If u wanted to let the other site know of what had happened, u are rightful to....especially if someone else asks that guy & he lies about it there too...im sure he KNOWS he screwed up...but still

Well, I have been guiding hunters since 1993 and I do own and operate my own hunting ranch. See www.huntingtexasexotics.com

I also sell and consult on new ranch setups and help stock them with exotics and whitetail.

I didn't mean to insinuate that I think its OK for the hunters do what they did. I think there is a bit of carelessness on the ranch managers part in this instance and a good bit of dumbass on the hunters part. As a matter of fact if you look back in that quote, you will see where I wrote,"Even so, your right, he should have known better." And I still believe that hunter is absolutely wrong for what they did and how they denied is unexcuseable.

From your original post I fail to see where you say anything about you telling the hunters that there was livestock on the ranch and they were not to shoot them. How big was this place they were hunting on? Yes, this is a dumbass mistake by the hunters. But I honestly feel that if this happened anywhere else, a ranch guide or mananger may be getting fired for something like this. That's what I am getting at.

As I see it, its the ranch manager or whoever guides the hunters responsibility to do as much as possible to help insure a safe and enjoyable hunt. And with that I think that if your going to allow hunters to hunt at night like this, then maybe you ought to be with them or in the least lock up the livestock. In your recent reply you say you told them about the livestock being locked up. But in your original post, I don't think you mentioned that. So that's why I said I think this is partly the ranch managers fault. If these hunters left their area and purposefully went into the pen and shot it and then lied about it. That's not an accident. If it happened the way you said it orginally, then its a case I see that could have easily been prevented. How big is this place and how hard would it have been to lock up the livestock. When I used to do my hog hunts, we set up on pastures on free ranging cattle ranches. But we locked those cattle out of those pastures too and saw to it to help prevent any mistakes.

Hunters do some wierd stuff like this and get nervous. I really think that is what happened here because there are some dumbasses out there that make these kind of mistakes and the more you get into hunting you will find a few like this. But its more rare to find one that will lie to your face about it. You got really screwed on this one for sure. And I would probably consider locking up livestock like horses and donkeys before doing any kind of hunting like this at night. I have even seen hunters mistake cows in a field at night when hunting. So I find the fact that this happened not all that amazing or surprising to me.

Benbob,

From my experience, not all hunters are as good as the many appear to be on this forum. We would all like to think we certainly know the difference between a donkey and a hog. But I have been guiding paying hunters since 1993 and I have had my share of some real wackos out there. When they come hunting they are really itching to hunt and are already excited enough. Then you go and put them on an animal, there is no telling what can happen. Even last weekend I put a guy on a 72 yard shot from the truck to a 33"+ axis and he flat out missed. Mistakes happen all the time. I have even seen guys shoot nervously enough at something that they do something worse and hit the animal in the butt. Mistakes like this incident with the donkey happen a lot easier than most people realize. But when you allow hunters on a working cattle/livestock ranch, mistakes like this are going to happen sooner or later. That's just a fact of it when your in the hunting business and you have to do everything you can to prevent it.

I'm not sure how he has his setup. I don't think its a fully guided hunt. Is there lights out there at the feeder? The pictures that he showed seem to light up like from a camera flash or is that from the lights at the hunting stand. I'm just trying to put all the pieces of this together. I would be so pissed at the hunter too and I don't blame the owner one bit. But if I was the owner, I would be wondering, "Well how did this happen?" And part of what would be going thru my mind is, "Could they have been locked up before allowing the hunters to hunt at night unguided?" Day and evening hunts for whitetails is one thing. Purposefully allowing hunting to go unguided at night on a ranch for hogs is another. Granted, its still hunting. But I feel all know that its harder to identify an animal at night. So did these guys have flashlights or something or anything? Was there light at the feeders? If this was a small place, which I have a feeling it is, then how hard would it have been to lock up the animals to prevent this. Is a part of this negligence on the landowner/ranch mangers part? You can't stop stupid hunters as easily as you can do things on your end to help prevent mistakes like this. I feel this could have been easily prevented.

I guess your right Curtis.I should hold the hunters hands and tell them "hey,that is NOT a hog".I will not be fired from my position because i am my boss.Funny that you are the ONLY one on here saying it was a land owner mistake.My place is not big enough to block the few head of livestock i do have from the hunting areas.
You know what they say.There is one in every group.

I'm not saying you need to hold their hand and babysit them. But from what you originally posted, I wondered why this all happened. I'm not trying to tell you how to run your ranch. That's your business. But in my opinion, I see this as a mistake that could have very easily been avioided. We do have in our contracts that the hunters sign that if they damage any property of the ranch or guides or harm livestock, then the value of that property is set at the discretion of the owner.

