Neighbor Group Confronts Us As Poachers

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Double Naught Spy

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Sorry for the long back story, but it sort of sets the tone for how the whole situation developed...

I do hog/predator control on a bunch of properties for several landowners. This particular parcel is fairly new to me. I have probably only hunted it a half dozen times. It is planted in winter wheat and so far the hogs are only grazing, not rooting. I have shot hogs here three times so far. The goal is to keep the hog damage to a minimum, but the new wheat is very attractive to hogs. They will be back, right? Keep in mind that this place is out in the sticks, about 3 miles and 3 or 4 roads/turns off the hard top. This is a very low traffic area, LOL

Anyway, we get through the gate and notice a cow in the field. There were no cattle there a couple of days prior and I took a pic in case it was a stray and to let the landowner know. I figure we will drive farther into the property and if we see the rest of the herd, it isn't a stray, right? So, about that time the landowner comes rolling up to see about the cow. The cow had broken in earlier that day, the landowner returned it next door, and the landowner had come to see if it had gotten in again. We have had about 2 feet of rain in the last two months. Apparently, fencing is down, but no idea where (rain/washout related?). We chatted for a bit and he said that we were the only ones hunting this piece of property, but as they seem to have some good deer there, his kids may try to take some deer in the next few weeks...meaning we may go on hiatus for part of deer season. In the mean time, we were to keep killing hogs. He then said he was going to take the cow back to where it belonged and we headed into the property to hunt.

We drove in about 500 yards, parked, and had gone about another 130 yards on foot when we saw pigs maybe 150-200 yards farther out in the sprouted wheat. We were trying to line up on them when my partner says that the landowner has followed us in. In retrospect, I think we should have shot the pigs first and then had me deal with the folks that came in....Anyway, this is maybe 10 minutes after we left the landowner at the gate. Odd, I wonder if he needs help with the cow. I start walking back to the vehicle coming in and see the landowner had brought a friend (second vehicle)...only to then realize the truck that I thought was the landowner's wasn't his truck and so I don't know any of these people. It is now dusk and I am trying to gesture to them to stop before they come in too far and to get them to turn off their lights....trying to keep them from spooking the hogs out in the pasture.

The first car pulls up to me and I ask if they could turn off their headlights to not to spook the hogs and the driver immediately demands, "Who are you and what are you doing here?" The driver actually seemed angry with me. Calmly, I said, "We are hunting hogs. I work for ********* {the landowner}" and a bit more sternly said, "And who exactly are you?"

Mentioning the landowner's name mollified the driver who visibly relaxed and the driver explained that the landowner was a distant relative (most everybody seems to be distantly related to one another in this county, it seems) and that nobody was supposed to be hunting the property was far as they knew. That sort of fit with what the landowner said only minutes earlier that nobody else was supposed to be hunting the place. We chatted for a bit, all quite pleasant. Come to find out, a local guy in the area has been illegally selling hunts as a guide and dropping people off on various properties on the back roads, properties for which his does not actually have permission to be hunting or allowing people to hunt. They figured my partner and I were some of his hunters, or maybe him and a hunter.

I don't know how the landowner and these folks missed each other at the gate in the short window of time, but apparently they all did. That small timing issue resulted in a situation that I think could have gone south very easily. The driver showed up with the family/friends in two vehicles in order to confront the armed people they thought were poachers that they perceived to be trespassing...6 people in all came to deal with us. HOLY MOLY! This sort of had the makings of one of those unpleasant rural justice situations. Despite seeing me with rifle in hand (slung, low ready, my typical carry for hunting), they had no qualms about confronting us instead of calling the game warden, so I assume they were likely armed as well...which would only make sense...back in the sticks.

In the end, I shook folks' hands, thanked them for checking on us. They asked if they could call me to deal with hogs next time hogs start digging up their place. I gave them my number.

The hogs were spooked by all the commotion. We ended up with only one after all was said and done.

Certainly not the start to the evening that I expected given the hogs we had seen, but everyone left the property in good spirits and 100% healthy.
 
