Hypathetical question? Are you a Poacher???

[campkingmd]

Your a ethical and legal hunter, Your Hunting out of state, your hunting on state land in the mid west known for coyotes, There are other hunters hunting the area. You shoot a really nice buck at last light, after 15 minutes or so, your all excited ,you climb down grab your lite and pick up the blood trail, after tracking the deer about 100 yards thru some real thick stuff, you find him and are pumped up. Now its pitch black, you take off your pack to retreive your license that is supposed to worn and pinned on your back, because before moving the animal it has to be tagged. Its gone its not there you search around thru the thicket for it and can't find it.What do you do?

You get turned around and panic a bit. Finaly you get back on track. You deside to at least drag him back to where you shot him for convience to find him again. As your dragging him back you get your feet hung up in some old falling down barb wire and hit the dirt, exhausted you sit there for a minute to regain your breath. As you sit there you look up with your light and see a no trespassing poster and just realize that you tripped on a downed line fence. Now in this state you must aquire permission to track a deer onto private land.What do you do?

Finally you get back to your trail and stand site. Leaving the animal You walk 45 minutes back to your truck searching everystep for your licence, when you get to the parking area a couple hunters are there they ask you if you had any luck. What do you say?

Not sure what to say you tell them your story. Both guys tell ya horror storys about leaving deer in coyote territory and they would leave a doe let alone a big buck out there. What do you do?

They volunteer to help you get it out of the woods on there cart and get back to the parking lot where the coyotes are less likely to destroy it. Its a long way back and you would have to drag it yourself eventually.What do you do?

The three of you head back load the deer and begin heading out of the woods , come to find out you and one of the guys are from the same area back home, small world. One of the guys starts to think and proposes to pin his license on the deer just incase they run into the DNR at the parking lot. What do you do?

After getting back they offer to help you load the deer in your truck. You drop the tail gate and low and behold theres your license it most had gotten caught on you tail gate cables some how when you went in the wood and when you closed the lift gate it got lodged there. Now you tag the deer and head for the checking station.

ARE YOU A POACHER???

[Eulenspiegel]

Negative. I have made mistakes. I have shot a third one by mistake a couple of times hunting where the limit is two a day (they don't wear serial no.s), and I killed a doe once by mistake (missed the change in law when I walked from private land into the nat. forest). but I've never hunted whe I did not have permission. It seems very bad form.

[ARO]

charlie, are you speaking from experience? steven king could'nt make up a story like that!!!

[freedomrules3]

"you take off your pack to retreive your license that is supposed to worn and pinned on your back, because before moving the animal it has to be tagged"

------kinda the first mistake, wouldnt of had to worry about the lost license if you were supposed to wear it and werent.

"Now in this state you must aquire permission to track a deer onto private land.What do you do?"

--------i wouldnt have worried about trying to find the owner of the land , obviously they were already back on state land, no biggy

"Finally you get back to your trail and stand site. Leaving the animal You walk 45 minutes back to your truck searching everystep for your licence, when you get to the parking area a couple hunters are there they ask you if you had any luck. What do you say?

Not sure what to say you tell them your story. Both guys tell ya horror storys about leaving deer in coyote territory and they would leave a doe let alone a big buck out there. What do you do?

They volunteer to help you get it out of the woods on there cart and get back to the parking lot where the coyotes are less likely to destroy it. Its a long way back and you would have to drag it yourself eventually.What do you do? "
The three of you head back load the deer and begin heading out of the woods , come to find out you and one of the guys are from the same area back home, small world. One of the guys starts to think and proposes to pin his license on the deer just incase they run into the DNR at the parking lot. What do you do?"
---- this also pertains to the first question and would be moot if they had their license with them.
-------- i personally see poaching issues as intent, the hunter in question is the only person who actually knows the intent of a kill. one cant help it if a legal kill runs a bit farther than intended. i've had that problem before and had no intent meant for it to run across a boundary. i dont see that as a problem, as long as it doesnt go way across, then contacting or at least trying to contact the landowner would be warranted at this point.

i've gone in the woods before and realized that i had left my license in my other pants pocket. i always when i get my license , take a business card and write the licese number on it and keep it in my wallet just in case. i learned my lesson 2 years ago in KY. i bought my license online and it was basically a number on a sheet of paper. i had to call my wife to get the number off the original email.

like i said only the actual hunter knows the intent and whether it was poaching or not, its hard to make such a call for them. generally the rule of thumb is ..if they gotta ask theres either more to the story or they feel they have.

