Anyone have any run-ins or problems with poachers on your land? I know people have posted pics of poachers before on here, but this can be a thread devoted to your poacher stories. Let's hear em! I'll start...

Not much of a story but on one of our border fence roads that parallels a road, we found a big bodied buck with its neck cut off. Damn shame. No telling how big he was but there wasn't much we could do to try and find the folks. Never had that problem occur again but one time is too many!

Here's my story for what it's worth. Worst poacher I ever ran across was a paying member of the deerlease I was on south of Sonora. He was always the first to offer to help and ALWAYS demanded that we eat " brunch " at his trailer. I'd give him money ( to buy more food ) as I felt so guilty, he would cook biscuits with white gravy, eggs and bacon and sausage ( a feast ).

He would ask nonchalantly when we were coming back down so he would know how much food to pick up and we'd let him know. Found out later that he was taking his sons and thier friends and shooting the hell outa bucks when we weren't there.

I went unexpectedly one night and somebody I didn't even know was coming out of my trailer zipping up his pants with some little senorita in tow. I got out and was like WTF??? All he kept saying was ( name withheld ) said it was alright, he said you wouldn't mind.

His sons and their friends leased a 6 man pasture close to ours and last I heard they shot MORE than 36 bucks off that pasture the first year. Been a long time ago but I'm still amazed at the gall of some people.

My dad's cuaght some guys on his place.

And?

If he told anymore he would be in prison.


Buddy put his game cam up for the very first time a few years ago. He lives about 2 hours from the lease and we park about 1.5 miles from the gate so you can't tell if we are there or not. Not a few hours after he left it caught some poachers on it. They were just coon hunting apparantly but still, that was quick!

I'm sure this will be controversial, but we caught the landowner on our lease that we were supposed to have exclusive access to. Full-blown hunting a spot we told him we had seen a big buck at.

The funny thing was that we had completely made the story up because he always seemed like he felt bad that we weren't shooting anything, like we weren't getting our money's worth. So we told him we had seen some really nice bucks that we just didn't get shots at.

Friggin' son of a gun goes and hunts the imaginary deer not a day later.

Have had poachers and thieves - new cellular cameras send pics to my cell phone immediately. Sheriff will come a running when I send him pics. I almost caught a guy in the back pasture as he left through the gate on his ATV. There were 5 of us out hunting that day - we all knew where everyone was at - all of a sudden we heard an ATV - well we radioed everybody and they were all in their blinds, so we all got to nearest gate as quick as possible to keep the SumGun on our land = I just missed him and the sheriff was only about 5 minutes away. Never caught him but sure scared the crap out of him. Havent seen him back since. Oh and we buried a nail strip in the high grass by that gate in case he came back. Long 16 penny nails - ha!

Rule #1 of hunting, you NEVER tell anyone you saw deer, especially nice bucks. When I was on a lease with other people, I always told them I spent the morning watching biurds and squirrels because no deer seemed to be moving.

Guess you know that it is illegal to set a "trap" that can injure or kill someone. If poacher, or anyone else, steps on a nail he will be driving your pickup and living in your house.

I know a man whom set a trap and killed a 16 year old boy. He did 10 year in the pen.

I've had more problems in Northeast Texas than anywhere but I did chase a guy that lived just north of our property. We were at the trailer and I saw a 4 wheeler going into the woods on the property next to us. I had permission to hunt the property if I looked out for it, friend of the family owned it. The jacka$$ had a rifle across his lap. I grabbed my pistol and took off after him.

He must of heard my 4 wheeler and ducked into the woods. We played cat and mouse for an hour but I never found him. I would shut my ATV off and listen, his would be off so I'd yell that he was as good as dead if I caught him. I found his stand and feeder, not his anymore. I also found where he came through the fence and made sure he would remember the next trip through the fence.

I actually found someone sitting in my stand. The property is not fenced and politelty asked him to get his a$$ out of my stand. I never saw him again!

Our first lease, we discovered the rancher was day leasing our blinds Mon - Thurs. It was a handshake deal and he said it was his land to do with as he wanted. We got off after the season was over. Our current lease is two locked gates from the nearest pavement. Never had a problem with poachers, but about every three years we get a group of illegals come though and steal food, flashlights, and clothing.

I can't go into too many details but found out buddies place was being poached by the ranch foreman. He lived there and knew when who was going to be there so wasn't too hard to get away with but after years of no big deer thye finally found out why. Kinda sucks when you put all that work into 11K acres and someone behind your back destroys it. And they guy is sitll there but on a very tight leash. He is a heck of a worker but in that part of Texas you are better off keeping your enemies close. lol.

