Trespassers

[adkRoy]

My family and I own 65 in the capitol region area of NY. The first year we bought it we had trouble with people crossing past our posted signs ( which are space about 20 feet apart, bright yellow or blaze orange.). After the first year of kicking everyone off we had no trouble until the land next to us was bought by a thourobred farm and they let a lot of yahoos hunt the land. The farm has hudreds of acres but these yahoos keep tresspassing onto  our little 65 acre farm. Also we have been having toruble with A@@h***  ATV'ers driving on our land, through our woods and knowking down trees we plant or tearing up the fields we plant. They drive right by our posted signs. If this keeps up they will end up with nails in their tires. We paid for the property, we do all the work planting and improving the land, We don't need F^^^ ups ruining all we have done. Tresspassers have been getting worse every year.

[adkRoy]

IT gets worse. Went turkey hunting last two afternoons. Someone in between the times that I hunted drove a pick-up or SUV all over our fields. If I had seen that I would have shot their tire out. Now we have ruts/tracks through our fields. What really steams me is they drove withing 2 feet of a NO TRESSPASSING sign. Now we are going to have to start putting up chains and locks on our tractor openings.

[MoosemanKris]

Here's what I have to say about trespassers: Shoot first, shoot second and ask questions when they stop kicking! Some yahoo stole my treestand off my property last year!

[adkRoy]

Yesterday afternoon My dad went to our land and found a older dodge pickup half on our drive, half in the ditch and stuck on the stones around our culvert. He looked inside and saw a camo suit and a camo 12 shotgon. He wrote down the license plate and went down the road to the farmer who rents are fields. Low and behold when he gets there, he sees a young blonde haired guy talking to the farmer about how he is stuck in a ditch up the road. My dad started yelling at him about tresspassing and that he better not be hunting on our property. THe guy claimed he got stuck in our drive while trying to turn around (yeah right  ). Anyways my dad let him know that there are five of us who hunt our land, 2 retirees, 2 guys with quick tempers, and 1 police officer so there is always somebody on our land every day and if we catch him near our land again we will turn his plate over to our neighbor who happens to be an encon officer for NYS DEC. I hate tresspassers  . The sad part is it is only 5 minutes from a 4000 acre state forest with lots of acess these guys can hunt.

[MASTERGUIDE]

hey, I have done it, gotten stuck when turning around, not tresspassing, I always have hunting gear and plenty of guns in my truck, because all I do is hunt all the time, so just because he had gear doesn't mean jack.  Pissed off people like you guys are getting on my nerves.  It really hurts the sport when an incident happens like that, I was rightfully on a guys land getting my coondogs off of a tree, and this guy pulls up and chews us out for being on his land, even if we didn't have permission to be on there, it is perfectly legal to walk onto anyones land and catch our dogs, but you are not allowed to bring a gun on the land with you to catch them if you don't have permission for it.  We always hunt one side of the road for racoon (about 700 acres) and one night out of 15 nights of hunting it, the dogs decide to go across the road and onto this guys land (80 acres), trust me, you can't stop a dog thats running a coon track, they go wherever they want, they can't read posted signs or anything thats why they have the leash law, this guy was so mad that we parked along the road by his land, he wrote our plates down, and everything.  He says my 80 acres, oh I don't want anything disturbing it. 80 acres isn't enough to piss on.  Poeple have such a bad attitude about dog hunting it makes me sick to think about it any more than I always do.  Its like you people think you own the world and everyone knows exactly when they step foot onto your little tiny chunk of woods, I was leading my dog out of the woods one night and all of the sudden I am in this guys back yard, I thought I was going the right way, and that I was still on county land, and how did I know there was a house there? I walked the other way not wanting a confrontation and hoping to find my way back very quickly.  One night I was out shining and I pulled into a driveway to turn around and the guy comes out yelling and accusing me of robbing his house, I picked the wrong time to turn around, the bad thing is I knew the guys son and had hunted with him and I knew his dad a little as well. I find out his place had been robbed just a little bit before I went to turn around in his driveway.  Anything can happen.  I think the only time anyone should get a mouth full is if there is someone who is a second offense or more, and they knew that they were doing wrong and they still went on your land.  I got a phone call last year from a guy who owns 5 acres amidst a 300 acre farm and my hound crossed over his property line for about 5 seconds while hunting one night and he was mad because it ran across it.  I am not going to stop hunting a 300 acre farm just for this little puke with 5 acres  my gosh what does he think hunting is, I have only found about 5 poeple in an area around a 10 mile radius that will let me hunt and I have asked everyone, and it just scares me so much that a dog will happen to cross or go onto someones property that I don't have permission to be on.  I can't even hunt anywhere around my home town anymore, I go to a small area of public land that is 45 minutes away and gas isn't cheap, I live out in the boonies and I can't even find land to hunt besides my own.  people just don't get it anymore.  And its all about "their" deer.  One man telling another man where and where he can't go isn't something I take easy.  and this stuff about shooting tresspassers is nuts, and it really scares me when I hear it.  not for my sake but for yours, I was driving home the day Chai Vang shot everyone while deer hunting in WI, I am sure you are familiar with it, and it only happened just a little ways from where I was hunting. and I saw some of the panic.  I think the guy is nuts and should get the death sentence for what he did, but anyways, one of these days you might run into the wrong guy and go spouting off again, and if you really do shoot at people like your messages at the bottom of your posts insinuate you do, believe me, I shoot back, and I don't miss, check before you yell and shoot, its just a whole lot better for everyone if you handle the situation like a real man, give them a friendly warning and when you catch them again, and they know they did it, go for it, yell at them, and do whatever you want, but I just can't stand hearing about people bragging how they chewed a guy out over basically nothing, or something very small. 

