More Illegal Hunters Caught ... Baited Pond for Waterfowl

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My Grandfather was a Game Warden &, he had no fear of any man, riding horseback into the trails many times back
until the 1950's, for lack of trails into national forest. He caught a lot of those poachers pretending to be hunters.
 
Baiting deer is (or at used to be) legal in Michigan.

While I have less than zero use for poachers, I have less use for Michigan DNR. When I lived there, if you got stopped by them, you got a ticket and fine. Period. They would find or invent something to get you. I had a friend that was duck hunting. They quit well before legal time ended, took their guns and ducks back to the truck, then went back to get their decoys.

When they got back to the truck, it was a few minutes after legal shooting time. A DNR officer was their waiting. They all got ticketed for hunting after hours, even though their guns were in the truck.

I had another friend that was duck hunting. The DNR officer went through the whole routine. Legal limit. Used steel shot. Legal license. Their shotguns were auto loaders. Officer asks where the empty shells are. Obviously they were either back in the blind or in the water. He ticketed them for littering.

I wouldn’t hunt when I lived there even though I had my own land.
 
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if you got stopped by them, you got a ticket and fine. Period.

While it isn't that bad here in Fla., I have run into many FWC wardens who had to swagger and put you through it. One really liked to harass me because I hunted the land adjoining the place he hunted. He made me come down out of a tree at 8:30 AM to show him my license and permits. I was in a climbing stand almost 20 ft. up.

He heard me shoot one morning in turkey season and came running in to check out my gobbler and licenses. He went through all the permits (they used to be individual slips of paper for each activity) and finally shouted out, "Aha, this one is out of date. I'm going to write you up."

I then informed him that was my salt water fishing license. He got real mad and then, luckily, 3 deer ran past. He said, "Somebody busted them." and ran off towards the place he hunted.

There were a few more like him including one who stole a hunter's pop-up blind. When confronted, he said it was taken for evidence. He got forcibly retired for that theft.

There were/are also some very fair ones but It seems they were/are in the minority.
 
There were a few more like him including one who stole a hunter's pop-up blind. When confronted, he said it was taken for evidence. He got forcibly retired for that theft.

Nothing like getting a lifetime of state pension and benefits for committing a crime.

He sounds like the one who used to live down the road from my grandfather's farm. He would come down to investigate anytime he heard a gunshot in our direction and attempted to charge my grandfather, the local police chief, with poaching multiple time when he shot a deer using one of his deprivation permits. He was finally retired after he was found in our barn "inspecting our freezer for illegal game meat" one night and my grandfather held him at gunpoint until one of his officers arrived to arrest the game warden for trespassing. I found out much later that it was a long standing feud between the two of them stemming from my grandfather arresting him for public intoxication many years earlier.
 
All of the game wardens that I know are pretty good guys. That said, our AGFC is established by our state constitution, making it a very powerful agency.

I duck hunted at Reelfoot Lake (I think it was) in TN years ago. It was an absolute disaster of a guided hunt, but that's a story for a different day. Game wardens showed up at our blind. They checked everybody's duck stamps, but only checked our guides' guns for plugs. That sent up red flags for me. I think our guides had been caught hunting without plugs before. One other thing that sent up red flags was that the guides got all weird when I told the game warden that I'd bought my federal stamp in Arkansas. They didn't seem to get the whole "federal" part of "federal duck stamp."
 
Hunters had 50-pound bag of corn and piles of dead waterfowl, ...,

UH CORRECTION

The POACHERS had a 50-pound bag of corn and piles of dead waterfowl....,

Sorry folks, it's a pet peeve of mine when a "news" article calls such offenders "hunters" because they aren't. They were caught poaching. They should be referred to as such. Calling them hunters is like calling a fellow arrested for armed robbery with a knife a "knife enthusiast" instead of a "robber". Just my opinion but I think if we, who are actual hunters, deluged the reporters with numerous emails about the incorrect wording, the reporter might get it. As it stands now the readers who don't know about hunting have been told that some hunters are criminals. (SO maybe all hunters are, is the possible conclusion). Some reporters simply are bad at what they do, but others actually have a deliberate agenda....

LD
 
My family & I stopped at the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretive Center in Dubois Wyoming several years ago. They had a magnificent ram on display, just as you come in that had been poached, and the placard stated the details of the ‘hunters’ who taken the ram illegally...

I spoke with the clerk at the information booth and politely expressed my being troubled at the pos POACHERS being referred to as “hunters”. It was one of those moments when the lightbulb seemingly appears above someone’s head.

My next time through Dubois, I stopped in again, really just wondering if anything had changed. Imagine my joyful pleasure in seeing that placard replaced, with the distinction that it was poachers who had criminally taken that ram! I went back to the information booth (don’t know whether it was the same clerk-most likely not) and told them that I had pointed out that error, and thanked them for correcting it.

Sam
 
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