We leased from a family for over 25 years and always had trouble with their hammer headed adopted son. He was nothing but trouble when he wasn't sitting in jail. He was caught cattle rustling, stealing four wheelers, raiding deer camps, and numerous drug convictions.

The old man we actually leased from always made things right and the son spent more time in jail than running loose. We found someone sitting in our stand, caught the son spot lighting, found casings that weren't ours, and all kinds of stuff.

Even with all of that going on the lease was still outstanding and overall good experience. He typically didn't mess with our camp.

I hunt in Louisiana and a couple of years ago we were hunting with dogs and lost one. We found the dog at a neighbors house and the man claimed the dog was his. The man who owned the dog knew it was his so in front of us he told the thief if the dog isn't at my house before dark I will burn your house down. The dog was home before dark. I told our hunter you really bluffed him out. The guy looked at me and said I was going to burn the house down I put a can of gas in my truck bed to get the job done. I never knew if he would do it but the others on the lease swear he would and the thief knew it. I guess Louisiana is a little different than other states. PS he is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet.

We had a guy that was a friend of a friend that thought that it would be ok to come out to our place when ever he wanted to.
He would leave gut piles in camp etc., we attempted to catch him to no sucess. So, we enlisited the help of a family friend, who is a DPS SGT., He set up out there and eneded up catching this guy at gunpoint until the local GW and SD arrived. Turns out this guy had his brother, who was an out of state hunter (no license), his 15 yr. old son with him, along with 4 wheelers and NICE guns, also when they went to the hotel where they were staying, he had 4 quarterd untagged deer in coolers.
This guy was a convicted felon who took it upon his self to drive 200+ miles to a place he had been 1 time to use as his own personal place...this had gone on for 2 years before this all went down. After it was all said and done this guy and his brother got off wtih a DEAL from Eastland County DA , no jail time for the convicted felon,They just confiscated all vehicles,guns equipment, game, etc., Just fines and probation for a low life who had to be held at gunpoint bt a DPS SGT.,then resisted arrest by thw GW and SD.
This guy had said in his defense that he "Thought it was ok",
even though he had never met the land owner or the relatives??
It is just amazing that this could happen this way given the circumstances of being caught by LEO rehanded so to speak.
We had attempted to catch this guy ourselves, probably a good thihg for him and us that we did not run upon him out there, We would probably be in prison now...GO figure.

Remember this story?

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/11/22_kelleherb_huntershooting/

One thing I have learned from experience and reading on here, don't trust someone because they are super friendly or helpful until you know they are like that in all their activities in life. Seems around the ranch/lease someone might be extra helpful since they have something to hide and just want you out of there.

I've only seen one indication that someone besides me took game at my section of the lease. What ever it was caused a mighty big commotion. There was a large area of grass about 10 feet from the feeder that had been trampled down and there were dozens of turkey vulture feathers on the ground. I imagine that was from the gut pile.

For Pete's sake, at least gut the damn thing somewhere away from my feeder. It stunk for days and I had nothing on the game cam as a result......

My biggest problem is with equipment poachers. Now I've got one broken down game cam out there as a decoy, with another set about 15' in the air up a tree. I hope I catch whoever is helping themselves to my gear.....

Last year on my lease in Nacogdoches we saw a truck parked in front of our main gate at 1am. There were 5 of us there so we "loaded up" and jusmped in my truck and snuck up to him with the headlights off. We were pretty sure he had a buddy on our place hog hunting and was waiting on him to return to the gate. We have had problems with this in the past. The guy was obviously nervous and couln't get his story straight. We let him drive off without his buddy. When he drove off we unloaded about 50 rounds into the ground from various handguns,ak's,7mags etc.....At 1am it echoed for miles and sounded frightingly loud. Anybody poacher on our proerty at the time would have taken a dump where they stood. The gate was the only way out to the road. We have not seem them since.

It was my understanding if your property is posted that wasn't the case.

So if I want to put a board down on the ground that may happen to have a few nails on it.....on my own property I can't do that?

It doesn't matter where you put a board with nails down. If you do it anywhere ON PURPOSE, you can still be charged with negligence I believe. Think of it this way, your own kid is playing at home and you create an unsafe environment by leaving nails sticking up in boards and allowing them to play in the area. It's the same scenario if they are left in an area on a ranch intended to harm someone regardless if no one should be in the area. It could be the GW that gets injured.

I guess I'd just do it on accident then...