MASTERGUIDE

[Out4Trout]

In my area the land is all privately owned and there is still a lot of unposted land, although it is getting scarcer all of the time. When I was younger, a person could hunt almost anywhere he wanted. I have noticed though that if someone from out of state buys property around here, 90% of the time the first thing they do is post it. That's their legal right and I do not trespass, but I don't like it. I purchased a 100 acre lot (a small area per MG's standards) about 25 years ago that I built my house on. A few different families in the area hunted that land long before ended up with it. I've left the land unposted and had to talk to some of the hunters the first couple of years because they were getting a little too close to my house. Since then I've never had any problems. I didn't yell and scream or ream anybody out. If I had someone abusing my land or tearing up my driveway, you bet I'd get a little riled up, but it has not happened. I also have to say though, if I had coon hounds yelping in my back yard in the middle of the night I wouldn't be very happy - and I have coon hunted in the past. I know some people post thier land because of liability reasons. That's sad, but that's the direction this world is going.

[MASTERGUIDE]

Right on Out4Trout, I have given the example of how much land I was able to hunt when I was younger, and nobody ever had any problems, everyone talked to each other.  That is the way things have gone, everyone is so protective over a chunk woods, and now noone gets along, it has turned from a friendly everyone getting along neighborhood to all the neighbors hate each other now.  My neighbors just recently tried to take my dogs away from me, by making false complaints of my dogs on their land and them barking, and attacking people.  How rotten!  A 4,000 dollar hound that never leaves his 1/4 acre pen, and doesn't bark either, is being accused of being like that.  They all say they have seen them run deer, well my hound has never taken a deer while hunting, or any other time. I wanted to have proof of this, so I let my dog loose in front of some deer, within 15 yards of them, on the side of the road, my dog glanced at them for a second and went the other way and treed a coon!  I didn't train him so well to have him run deer.  Its very frequently that we run into deer while leading the dog out of the woods and they just don't care that we are there, or the dog, its just the way it is.  If people are going to be so anal over their little chunk then please post it thoroughly, you all claim to have done so much work to the property to make it so "special" so why don't you lift a finger and put up posted signs all around it, so you can be sure no one can make a mistake, and run into your loud mouth on accident.  Its just so hard to find any place to hunt anymore, its just pathetic, and 95% of the reason especially for coonhunting, is that the people deer hunt the property, WI gun season is only 9 days long!  And most of them are way to lazy to actually bow hunt everyday if they even bowhunt, if they are so "active"  why don't some of these little chunk land owners work out something with hunters, as in letting other hunters know when they are done with their "intense" deer harvest on their little chunk.  Its even harder to hound hunt because you have to get many small chunks permission before you can hunt or one of the small chunk owners will get mad.  Public land is great, but I work over the public land so much that if I hunted it anymore I would be overhunting it.  Its a large tract, but I hunt every day and night, and it simply can't handle my entire coon kill for the season coming from it.  There are alot of coon there, but I have to stop hunting it, because I don't want to overhunt it, because I need more coon for the next year.  Not to downtalk your 100 acres out4trout, and I wish I had 100 acres, and I think if there were more people like you hunting would be a better way of life. but I know if i had a small chunk, I would let people hunt it and I wouldn't be a jerk about it either.  I could go on forever about this stuff, so I will spare you a book, all I know is the day I purchase my 5,000 acre ranch in Montana, my jerk neighbors will get a finger in the air, and they will never see me again and I will be in heaven, because I won't have to ever talk to a jerk neighbors like mine in WI who don't even have respect for the land I grew up on, and don't even care if I ever hunt again the land I once hunted and loved so much.  this is a deep subject for me fellas, and I know how it hurts, I wish people knew how important hunting, fishing, trapping, as a lifestyle is to some people, not just a once a year deal.