[freedomrules3]

eulenspiegel said:

Negative. I have made mistakes. I have shot a third one by mistake a couple of times hunting where the limit is two a day (they don't wear serial no.s), and I killed a doe once by mistake (missed the change in law when I walked from private land into the nat. forest). but I've never hunted whe I did not have permission. It seems very bad form.

now this :

first you should know the daily bag limit period no mistakes. serial # or whatever . killing a doe in a national forest against the law hmmmm another non excuse. sorry those arent mistakes

[campkingmd]

So freedom by your rational, if its a little on private land its OK but if its not contact the land owner? How do you know until your done tracking?

You say you should know the bag limits, No excuses, shouldn't you also no propety lines. The law is you cannot cross a property line wether its 5 ft or 500 yards and the law is the law.

The law is that your licence be clearly displayed on your back if you have a back pack on it needs to be on the back pack.

What difference would it make if the other hunters had their licence, they didn't shoot the deer.

Is poaching not breaking the law. Lets Look::::
Poacher definition
1 : to trespass on
2 a : to take (game or fish) by illegal methods b : to appropriate (something) as one's own

Or does it all boil down to what someone can justify to themselfs??

What if the deer in question is a new state or world record with profits to be made from it. Is it fair because the hunter can justify his actions(as small of an offence as it may be) to the exsisting record holder and hunting community.

ARO, NO not at all, This is only for discussion because I am curious how others veiw the term poaching .

[freedomrules3]

no i'm saying if the intent is there to poach , then it is poaching. if the deer or whatever game goes a few yards over the property line, especially if it was legally shot on state land, i'm not taking the time and effort to find out who owns the land, which could take forever, and going to ask them if i can recover the animal. its simply not the hunters fault that the animal went over the line.after all hunting has many variables to it, everything isnt always cut and dry.its not lasooing the deer its shooting it. if you have to go way across the line it would be different, most likely it was a bad shot to cause that. state record or a button buck its all the same to me. besides i never have to worry about this because i hunt far enough from any line that the deer is gonna drop first. you have to take the property line into effect when you make the shot. i never said anything about the other hunters tagging the deer, i would have had my license on my back.


also charles in your hypothetical you mention its dark and the hunter has now found out he is on private land only when he has drug the deer back onto the state land ie tripping over the barbed wire and seeing the sign in the dark, i took that into effect with my answer.


as a post script:
going across a boundary would not make you a poacher , a trespasser yes but not a poacher. the deer was shot fair and square, the only law you could get charged with was trespassing imo.

[campkingmd]

Perfectly understood, my point is that poaching is trespassing. Even as grey as it may be the definition and law says if you trespass while hunting you are technecly a poacher, breaking the law, no different then shooting a deer under a lite.

Trespassing is something you do when your not hunting. Ever look at a property sign it says "No Hunting or Trespassing"

We all know that under these circumstances no one in their right mind including myself would concider the guy did anything drastic enough to warrent fines or punishment. There was clearly no intent But yet he broke 4 destinck laws in the process. Don't you find that amazing or amusing. Now here in Md our grey areas are much larger then many other states.

You can take my word and rest assure out in the mid west, Iwoa, Ill, wis. they are extremely strick when it comes to not tagging an animal, fence lines and displaying your licence. I don't know why but they are . The property lines are in stone and they can get real assed up about it out there(its all most comical but they are dead serious).


I actuall had a guy(land owner mind ya) in a bar in Wisconsin tell me politly, that if a deer runs on his property from the ajoining property don't expect to retreave it, he would not give them permission because in his eys they are to close. So I said well I guess I would have to get with out asking, his comment was at that point . I can't be responsable for any hunting accidents that may accure on my property. And was dead serious.


I posted this on a mid west site and got a little different repy's. It kind a wild to see the differences.

[freedomrules3]

my point is that what he did in the dark was accidental trepassing, i disagree that its still poaching because he didnt shoot the deer off the state land. he didnt even notice the property line until after the deer was back on state land. at that point it would be assonine at the least to drag it back across and try and find the owner of the land . thus "no intent" and accidental trespassing mulligan .

i wouldnt have gone in the woods without my license out of state if it had to be visible at all times like ours used to be. so the rest of the other 3 wouldnt have held for me. i take those rules seriously out of state. i also know how serious folks in certain states take to trespassing ..rock salt or worse would sting for a while.

do you know here if you dont have a photo id on you with your license you can get a fine? they told me they never pushed it this year (1st) but will next year. i took a close up of my drivers license and printed it out.

[ncboman]

so far I've outfoxed em all.

landowners patroling the lines
hunt clubs setting up perimeters
security guards combing the woods
wardens with night vision
wardens hiding around the truck
wardens in the air
wardens in boats
wardens in the woods in pairs
undercover wardens tryin to buy venison
rangers of all sort
maintenence men/wannabe rangers
deputy sheriffs
high sheriffs
high sherrifs campaigning
and don't rule out the jealous hunters

yup, dealt with each kind, some more n once.

of course I follow the law and so far, haven't gotten a ticket for it.