. . . showed up with the family/friends in two vehicles in order to confront the armed people they thought were poachers. . . Despite seeing me with rifle in hand (slung, low ready, my typical carry for hunting), they had no qualms about confronting us. . .

Be thankful we live in a society where, generally speaking, we need not fear armed men. It hasn't always been so, and isn't so everywhere.

In rural America, we're still safe and peaceable enough to conduct confrontational conversations, with armed men, and expect to survive. We are blessed.

In the future have a letter, signed by the landowner, in your pocket.
 
Be thankful we live in a society where, generally speaking, we need not fear armed men. It hasn't always been so, and isn't so everywhere.

In rural America, we're still safe and peaceable enough to conduct confrontational conversations, with armed men, and expect to survive. We are blessed.

In the future have a letter, signed by the landowner, in your pocket.

Apparently you misread or I wasn't clear. This was not what I considered to have been a safe confrontation and it did not start off peaceable. This wasn't the neighbor dropping by to see if things were okay. This was a carload of 4 and a truck of 2 people coming to throw us off a property for which they didn't have the right to do that and for which they didn't actually have permission to be there.

The signed letter, which I had, did absolutely NOTHING to preclude this situation from developing.
 
I'm trying to think of a good reason why this informal posse didn't bother to contact the landowner before "deputizing" themselves. I can't.

They obviously knew him well and in this day and age of mobile communication, it's hard to imagine that none of the half-dozen people had the means to make a quick phone call. In that light, it sounds to me like a bunch of idiots looking for trouble and not bothering to let a little thing like 'thinking ahead' get in their way.
 
Where I hunt on the farm I have permission to approach anyone I don't recognize. The landowner just asks me to be respectful and call him if anything is awry.
 
Where I hunt on the farm I have permission to approach anyone I don't recognize.
That makes perfect sense. However, going onto someone else's property where you didn't have permission to be, to approach someone you didn't recognize would obviously not make sense.
 
I have been checked on by neighbors before. What’s interesting is that often the person checking on the trespasser is actually the one trespassing. Only once has the individual walked up with gun ready (revolver unholstered but down and at the hip) and it immediately was reholstered when I mentioned the farmers name and that I had been asked to run off the nosy neighbors that had already been warned about trespassing.

My only other negative encounter involved a comment whispered about not wanting to get in trouble, then a shot fired over my head by the poachers to run me back to the truck. Since they were in the woods before dawn I couldn’t see them as I walked in so I did retreat, in a semicircle and found their truck. The sheriffs deputy taking the report for trespassing and firing at me said they had to have the truck towed out because it was damaged. Last I heard they hadn’t charged the guys. Never did figure out who shot their engine block...
 
If one of my wifes 3rd cousin's saw ya shooting on my property, they'd likely want to check out yer ride, look over your gun, show you theres, and ask how the ride was and what ya got......and then keep hunting themselfs.....LOL!!


Sounds like locals dealing with a local poacher, locally.......and it was as it should be. Thankfully, you are not that guy :D
 
Well I wish I could say I'm shocked. My wife and I have been approached (accosted really) by unknown "hunters" trying to throw us off our family farm, the farm owned by my wife's father & brother, NUMEROUS times. Some of these confrontations have not been pleasant; much less pleasant than the encounter you describe. I think once I've actually been shot at.
 
I've only had a few run ins with property owners while hunting. Once I had permission from the guys wife and he still ran us off. I guess he didn't talk to his wife much.:D

As a county surveyor I've had some serious confrontations with people who were leasing or renting property, not the actual property owner. Sounds like a similar situation to yours. I had permission to be on the property but they didn't care. I just packed up and left. Then I called the sheriff and made sure I had the sheriff on the property when I returned. The sheriff explained it all to them so even they could understand it.
 
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My FIL passed a few years ago but we still camp at the RV park he built with the Elks club he belonged to. It's a few miles from the OR coast and there are plenty of elk and deer along the river that runs thru it. The Elks club sold the property to a local contractor, my wife knows the family well, and they're now running the park.

