Unethical Hunters???

[James Stella]

Ok this is part three of my experiences while elk hunting in Idaho.

One morning while we were hunting we noticed two hunters working a ridge opposite us. They were bugling and both carrying long guns. Watching them through the spotting scope I could tell one was a boy 12-15 or so and one was an older guy.

After we watched them for a while they called in a 5 point bull. They called it in very close and we watched the boy shoot it. It went down and then got up and ran into the aspens it just came out of.

We waited for a few minutes and we could see them walking back and forth like they were trying to track it. We decided to go over to where they were and try and help, if we could.

It took us about 45 minutes to get to where they were at and find them. They had flagged where the elk was standing, where they were sitting and where they last saw it. I was impressed with that, however what caught my eye immediately was the guns they were carrying. The only legal weapons in Idaho during a muzzle loader only season are exposed ignition with caps. No 209 primers. The boy was carrying a remington 700 (bolt with 209 primers). I am sure he had to have been shooting pellets too(also illegal) but I did not see him load it. The other guy was carrying a break action rifle of some kind that was also closed breach with 209 primers.

We asked them what happened and they said they had called the bull in to about 20 yards and the boy had shot. It went down and then got back up. The tell tale description for me was when they said it walked away all "hunched up", immediately telling me it was probably a gut shot. Then after a few minutes the boy tells us that this is the second elk he has hit and lost in 5 days. The older guy did not have an elk tag.

Ok I am not saying I am perfect, and as some of you know I missed an elk on this trip. I could have just as easily wounded that animal. But the second elk in 5 days? Ok well maybe we could find this one.

We asked if we could help look and they agreed.

My dad said that while I tried to track it he would circle the aspen patch and try and find sign leaving it. This is a tactic we have used in the past on wounded animals. If he could find blood on the far side it cuts the tracking time down quite a bit. It worked great on a deer a friend shot with a bow a few years back. He circle and I tracked and he actually found it about 400 yards infront of me, dead. I probably would have found it eventually but is sure saved alot of time.

The tracks were quite clear in the soft earth and he was pushing through aspens breaking the branches. He was headed straight down hill. The problem was he was leaving no blood. Nothing. Not even on the trees he was brushing against. We had been working the area for about 30 minutes and I heard a 4 wheeler on the ridge above us. I put my binos on it and low and behold it is our two hunters we were trying to help. They left without saying a thing to us.

I eventually lost the tracks in the aspens. I had been able to track him for about 400 yards before he went into some really thick stuff and I lost the tracks. After about an hour my dad and I met up again. He found no sign of him coming out but there was alot of country. The lack of blood also supported my theory about it being gut shot. I know it was hit because we saw it go down.

We looked for a little while longer and then decided to remove our selves from the situation.

Maybe we should have stayed and looked longer. We probably put about 3 hours into it. If it had been our elk we would have been there all that day and the next if needed. Maybe they came back later and looked for it. I do not know. It really kinda struck us wrong though when they left without even saying anything.

We did mention the incident the the Game Wardens when we called about the moose. He said that they would try and follow up and at least talk to them about it. With only 10 tags for the area it would not be hard to locate the boy.

I am trying not to pass judgement on them but the entire incident left a "bad taste in my mouth", so to speak.

 

[Idaho Ron]

Well it was good of you to help.
I am surprised that the bull went down with a gut shot. I have never seen an elk taken completely off his feet with a good hit with a ML.
I am actually wondering if the shot was a high hit that hit a chine bone on the spine. That takes animals off their feet.
I have heard of more than one person shooting multiple elk on those tags. It is my opinion that children should not be putting in for that type of hunt. They lack the knowledge and experience that hunting with a ML takes.
Hopefully the CO is able to find them and check their gear. I can't help but wonder why the adult was packing too unless he planned to either pass the gun off or shoot it him self.

 

[pab1]

It drives me crazy knowing there are people like that in the woods. :shake:

 

[James Stella]

Ron I hope you are right. If it was a high spine shot the elk was probably ok.

The warden was also not to happy to hear that someone without a tag was carrying a muzzle loader. I am betting the kid had one heck of a flinch. When we first got there the kid laid his rifle down and then when we started to go look for the elk he actually forgot it. We got about 30 yards away and I asked him,"do you want to bring your rifle"? At that point the older guy looked at him and told him to go get it. It was kinda weird.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Yep, lots of idiots and what I call wannabees about. Lazy too.

 

[Patocazador]

It just proves the old saying, "Where's a cop when you need one?"

 

[palonghunter]

I've seen the same situation a number of times. It boils my blood. Especially since you tried to help them and they didn't bother to stick around to determine the outcome or even say thanks. They probably went along their merry way to wound and lose yet another elk. Disgusting.

 

[hanshi]

Holy $@*%^! It'makes me sick and I don't even live there!