[Buckfever]

In order for me to hunt the remote portion of the late season state land the Ranger himself instructed me to tresspass onto private land to get in. That's how he does it. In the years past when I hunted the land locked unincorporated easement properties, I had to cross the railroad and thus tresspass. On the Federal property, there is a railroad that runs through and to get to one portion of the property, you have to cross the railroad, thus you tresspass. Everyone that hunts that portion must cross the railroad. The biologist knows it as does the railroad, that portion is open to hunting and it is understood that it is hunted.

I don't agree with the blanket statement that tresspassing is poaching. I think that it comes down to the intent of the tresspassing issue. If the property is clearly marked it's a different issue. But I'll give you another one. On that remote state land the Ranger told me that he's not entirely sure about whether he set the boundary correctly. He didn't even use a compass, just went off of landmarks and estimated. He told me that as long as I'm setup behind the signs that's fine. If one of the land owners disputes the boundary he'd deal with it then. I don't see how in the world you can always know where the property lines are when the parties themselves aren't sure.

I just don't think it's that cut and dried. I think it comes down to understanding how the laws are interpreted locally. It's not a clear cut question of right or wrong.

[BillCartwright]

Today, you really do not know if land posted is posted correct or not. There is many of acres that is public that is posted private. Illinois is a perfect example. There are hundreds of acres posted as Private when in fact it is National Forest. Run into this several times. Response has always been, sir here is my state map, here is the state marker, the land is posted wrong and I'm on my merry way.

I'd force anyone in court to prove that I was trespassing. Most landowners do not know the exact lines. Maybe the sign was right, maybe it was not. It is dark and signs are not visible. Hard to convict this in court unless they proved you knew you were trespassing.

I would have retreived my buck as you did. Some land owners can be pricks and not let you go after one. Who knows at night? As for the yotes, if this is a concern, take your underwear off and hang it near the carcass, urinate, etc. Anything downwind will not likely come in or at least may be fended off for a while.

As for the license, I'd guess it would be how the CO was feeling on that day whether he wrote you a citation for not having your license pinned to you. As for moving the deer, transporting is the keyword.. In this state is transporting dragging it out, moving with use of ATV or is transporting loading it up in your truck and taking off? If the law said moving, you could be fined for that violation. Still not poaching.

Do I think what you described is poaching? No. If your intent was to take the buck on posted property that you did not have permission to hunt, or have someone else tag, then YES, your poaching.

Bottom line is, a CO can fine you for just about anything. Laws are wordy and many are up for interpertation in my opinioin. They still have to prove intent/without a reasonable doubt to make it stick, unless you pleaded guilty.

[campkingmd]

OK ,

So you guys are telling me the definition of poaching has more to do with intent, if your intent was pemeditated and you had every intention to cross a fence line not buy a licence ect.... and kill a deer your a Poacher.
What if your intentions were to do all this and did not kill a deer or fish are you a poacher? or does something have to be dead before your actuly a poacher, at this point your just an attempted poacher or treaspasser right.??

For comparison lets look at murder You have 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree murders depending on the intent or premeditation. So really murder should only be 1st degree.

[ncboman]

well, murdering a cop would be capital murder with stiffer punishment.

therefore, poaching a trophy buck should have stiffer penalty?

[BillCartwright]

You can't bring murder into this discussion, it isn't an apples to apples comparison in any way.

What is behind this hypothetical question anyway? Mr. Webster defines POACHING as: 1. To trespass on another's property in order to take fish or game.
2. To take fish or game in a forbidden area.

If you don't have permission to be somewhere for hunting and fishing purposes, you shouldn't be there and risk the "what if's".

You should not be convicted of poaching if you have not illegally killed game. If you kill a deer, take it home and do not tag or check it in by state regulations, you are a poacher. If the deer you shoot runs onto another property you don't have permission to enter and you do so, you are a trespasser, not a poacher. If you shoot the deer on private land you don't have permission to be on, well you are both a poacher and trespasser in most states because the game was illegally taken.

I can go out and walk my leases right now with a deer rifle with intent to shoot a deer. That doesn't mean I'm poaching, nor am I doing anything illegal. Until I take a shot that is illegal in regards to the law, I'm not poaching. I can walk onto private property with a firearm, that doesn't mean I'm a poacher either. It does mean I'm trespassing though. I do believe in some states if you trespass while you have a firearm in position, you can be convicted of a felony. That is why when hunting out of state it pays to know the laws of the state which you are in.