Their problem was the Elks club let hunters camp in the park and access a game unit that abutted the property. The new owners decided they didn't want hunters walking across the park to and from the game unit so Roger confronted everyone he saw carrying a bow or rifle. We were laughing about it one day and a guy with a bow walked right by us. He called the guy over and told him he was welcome to camp but by no means could he carry a rifle or bow in the RV park. The guy looked shocked. He said he had been doing that for 20 years and who the hell was telling him he couldn't do it anymore. The owner said "I'm the owner and I'm telling you not to do it and if you want the sheriff to tell you I'll give him a call". The guy was really steamed and left that evening.

The owner told me he had explained this to dozens of people including people he had known all his life and members of their families. He said he even had to inform a tribal council member who had hunted from this RV park since they were in high school. Traditions die hard I guess.

Because just about everything in TX is private land I would be carrying authorization from the property owner. I know this sounds like an extreme but I've found that if you have it in writing it's pretty darn hard for someone to question it.

We used to have a right-of-entry form signed by the property owner when working on private property. We also have that system in place in eastern WA for hunters. Required right-of-entry has to be signed by the property owner before any access is granted. Sometimes it's hard to chase down but property owners can be contacted and ROE can be arranged in advance.
 
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Because just about everything in TX is private land I would be carrying authorization from the property owner. I know this sounds like an extreme but I've found that if you have it in writing it's pretty darn hard for someone to question it.
Double Naught Spy said:
The signed letter, which I had, did absolutely NOTHING to preclude this situation from developing.
 
^
Well of course it didn't do anything to "preclude" the situation. They didn't know he had permission to be on the property. He said that.

He did say that after he explained everyone went about their business.

I'm having a hard time seeing where any of this is anything but a bunch of hunters trying to keep people off of their "family connected" hunting preserve.

Obviously they had a right to be on that property or they would have been trespassing themselves.

It never hurts to talk to people regardless of what you may believe their motives may be.

If he had been an interloper he would have some problems and rightly so.

Nail down what belongs to you. Sort of a TX tradition.
 
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Well of course it didn't do anything to "preclude" the situation. They didn't know he had permission to be on the property.
Sorry, I guess I missed the point of your original comment.
Because just about everything in TX is private land I would be carrying authorization from the property owner.
I thought when you said this you intended it to be advice to DNS or to others who wished to avoid a situation like the one described in the OP, not merely a general observation about what you would do if you were hunting in TX on private land.
 
Seen similar problems around here. Unpermitted people who feel entitled, and especially take advantage of
absent landowners by outright lying. They simply chance never being called out by the Landowner or his
duly appointed representative. It's popular, right now, to ask forgiveness later, rather than permission
beforehand.
 
We had a somewhat similar situation where a guy in plain clothes (jeans and a flannel shirt), driving a Ford F-150, slurring his words and identifying himself as a police officer drove onto my friends family property opening fences as he went while we were target shooting and confronted and swore at our group while holding a pistol claiming that we'd been "Shooting at my *bleeping* house".

I'm pretty sure if that was true he would have called the police actually on duty. Who knows if he was actually a cop somewhere, I suspected that he was lying though.

Confronting armed people out in the sticks is generally a bad idea.
 
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Sorry, I guess I missed the point of your original comment.I thought when you said this you intended it to be advice to DNS or to others who wished to avoid a situation like the one described in the OP, not merely a general observation about what you would do if you were hunting in TX on private land.

I missed the fact that he had written permission. So yeah, I was hammering on that when I shouldn't have been. :thumbup: My apologies to you.
 
I'm having a hard time seeing where any of this is anything but a bunch of hunters trying to keep people off of their "family connected" hunting preserve.

Obviously they had a right to be on that property or they would have been trespassing themselves.