 

[Idaho Ron]

I talked to a guy today that had a ML deer tag. He took 10 shots in two days. He said all were clean misses but never checked.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

30 percent of PA residents have no concept of private property. They tromp where they like, cut fences, ride ATV's anywhere they want. Law enforcement will resist responding to a trespass claim inn every way imagineable. If a person stold a pack of gum from Walmart they would respond with lights and sirens. The trespass fine if and when it is charged is usually $300 plus costs. Once a person is charged, there is a 50 perecent chance that the landowner will see an unbelieveable amount of vandalism, animals killed, livestock poisoned etc. Put up gates, they tear them down. Almost every year I found dead doe laying in my Christmas tree field. Not gut shot, but good hits and left to rot. Had to pull an arrow out of a horse. Had neighbor brats shooting potato guns at my livestock. Caught a kid riding an atv in my hay field and escorted the kid home to talk to his father. The father asked, well where is he supposed to ride? He did not like my response.

A nearby farmer weent out to feed his livestock and found a hunter sitting on the barn yard wall watching over the corn field (in the center of posted property) Farmer asked the hunter what he was doing and the smart alec replied, "watching the sun go down" So when hunter left, the farmer tailed him. The next morning farmer set up a lawn chair and sat reading the paper and drinking coffee in the hunter's front yard. When one of the kids noticed the farmer and told Dad there is a stranger in the yard, Hunter came flying out of the house screaming you better leave, I called the police. Farmer calmly picked up his chair and walked to the street. Hunter screamed they will arrest you for trespassing. To which Farmer replied. "Your property is not posted, my farm is. YOU will be getting the citation. " And the state trooper refused to give a tresspass citation to the hunter but threatened the farmer with some disorderly charge.

 

[larry wv]

That guy should be stripped of any possible chance to ever hunt again. :cursing:

Larry

 

[Drago]

I had a cousin with some property in west Texas. It was posted. One day he went to hunt[he did'nt live there] and found some one sitting on a five gallon bucket at his feeder. He said he waited a minute to decide what to do. Then he put a 30-06 round thru the bucket a few inches under him. He did'nt bother calling the cops.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I think the reason the pair left was the adult was using the boy as a straw-man to go for an elk. He probably planned to use that rifle to finish off the elk, knowing the boy wasn't a good shot... the boy lost another elk less than a week before. After all, they were already poaching by using illegal means.

You two brought too much attention to them so they left before anybody else showed up. It wasn't "unethical", it was criminal.

LD

 

[Eric Krewson]

I worked with a guy who threw fits at work, loud, throwing stuff kind of fits. This was in a power plant, he was a control room operator and an old no nonsense WW2 vet. This was the kind of place where old school supervisors acted like DIs and ran down and belittled the employees every chance they got.

I noticed they never messed with old Bill. One day after I got to know him well, he looked over at me and said in a sly voice "if you act like you are crazy they won't mess with you".

The last trespasser I confronted I acted way too sane. I must have confronted him at least 3 or 4 times on the same land year after year and never was able to keep him off the land.

I think the next time I have a similar confrontation I will follow Bill's example.

 

[Spikebuck]

LD...I think you hit the nail on the head. This was an illegal activity/method and the guy knew it and decided to get out of Dodge.

That said...unfortunately, there are far too many people that will not put forth much effort to find wounded game. They are happy to just quit and move on to shoot something else.

Regarding brazen trespassers, we have one guy on one side of our lease that sits on the line, but had cut shooting lanes 100 yards into our property. I blocked the lanes and he took his tractor in and removed the brush piles. When confronted, we ended up with "male deer parts" hanging on our gates and he actually confronted one of our female hunters with strings of four-letter words. Scared her. Really big man to pick on a woman instead of the guys. We filed a report with the County Sheriff just so it was officially on file if the actions escalated. On another border, a different neighbor put up a treestand on our side of the fence line. When notified nicely, the next time we saw the un-moved stand it had a heavy chain and lock on it! :shocked2: As with all things in life, there are good folks and bad. Of course in our sport those morons are carrying deadly weapons. :shake:

 

[Supercracker]

A few years ago I made a small food plot at the back of my property The neighbor put up a stand literally 2' on his side of the property line overlooking my food plot. Legal, but still crappy and frustrating. The warden actually came out and set up the decoy deer in the plot one morning after I found his stand but he wasn't sitting out that day. In the end I killed the plot rather than let it escalate further

After that he started to let his pigs knock down the fence and root around on my property. They were gooood!

 

[robinsroost]

I had a guy place a stand 5' off of my property line, facing my property. I found a two part skunk cover scent. Both parts are inert until you mix them together, a drop of one with a drop of the second on top of it makes an odor like a skunk has just sprayed. I dosed three trees surrounding his stand and it got removed quickly............robin :wink:

 

[Kansas Jake]

I can't believe you guys have such issues with neighbors. I can understand with strangers, but the guy next door doing that is really bad. I wouldn't think of doing such a thing without visiting with my neighbor before hand.

 

[Sean Gadhar]

My boy got a solid hit on a nice buck....and we lost it, we looked again all the next day in the rain hoping the magpies would show where. No luck the next day my cousin went back and 5 days later I went back again. Every gut pile had 6-10 magpies but never did find his buck anywhere.

He was done hunting when he shot that buck, he made his kill we just failed to recover :redface:

 

[Wes/Tex]

Yep, lots of idiots and what I call wannabees about. Lazy too.

Great God but that's the truth. Have had the sad duty of tracking large game given up on by those too lazy to walk more than 100 feet to find them. So very sad.