Varrying degrees of breaking the law or poaching, etc...

C

Canadian_Zuk

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This is a spin off topic from the Foiles poaching thread.

The topic of "varying degrees of law breaking" was brought up by a member here. I'm curious as to how other guys and gals on this site feel about turning a blind eye to our fellow sportmen who abuse our laws and regulations.


At what point does someone go from hunter to poacher?

is it OK to have a few extra rounds in the mag while goose hunting?

What about bagging a doe when all you have is a buck tag?

How about fishing, they are only fish after all...is there a problem with enjoying a spring Bass shore fry?

1/2 before sunrise, what's the big deal about taking a shot 10 or 15 min early so long as you can see what your shooting at?

Where do YOU draw the line?


I myself consider myself an ethical hunter/sprotsman. As far as I know, I have never broken any game/conservation/migratory bird/firearms laws or regulations. I take the time to inform myself of local bylaws, WMU specifc hunting regulations, calibre restrictions, etc before I suit up and hit the woods.

I have run into questionable practices myself while outdoors, and yes I have called the fish cops a few times over the years. I call just about every fall when the shores of our local tributaries fill up with Europeans stuffing garbage bags full of Salmon. A treble hook on it's own isn't a lure, but they see no wrong in what they do and get beligerant if you try to inform them. I let the MNR explain it to them now. I reported a guy dumping a headless deer carcase on a forsest road this fall, it was only a few days before opening season...


Please discuss,

What have you seen, did you report it?

Haven't witnessed anything? Would you report something if you did?

What do you consider "worth" reporting?

The Law: Is it "The Law is the Law" to you, or are you in the "varying degress of lawfulness" camp?


-CZ

Note: I know this is a bit of a pot stiring, but please lets try to keep it on track and only discuss your views on poaching, turnng a blind eye to poaching, etc..
 
I have had a##holes pull over right in front of my vehicle get out, and put their rifles over the hood and open up on deer out in a field. While still parked on the road. Totally completely illegal. I made a phone call to Resources and dropped in on the rancher - a good friend of mine who was horrified, as they were actually guests at his ranch at the time.

I have been "scoped" by a group of 6 hunters on a ridge line overlooking a coulee where I was stalking a big mule deer. None of them had permission to be there. I was the only one and I know this because I had just left the rancher's house 1 hour before and he told me I had the place to myself. Very unpleasant to have a bunch of high powered rifles being used as binoculars to check me out. That was my last time hunting in the rifle season around here. I bought a muzzle loader and have lived happily ever after since.

To my disgust, every year I see empty liquor bottles along the back roads where so called hunters cruise in their pickup trucks looking for deer. Local farmers and ranchers report fences being cut to gain unauthorized access and headless carcasses continue to turn up as well as animals simply shot and left because they were "not big enough". I resigned as the president of our local wildlife federation because I simply cannot defend the hunting practices of so many hunters here.
 
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Hmmmm....wolves and coyotes shot and left are the norm around here...I've never reported it and I doubt the CO's would do diddly about it anyways...someone having a beverage while driving the logging roads doesn't worry me terribly...but I'll call in pitlampers. A kid with a bag full of yellow perch? Carry on, come back tomorrow and do it again will ya?
Yeah, I guess I use some discretion.
By the way, that Toyota you sold me is exo'd on 36's now, frames almost done though.

Edit-I always wonder about people who get worried about a high powered rifle pointing at them. Would it be better if it was low powered? I've been told my .243 isn't enough power, is it low powered or high powered?
 
Two years ago on opening morning of duck season when rabbits weren't open to my knowledge my buddy and I were ready to let loose on incoming woodies when from across the creek we heard two people talking a foreign language which we think was italian. We we inches from firing 3 and a half inch 12 ga steel out at the woodies when we realized there were two people bunny hunting about 50 yards away on the other side. They didn't ask to be there and they didn't even have anything but camo on. We had all the right in the world to be there and they were just there because they thought they could hunt bunnies wherever and whenever they wanted. When we got the chance to walk out and go over to tell them what they had done they were gone! If we had shot.... man I don't even want to think of the situation we would have been in. To this day we still didn't see them but we heard them and knew they were there! Way to ruin an honest and fully legal hunt!!! People lke this need to stay in the city and buy their bunnies!
 
Laws are laws regardless of whether or not we agree with them and believe me, I do believe alot of them are absoluely ridiculous or useless. I also feel every time a new law is made another freedom is lost pushing us deeper and deeper into socialism and government control of the people. As for game laws I will say that I have never called the C.O's on anyone even though I have witnessed a few acts of law breaking. I have never witnessed anyone taking big game illegally although I was once sitting at a friends when a phone call came in from someone looking for a bull moose tag on the last day of the season. These fellows had shot a bull w/o a tag and were looking for one. I had one that I hadn't filled and was asked if I would tag the moose in exchange for a quarter. I shook my head "no" at the guy on the phone and havent hunted with him since. Now all that being said I have no issue with someone with a family to support and on the ropes financially putting meat on the table for his kids.IMO opinion that is survival, law or not, however if one can afford to feed themselves and buy tags one can afford to hunt within the laws. Just my .02 worth.
 
If it was complete blatant disregard for safety and laws, I will call and have. Shooting when it's pitch black or running down animals with vehicles isn't very cool and doesn't help the publics outlook on any hunters.

Wanna wear camo when you shouldn't? Don't complain about bullets zipping by. Those rules are there for a reason and some are not intelligent enough to comprehend that.

Legal shooting time is 8:00 a.m. and you pull the trigger or release the string at 7:55 a.m. , well that isn't exactly poaching, providing you are doing everything else in a legal fashion, and The CO's aren't gonna get upset if you are doing everything legal in the first place, They will usually give you a little guidance to steer you in the right direction.