MASTERGUIDE

[bird dog]

I am not an unreasonable person. I do not allow people on my property. I hunt it with my family. I do not think that the deer are mine. I also have have opinions of those who do not own land, but are under the impression that those who do are some sort of monger. Land is something that all sportsman would like to have. Size of the property does not matter. Think of it in the same context "as any deer is a trophy to me." If you do not own that property it is private and it does not need to be so displayed. Of course by law it does so that punishment can be handed out. My land is posted, I will allow anyone to retrieve a deer that they can prove has come from bordering property. I will quite often help them. I will not tolerate tresspassers. I hunt property of the folks I grew up next to. I have had permission since I was 16, now just because I have had permission for 16 years now doesn't mean that I can just go on there every year. I still ask every year. Same goes for if it was sold, you do not retain the privledge to hunt that property. Landowners are so sick of the "poacher tresspasser hunter" that gets angry when they are told "Sorry we hunt here and we do not allow others on." If they go on and do something to get hurt, the landowner is lialble. Think of the people that have worked hard to have a piece of property, just because they do not want you on it does not mean they are cold hearted people. We do not wander all over other peoples land and we do not expect that anyone should be on ours reguardless of how angry you get when denied. Respect those who own property, we do not owe you permission to the property.

[shrub]

i think that you are both part right, bird dog is right land owners dont owe us permission to hunt thier property. people dont let people run dogs on thier land because they dont want to listen to them bark or becaue they think that they will run deer. as if there 120 pound german shephard doesnt bark or wont run deer if it gets loose. most of the time its simply a matter of greed people have thier land and they dont want to share.

[MASTERGUIDE]

I never said people owe me permission, I own land, not much like the rest of you, (alot of land soon though), all I mean is that this guy comes in to a middle of nowwhere area, and builds a house within 300 yards of my house when he has everything in sight to move and build a house on, he has only 40 acres and he is a mean a..hole about it, I think its fine if people don't give me permission, I just can't stand people who are mean to me just for asking!  This guy is crooked as well, he says my dogs are running rabid all over his land chasing deer in broad daylight, my dogs never leave the pen! how could they possible do that, and I can prove they wouldn't run deer anyway, he just does that to try to get rid of my dogs.  I just think that kind of stuff is wrong. Half the time the people that get mad are people that pretty much just deer hunt and maybe a few days of small game hunting, and it hardly gets used, people having land and not using it just bugs me, they can do what they want.  But its nuts how some people act just for asking!  This guy was swearing at me just because I had my dog out in my yard and was playing with her one day.  We all have our opinions, and mine won't change.

