This is just lousy. We have been overrun with illegal hunters since turkey season started. (We are completely posted against trespass so they are breaking the law the minute they cross our fences.) We know they are out there because we hear the damn fools bang, bang, banging away at their prey, until if there is any turkey meat left, it is pre-ground and ready to spread on bread.
We can't catch them though because they wear full camo and hide in the bushes if we go out there.
One morning last week at 5:30 AM, with still at least an hour to go before crack o' dawn, someone shot about fifteen times in quick succession in our maple woods, then there were a bunch of scattered shots. You know and I know that they blasted a flock down out of the trees and then picked off the stragglers. Not too sporting and also illegal....besides the whole trespassing issue.
We still have fourteen heifers at pasture. It is a big pasture, they have lots to eat, the woods to sleep in, plenty of water and are content.
Except when nut cases start shooting in that pasture. We have noticed the heifers running real bad a couple of times the past week and heard more gun shots than we could count. It has been tempting to bring the stock in, but if we do we will run short of winter feed. Besides, barring hunters harassing them, they are much better off outside as long as the decent weather holds. Even the milk cows are outside days with a feeder wagon and inside just at night.
Now comes the lousy part. Liz went up just now to walk through the herd and check on them, something she does most days. Normally she has to take a stick to keep them from climbing all over her. They are absurdly tame and will knock you down looking to get petted and fooled with. Today she could barely get near them. Even the Jerseys, Moments and Hillbilly, ran away and Sugar, her purchased heifer, who is too tame to even be safe, wouldn't let her anywhere near.
Then she saw that Moments, who was pregnant and due to calve in January, had just aborted her calf. Of course I can't prove that the running away from the fusillades from the turkeys chasing turkeys was the cause, but I know what I think.
And I think I wish they would go hunt on state land, of which there are thousands of acres within a few miles from here, and leave our cattle the heck alone.
About Me
- threecollie
- Embracing agricultural diversity, one species at a time. All rights reserved
We have the same trouble. And they all seem to live in town or a city and think your land is their land. GRRRRR I could go on and on!
ReplyDeleteLinda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
I'm so sorry ThreeCollie! That is just awful.
ReplyDeleteWhere are your game wardens when you need them? I'd probably be spraying some buckshot their way, since you are posted and would never have suspected them in cammo in the direction of your shot!
ReplyDeleteD#$% it I hate unethical hunters that give us good ethical hunters a bad name! Grrr
ReplyDeleteSo sad! I agree with flowerweaver -spray a little buckshot that direction and see what you flush out.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Reddunappy. There seems to be more of those bad apples than I care for myself.
ReplyDeleteWe've lost a couple of game cameras to "hunters" scouting our land. Nothing as bad as your lose of a calf, however.
I hear you! I've had hunters shoot at dove and pheasant on the road in front of my house (twenty yards?) - first, they don't have permission, and second, it's unsafe to shoot that close to me!
ReplyDeleteI've gone out on my porch in the past with a rifle in my arms and glared at them, but they seem oblivious. Perhaps if I cut loose a round or two and say I'm coming to town to shoot in front of their house, I might get some attention.
There is plenty of state funded walk in hunting ground nearby, but that just seems to exist to justify hunting where they want to - what's the difference, right? They bought a license, they paid to stay in a motel, they ate at a restaurant, they are entitled to hunt where they please, property rights be damned.
And what is sad is I've never turned down someone asking permission to hunt my ground. All they have to do is ask.
At least they are out in the open here, instead of under cover and hiding from me as they are for you.
I would hate that. The noise, the damage to your herd...
ReplyDeleteCall the game warden! They have ways of sneaking up on people who are out there doing that kind of thing.
I don't own the woods behind me so I have no say on who can hunt there. I hear gun shots and I move the kids to the front of the house.
ReplyDeleteI suppose calling the police is futile. If they are too lazy to hike into the state forest I'm betting they are too lazy to park too far away. It would be terrible if something happened to their tires.
Ah, hunting season. It infuriates me every year. If you don't want to take flowerweaver's excellent suggestion, you might try calling the warden or the state police. Before my brother retired from the SP, he liked nothing better than an early morning jaunt through the woods to see who he could catch.
ReplyDeleteI agree with flowereweaver and it is a suggestion I will have to remember myself! Don't it just piss you off when people trespass!
ReplyDeleteOur game wardens use robodeer and roboturkey to snare illegal hunters.
ReplyDeleteThe violators stop to shoot and wind up arrested.
I love to deer hunt, but have grown to hate the approaching season. We have 700 acres of farm land, but can hardly hunt anywhere without running into someone hunting over the fence.
ReplyDeleteI walk a quarter mile to plant food plots, manage deer herds all year. Walk in the opening day of season, and 4 wheelers seem to be all around looking over our crop ground.
I have used bow seson much more these days. The deer are much calmer before the guys with jacked up trucks, new 4 wheelers, and city values show up!
So sorry about the calf. Will the other cows be able to calm down and be tame again? Why can't people just obey the laws, or is that too much to ask.