If you are shooting a trophy deer at complete darkness, taking the antlers , leaving the body, then yes, you should be charged and charged to the full extent.

Just like other laws, if you drive 51Km/hr in a 50km/hr zone , yes, you are speeding but good luck getting pulled over. There is some discretion that can and should be exercised in all aspects of hunting and everyday life.
 
I think we have some very good laws and some very silly laws. For example wearing madatory orange in Ontario I think is silly. You must know your target before you shoot. Having a fish for a shore lunch doesn't bother me but taking home five or six does. Shooting does when you only poses an antlered tag is not good the idea. I suppose most of the limits and methods implemented by the MNR/DNR are there to manage our wildlife and we should really being doing it anyhow. I try to manage my property although it is small and I have lots of hunters around me I sometimes feel that I am wasting my time, I suppose the proof is in the pudding I harvest animals every year and my neighbors haven't!!!!!
 
Kelly Timoffee said:
Legal shooting time is 8:00 a.m. and you pull the trigger or release the string at 7:55 a.m. , well that isn't exactly poaching.
Click to expand...

what exactly is it then?

Kelly Timoffee said:
providing you are doing everything else in a legal fashion.
Click to expand...

So by that logic, I can be 0.01% over the blood alcohol content, and it isn't exactly DUI, provided I am doing everything else in a legal fashion?
 
[ For example wearing madatory orange in Ontario I think is silly. You must know your target before you shoot.

You would think that but for some it is just movement they fire at. During the open rifle season here our group wear hunters orange from head to toe.
About 20 years back my brother and I on private land were shot at as we went to walk out into a pole line. A 5" tree probally saved my right leg.
We started yelling to the top of our lungs and seen guy get up about 300 yards up the line and start running. I chased him to the road just in time to see him pulling away in his truck. A truck I knew. I went to his house that night and after a long conversation he finally admitted to shooting at the movement in the bush.
Would full hunters orange made a difference, don't know but from then on we don't take a chance. We also had a friend shot at taking a crap. Guy shot at the flash of white he seen which was toilet paper. He was very lucky also and didnot get hit.
 
If you have your hunting license, and you shoot under your limit of ducks using steel shot with a registered gun that has the magazine plugged, and it is in duck season, but you shot one of those ducks 1 minute earlier than 'legal light', I wouldn't call you a poacher.

Poaching to me means no license or hunting out of season or trespassing, stuff like that.
 
Sounds like you want everything black and white, it is never that simple.Plus I believe some discretion is warranted.

There is always common sense and realistic expectations. If your watch says 8:00a. and the Co's says 7:55a.m. , who's watch is correct?

Please try not take things out of context and look at the entire post. :D



rgv said:
what exactly is it then?



So by that logic, I can be 0.01% over the blood alcohol content, and it isn't exactly DUI, provided I am doing everything else in a legal fashion?
Click to expand...
 
Back before we had a shotgun season and deer were not that plentyful I walked upon a group of bunny hunters during the bow season in my bush. They were skinning out a deer.
I phoned the CO's and helped as much as I could in the investigation. I would say these hunters were poachers.
Not sure what I would call the two CO"s that dragged the skinned deer in the dirt back to their vehicle making it garbage?
 
Kelly Timoffee said:
Sounds like you want everything black and white, it is never that simple.Plus I believe some discretion is warranted.

There is always common sense and realistic expectations. If your watch says 8:00a. and the Co's says 7:55a.m. , who's watch is correct?

Please try not take things out of context and look at the entire post. :D
Click to expand...

I know the world isn;t black and white. Do the CO's and Judges?

Here's your entire post, nothing pulled out of context. All I'm curious about is, if shooting an animal before legal shooting time 'isn't exactly poaching' , then what exactly is it? I don't care if you think it's right or wrong, I'm just curious to know what you consider it to be.

Kelly Timoffee said:
If it was complete blatant disregard for safety and laws, I will call and have. Shooting when it's pitch black or running down animals with vehicles isn't very cool and doesn't help the publics outlook on any hunters.

Wanna wear camo when you shouldn't? Don't complain about bullets zipping by. Those rules are there for a reason and some are not intelligent enough to comprehend that.

Legal shooting time is 8:00 a.m. and you pull the trigger or release the string at 7:55 a.m. , well that isn't exactly poaching, providing you are doing everything else in a legal fashion, and The CO's aren't gonna get upset if you are doing everything legal in the first place, They will usually give you a little guidance to steer you in the right direction.

If you are shooting a trophy deer at complete darkness, taking the antlers , leaving the body, then yes, you should be charged and charged to the full extent.

Just like other laws, if you drive 51Km/hr in a 50km/hr zone , yes, you are speeding but good luck getting pulled over. There is some discretion that can and should be exercised in all aspects of hunting and everyday life.
Click to expand...
 
I'm really not sure why this thread was even started. Troll?

The regs are the regs. Either know them and follow them or stay the "F" out of my outdoors. Break them in front of me and if you're in my hunting party you soon won't be. You'll likely have a sore nose, too.
That's my 2 cents.
 
No sense getting yourself thrown in prison for assualt over someone elses illegal behaviour let the law sort them out. The guy who keeps the bass bleeding from its gills, or picks up someone elses crippled bird putting them over their limit, heck even the guy who takes an extra deer so his family will have meet through the winter I have a hard time blaming them. Its the folks who waste animals and don't actualy look for wounded game and take way over their bag limit that I have an issue with. The guy who goes out deer, partridge or waterfowl hunting and has a beer at lunch thats not that big a deal in my eyes either, getting drunk is a whole other issue. And please try and take your trash out with you...
 
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