesterday, saw drag marks and blood. I went today right to his stand. Yes it was on my lease. I took it down and laid it all in a pile for him to get. If I catch him now. YES I will turn him in.

Sorry guys just venting.

Dont blame you savage-its bad enough that someone tresspass on your property let alone steal from you and kill game on private land they have no right to be on. I have escorted my share of tresspassers off of my family property. It used to get real bad at our place cause our property borders I-80 and people drive up the interstate,see woods and think they can just go hunting no matter who it belongs to.

I know what you mean Savage. When I had my farm several times I had people tell me to leave that they knew the owner and had permission to hunt there. When I asked them who the owner was they had trouble coming up with a name. I would then tell them in no uncertain terms who I was and give them just about enough time to get off the property,and orders not to return.

It wouldn't depend on WHO it was, but on how I define poaching. Sometimes the edges of the sharp letters of the law may need a bit of honing with pragmatism or even compassion.
What is being taken and why weigh more heavily with me than what day of the year it is or the technical specifications of the weapon or trap.
"Poaching" to me entails an element of maliciousness or waste, some conscious attempt to deprive another of rightful fair chase or necessary harvest. And then there is always the silliness of its being legal to shoot deer in the summer if they are destroying your crops but you have to let them lie for the zopilotes, you can't butcher them for the freezer!

I've always thought that was the silliest thing. they tell us that too. I just don't think I could do it..probably would get on their chit list by skinning them out anyway. Although, a summer deer will be a poor thing in my neck of the woods.

Yep, they aren't exactly bruisers here, either, but sausage is still sausage!

LOL..Amen to that!

Yes for taking game illegally. But what about over baiting by 1 gal.? ( We have a 2 gal. limit here in Mich.) I wouldn't waste my time calling the C.O. on that, a dump truck load maybe.. To me Poaching is just that, Shooting game illegally, after hours, with a spotlight, without a license, From a Truck on the side of the road, etc.

Just like that Johnny Cash Christmas song where they places a squirrel on the sharecropper porch one Christmas Morn so the sharecropper would have something to eat for Christmas. If someone was so poor that they had to eat I would not turn them in.


I remember one guy tell me that when they were kids they had to eat Robins. Now that is real poor for sure.

I would. Unless they were starving, mostly because I would do that too if I was starving.

WEll, I reckon I can agree with everyone..lol.

And, welcome to the forum Glockman and Altair.

Hello folks, nice to see ya's again. I wouldn't turn someone in if I knew for a FACT that they were indeed taking this game for survival and not merely for sport.
Otherwise......its time to pay the piper.

frozen in michigan,
gooser

Glad to see you back gooser... Hadn't seen you around in awhile. Thought maybe you had got lost up there in the upper peninsula.

A Yooper? Hey, good ta meet ya.

That used to be my favourite place to take Boy Scouts in February!

=DSM= Former Wolverine Bass Master and furniture engineer.

Mongo......I'm always somewhere lurking in the dark...

LOL...

Poaching? What is poaching and what is not. We have whitetail deer overpopulation here, in Virginia. Cars kill them by the bushels. I sometimes pick up fresh roadkill deer to feed my dogs. Is it a poaching? In some states it is. Deer are coming to scratch their antlers and just eat our few fruit tree saplings right by the house. Can I protect my trees simply by shooting one or two deer? I talked to a large orchard owner not far from us. They have a written state permission to kill deer coming to their a few hundred acres orchard territory. A paradise for a deer hunter! They keep a few hunting dogs and never run out of venison. Deer overpopulation continues. Our Fish and Game Department does not permit to hunt deer on Sundays, when many of us have time to do so. Number of deer hunters declines, young people prefer computer games and staring in TV screens, not hunting. Right now, hunting season is over, but deer are around. I know one family living 80 miles north of us. They have staghounds, huge fast dogs. They use them for deer control near their place. They just turn them loose after deer. They do not even bother to pick up deer their dogs kill. When I asked them how they new the dogs got one? They answered: "We see blood on dogs muzzles..." Was it poaching? According to the law, perhaps it was, but I would not report it at all by one reason. This did not do any real damage to deer or to the society. The best way of deer population control would be reintroducing mountain lion and wolf. Of course, our dogs may be caught by predators sometimes. The hunting would become somewhat dangerous to dogs, but this is what hunting is all about anyway.

We can get permits to shoot problem deer off of our property (landowners can), and I know my gramps has a time or two to keep them out of the garden in the spring and summer. He found other ways though after we all nagged him..lol..only cause I was in the woods and heard a noise and followed it to a bedded down fawn whose mom was either apparently dead or had abandoned it. It was too far gone though and I couldn't bring it back to health.
But, I don't think we're allowed to eat the deer we destroy in that means....which is pretty stupid to me. I suppose if one did, that would be considered poaching.

Picking up dead deer here now, on the roads, would be considered poaching too. But, I' guess I'm a law stretcher in some ways, cause I'd have no qualms about offering it to someone for dog food, or if it was fresh hit by me, taking it home myself.

i think the law about the deer in your garden you can shoot it but you have to call the warrden and he will pick it up and take it to a family in need well he is suppose too
and about turning in a poacher i have one time i heard a shoot on the far point on my land and i could not drop what i was doing when i got done with what i was doing went back there to see what i could find got there and the guy just caped the deer and head and left the meat there so i went to the guy leasing behind me and he said one of the guys that was in his group did a deer that morning reported him and they some how match the cape with the deer on my land and took his sorry butt to the big house
but a preson that needs to eat i would find it hard to report him with the way food prices is and the way we have way too many doe in my state that would be a hard call dont get me wrong i hate poaching but i would gladly let the guy or gal use my gun to get one if they were starving
but that just me no law is worth seeing folks starve hope that didnt upset any body

Thanks!! I wasn't sure how it went about "the disposal".

Yeah, I feel pretty much the same, I wouldn't let nobody go hungry when there's food all in the forest.

yeah i know it just kills me at all these movies stars getting on the tv begging for you to give to those other countrys when we have folks in our country starving you know you send your money but those poor souls dont get it some greedy chairman gets it
sorry got off the subject a little
Dave

heck if a family was starving id poach for them after all, all we got is each other

too true