MASTERGUIDE

MASTERGUIDE

[adkRoy]

MG, 
     We have let some people hunt on our land in the past and still do for rabbits and small game. I am talking about the people that don't ask permission, THe people that use our blinds and trash them, the people that drive their ATV's and Pickups all over our fields and woods tearing up our crops or causing deep ruts in our woods. This is how bad it has gotten in my area. Last year while bowhunting with my dad and brother on our little 65 acre farm (which has Posted signs every 10 feet), we heard all this yelling and yahooing and what sounded like a truck beirng driven all over our fields. This was about a half hour before dark. Prime time for deer so we all went to investigate. It was a pickup truck being driven by a guy in 40's with a buch of younger guys in the back of the truck. They were doing donuts in our fields. I found where they got stuck and left huge ruts in our stream crossing. They were chucking empty beer cans all over the place. We confronted them just as they were leaving our property and the guy had the nerve to tell us we were tresspassing on his father's land!  It's this kind of BullSh@@ that gets me so pissed off at tresspassers. We now only let 1 person hunt on our farm for small game because he is the only one who has any respect for our land and doesn't trash it or damage it. Every year we are constantly finding damage done to our land by tresspassers or we are catching them on our land. We are not mean to anyone who asks, just the people we catch on our land who don't ask.

[MASTERGUIDE]

Yeah that is bad, I haven't heard one that bad for a long time, its different all over the place, I heard some people say they have tresspassed to get a downed deer or something, being sneaky, but that is gutsy what that guy did, and with that level of disrespect, thats simply a bad guy. well I hope you finally find a way to keep people like that off your land, maybe try a gate?  I see people do it more and more and it looks like it works pretty good.

MASTERGUIDE

[adkRoy]

MG,
    Unfortunately we are looking at gates for our land. Its sad that we have to do this. Now we have to give the farmer that rents some of our fields a key just to come on to harvest. Unfortunately we have to spend more money to do this. 

[bird dog]

I have never confronted anyone on my property with anything less than curtious non threatening behavior. I certainly have been meet in return by some people whom are less than civil. I am at a loss as to how a tresspassing scumbag can be in the wrong, being confronted calmly and still be this disrespectful of the landowner. We moved in and posted our property, met with the folks that border us explained our intended goals as to what sort of management ideas we had and how they work. The first season I confronted a man on our property, I calmly asked him if he had seen anything and who gave him permission to hunt here? He said he was hunting on so snd so 's land and has always hunted this ridge. I explained to him that he was on my property and that we didn't allow others on. I told him that he could finish the day there due to the time of day, but please do not come over here again. All went well he said he was sorry and let me know that they used channel 5 on thier radios. Knowing the channel I decided to listen and see what would take place as he was sure to radio back to his buddy. I tuned in just as the guy was colorfully explaining that I had no right to ruin this guy's hunt, we have hunted that ridge for years. On and on he went as to how dare I interfear with them. I broke in and said that I thought we should talk this over tonight and resolve this problem. He VERY colorfully told me that he had nothing to say to me. I told him that anyone caught over on my property would be prosecuted from now on, consider yourself warned. I have had to have the law here every year for this guy. He still thinks that because he has hunted there since he was a boy he is entitled to still. Tresspassers are the scum of the sporting world. I don't agree with treating anyone any differently than I would expect to be treated, but when you talk to them on your own land and they are as ignorant and disrespectful to me, I can see why some people get caught up in agressive behavior. Tresspassing is tresspassing, IF YOU DO NOT OWN THE PROPERTY OR HAVE PERMISSION TO BE THERE IT IS TRESSPASSING NO MATTER WHAT.

[adkRoy]

This happened to my dad last night. He was hunting one of our stands that we can watch 3 fields at once. He saw a deer in one of the fields feeding away from him so he used his doe bleat can to try to attract it over to him. Instead it attracted another hunter. A guy dressed in all black with a bow came running over from our neighbor's property right into our tractor opening and squatted down in the brush watching our field. We know it was not our neighbor because this guy was about as big around as he was tall. our neighbor is short and skinny. After 15 minutes of sitting in the brush he got up, went back throught the tractor opening and started walking along our neighbor's hedge row. My dad used the bleat can again and the guy turned around and ran back to the tractor opening. This guy definitely wanted to shoot something and he didn't care who's land it was going to be on. He finally got up and left. The best part was everytime he came into the tractor opening, he squated down right by a pole with our posted sign on it. The only reason my dad did not get down and yell at the guy is because he had 3 deer in a field right behind the stand and did not want to scare them away.