Well, let me help you see. I am the landowner's agent for dealing with hogs on his property. Me and my people are the only ones authorized to be hunting the property as indicated in the OP. Before I started a few weeks back, nobody was allowed to be hunting the property. If they were using the property as a hunting preserve (which I don't believe), then they would be trespassing and poaching.
 
Thanks DNS for your excellent post. That situation that could have gone south quickly. You handled it very well.

Trespassing and poaching on private land is common in OK. For 100 years it was legal to trespass while "searching for lost livestock". The legislature outlawed that scam.

Formerly owned a quarter section east of I-35. Place was over run with poachers and trespassers. Someone inherited about 100 acres, came to town and started a hunting guide service. Guy claimed he had 10,000 acres leased for hunters. Scumbag had no land leased. He dropped hunters off to trespass. One trespassing hunter was an OK City cop, another was a lawyer. The cop got snarly: i wrote letters to the mayor and chief of police.

Then a brand new Dodge diesel pickup belonging to trespassing hunters burned while parked on the adjacent property. Landowner said the catalytic converter caused the fire.
 
[QUOTE="

Then a brand new Dodge diesel pickup belonging to trespassing hunters burned while parked on the adjacent property. Landowner said the catalytic converter caused the fire.[/QUOTE]
Huh
How strangely unusual.
 
Well, let me help you see. I am the landowner's agent for dealing with hogs on his property. Me and my people are the only ones authorized to be hunting the property as indicated in the OP. Before I started a few weeks back, nobody was allowed to be hunting the property. If they were using the property as a hunting preserve (which I don't believe), then they would be trespassing and poaching.

Then you should contact the sheriff and the game warden. I've seen people arrested for trespass while hunting. You might also want to contact the property owner and give him a heads up before you do in case he forgot that he gave his cousin permission to hunt 5 years ago. Permission for one person sometimes turns into 6 people hunting.
 
Well, let me help you see. I am the landowner's agent for dealing with hogs on his property. Me and my people are the only ones authorized to be hunting the property as indicated in the OP. Before I started a few weeks back, nobody was allowed to be hunting the property. If they were using the property as a hunting preserve (which I don't believe), then they would be trespassing and poaching.

I didn't see anywhere where those folks confronting you, were hunting, only checking out property, belonging to a relative, that as far as they knew, no one was supposed to be. Sounds like family.

I have permission to hunt several private parcels where no one outside the family is allowed to hunt. I have been confronted by family members many times over the years, some obviously upset that I was there. In the end, like in your example, there was a happy ending when folks found out I had the right to be there. I have even been confronted by county LEOs on land I had permission to be on, because the neighbors saw someone hunting there and thought no one had permission to be there. Again, once it was discovered I had the right to be there, it turned out to be nuttin' but a unfortunate distraction from the hunt.

My brother has large parcels of private land that only family hunts. Have been to several, many times when there was an unfamiliar pick-up there or someone other than family walked by me while hunting. Generally someone trespassing or not knowing exactly where they were. Sometimes these got confrontational. Never was my brother upset that I protected his land. What did the landowner say when you told him of the confrontation? Was he upset with his relatives?
 
What did the landowner say when you told him of the confrontation? Was he upset with his relatives?

He didn't seem surprised, maybe a little exasperated. He knew of the problem with the faux guide. He said he would call and chat with the relatives.

Then you should contact the sheriff and the game warden. I've seen people arrested for trespass while hunting. You might also want to contact the property owner and give him a heads up before you do in case he forgot that he gave his cousin permission to hunt 5 years ago. Permission for one person sometimes turns into 6 people hunting.

Everybody is on good terms. It would be stupid to be calling the sheriff on potential clients.
 
I've had a couple of experiences that are a little different. Twice I have been confronted about having permission to hunt on my own land. One ended up turning into a good friendship after we got it settled about who owned the land we were standing on. Just told him as long as he didn't go west of the creek I couldn't care less. My bigger problem is the loud racing 4 wheelers on our 2 mile long private road. Every time, they say it's a public road and can ride there if they want. I always respond with, Well that's were you're wrong, the road belongs to me.
 
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