ReplyDeleteLinda, it is terrible. What makes these people think that what they do is okay? Alan was looking up on the computer last night and there are over five thousand acres of state land within ten miles of here...just in ONE of the many state forests available for hunting.
ReplyDeleteDani, thanks, we felt so bad for poor little Moments. She is a sweetie and we were looking forward to her joining the milking herd.
FW, our poor game wardens here in NY are so overextended it is ridiculous. With our state budget in the state it is, there is little money spent on such stuff, sadly
Redunappy, same here. We hunt too. First thing every fall even I buy my Sportsman's license and dmp. We all love venison and can't wait until season opens...but we do, unlike far too many of our neighbors. Thanks for commenting!
SC Momma, although we have never quite dared that, I could tell you a little story about a hunter seeing the boss coming with the tractor and hiding in the hedgerow. He KNEW he was in the wrong. Well, he also was up against an old farmer with pretty sharp eyes and a manure spreader in tow.......the boss didn't actually spray him with cow s***, but he scared the heck out of him. lol
Joated, what a shame! We have had them sabotage machinery that has been left in the field and shoot right over our heads and run the whole milk herd to the barn in such panic that they almost broke the door. We hunt too and like it, but we don't do it on someone else's posted land.
Jeffro, wow, you sure have had your troubles with them too! We used to give permission, but one guy we did so for brought about thirty people with him and threw my brother!!! off our land. After that we have a very select few people that can hunt...after checking in at the barn first. They are nice folks who help keep it patrolled for us.
June, as I said to Flowerweaver, game wardens are so overextended and so far away that we can rarely get one here in time. We do call the state police if we actually catch someone, which does happen. Meanwhile we are growing our own personal game warden, as Alan is studying fisheries and wildlife in college.
Apple, that must be so hard with kids and hunters in such close proximity...not good. The police have actually been really good to us with intruders and trespassers, but it is so hard to catch them when they are in cammo. We have a situation where there is development on all sides. Many of the perpetrators come right out of the developments on foot...in cammo they can sneak right back home unseen...
akagaga, we do when it seems as if they can be caught. In the running incidents the past couple of weeks I think it was somebody coming from the development between us and the village. They can get on us, do what they will, step back over the fence and vanish into a large tract of thick brush that they can hide in all the way home. When we actually see somebody we get their back tag numbers and license plates and turn them right in. Hard though
ReplyDeleteLisa, I am so mad about those poor heifers!! The pasture has been really lush this year out there and they are nice and fat going into fall. Poor things.
FC, robodeer! We love them. Alan works with DEC guys that tell some pretty fantastic stories about guys who keep shooting and shooting, long after they should have realized that the big fat deer they are blasting is not coming home to the freezer. lol
Paul, isn't it frustrating! We have a number of deer living on our land, eating our crops....sometimes even playing with the horses. In the season Alan takes a couple for the freezer. However, without fail, when northern season starts (we are in the southern zone and several weeks later) they all come down here, take our deer illegally and tag them as coming from the north. By the time we can hunt legally they are spooked, shot full of all manner of lead projectiles or in someone else's freezer. Alan got a little buck a couple years ago that was full of turkey loads from head to rump. And you are right about bow season. Alan is going to take the bow training course and get that license so he can take advantage of the quieter, safer times in the woods
Cathy, thanks, usually they will calm down after they come down to the barn for winter and we work among them. However, this has happened before and sometimes they are always spooky after something like this happens.
I don't have nearly as much land as you, but I do have a 'coyote hunter'. He has permission to hunt coyotes in exchange he chases away - or keeps an eye out - any unwanted hunters. There is back access to our property via a dirt road that he always checks first for vehicles.
ReplyDeleteIs there a responsible someone that might welcome the opportunity to hunt in exchange for keeping out the dopes?
Oops, just saw your comment. Perhaps you can find someone else and lay out the rules in B&W? Also, I read in Grassroots recently that some farms can make money leasing their land to hunters. NYFB deals with insurance/liability.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI felt like coming to New York and hunting your camo'd trespassing turkey takers. Need to sharpen my combat skills, and fools like you describe would be easy meat. And I would be quietly grinning as each went down, not very Christian of me, but so cool. I couldn't actually contact you and set it up, that would be conspiracy to commit and the only thing I can really offer is use your post and our comments to address the issue in the papers, links in blogdom - the only problem is they (the bad guys) may not read well and wouldn't recognize the error of their ways.
ReplyDeleteI hold out hope that one of the other stressed out Vietnam Vets would come by and take them out quietly for you. But then I understand stupidity breeds more and they would have to be culled every year for it to stop, one day.
I am really sorry that there are stupid people doing bad things to hunting, your property and your life - since I am not coming armed and dangerous, I will have to pray for them and hope God fixes them better than I ever could, it would be the right way.
Jinglebob, yeah, they are.
ReplyDeleteTeri, thanks, I guess there are some folks doing that successfully, and it doesn't seem like a bad idea at all.
Earl, they do tick me off, but maybe not quite that much. lol...and I think your last sentence gets it just right.