I don't honestly mean to attack you and make this personal. I know your upset about the lose and I share your grief although I choose not to show it on the forum as many others have. When I see something go wrong, I tend to wonder how it can be fixed. That is my intention. I also felt that the situation was not all detailed out to exactly how it happened. There is sometimes more to the story than what is told and I haven't ever hunted with you nor do I know how you run your hunts. That's why I was curious as to why these animals were not locked up to begin with. In the first post, no mention of a seperate pen. Then later on its not changed but added that the huntrs were told these were in seperate pens. I merely wanted clafication on if these hunters wondered into an area they were not supposed to be, or did they shoot something that got out? Also, if this happened at the hunting stand or area where you put them, then was there any type of red light or game light for night time hog hunting?

Its not always the same solution for everyone, I realize that. Take what you want from my advice. I don't know how experienced you are with hunters, but I think you will find that mistakes like this happen very quickly and very easily.

Just an observation, not trying to throw fuel on the fire. All hunting operations around the state are different.

Some folks baby sit their hunters, others have a more open approach. I think a lot of it depends on what animals are being hunted.

Also in this case, this particular hunter had been on this place at an earlier date.

I can see baby sitting hunters if your hunting trophy whitetails or exotics. But, unless I have totally missed something, and other than Javelina, there is nothing running around out there that looks like a feral pig, except another feral pig.

The only mistake here, was that an experienced hunter, took a shot for whatever reason, realized that he screwed the pooch, and tried to pretend it never happened.

Whether a landowner or a ranch manager is dealing with 1 or 100,000 acres, is of no consequense. This guy was on the place hunting pigs, there was no reason for him to shoot if he wasn't sure of his target.

The bigger picture here though, is the fact that not only him, but his wife and adult son tried to cover up the situation.

As for making a report about his actions on the other Forum, that should be part of the price he has to pay for screwing up that bad. JMO.

Sorry for your lose. That is horrible. What a sorry SOB.

My buddies bro-in-law did something similiar. His first deer hunt at the families ranch (when he was still just a boyfriend) turned into a nightmare. He ended up shooting a pet red stag that he thought was the biggest whitetail of his life. He claims he hunted whitetail before. Sure.... Needless to say it was mounted and put in the parents house. The real story is hilarious as long as you aren't the mom who grew up with it.

Is it not part of the ranchers responsibility to take care of the animals that they have on their farm? Yes it is. Was this accident easily preventable? Yes, I think so from what you have told us about the accident. That's what I call negligence on your part.

Was the hunter ignorant and foolish for doing what he did? Yes. And a I think of a few other things as well.

i have to agree its NOT cuz's fault cause his animals were out like always...the shooter KNEW they were there

Keep in mind, this was not during the day. If this was rather late at night.

I am not trying to generalize all hunting. I am trying to analize this one particular situation. I'm not putting all hunts and outfitters in the same category. High dollar or private has nothing to do with it.

It doesn't seem pretty careless to anyone else to let some hunters out at night on a small acreage to hunt hogs with livestock wondering around? I have hunted them at night to on many different places and I can eassily see how a hunter can make a mistake like this if they are as careless as this. I have seen how cattle and livestock hang around feeders and if you know that is going to happen and are going to have a hunter at a feeder, why not protect your investment in your livestock? That's what I am wondering about. The acreage does have a bit to play in this. I would say that the smaller the acreage, the greater chance you may have on seeing those animals(horses, goats, and donkeys or mules or whatever) at that feeder where the hunters are at. Common sense to me would be to get those animals out of that pasture. Say the hunter just missed a shot and it went in the woods a ways and killed the donkey about 50 yards or so away behind the target. Seem to me to reason that one would realize something like this could very easily happen and would lock up the livestock on such a small place.

Yes, know your target...ABSOLUTELY. But accidents like this happen when a rancher or manager makes a mistake like this and its a rather easily avoidable one in this case from what I can tell that has been told so far.

Did he really know they were there in front of him or was it possibly a mistake or a missed shot. I don't know how anyone can know the exact truth since there was no guide with the hunter. It clear that the hunters are liars already and are scum that should have got more than just a slap on the wrist. So I don't trust them. I just think there are missing details here. Something doesn't just seem right about the whole thing.

Curtis,
You should come out here and tell all of my ranchers that I have hunting leases on that they need to remove their livestock from the area that we are hunting. They will tell you to remove yourself and your hunting operation from their land.

I would not even call this guy a hunter. He shot at an animal with out knowing exactly what his target was and then tried to cover it up. He is in the wrong.
If he could not identify his target he should never have shot. I inform all my hunters that there are livestock in our hunting areas and if they shoot any thing even by "accident" then they will pay for that animal and their hunt is over.

Cuzin8,
Your did everything the way it should be done. Sorry about you losing a donkey at the hand of a Jack @ss!

Something doesn't seem right......YEAH, the guy shot a donkey and then acted weird about it not wanting to say something. Yeah that doesn't seem right.....Fess up to what you did...
They had been there before so they must have known that he had livestock.....NO excuse for that....whatsoever, especially if he had been there before and from the first post, he had been there......Guess all landowners can't be perfect...

From my experiences with other land owners there are usually cross fences that can be closed and you can usually cut the animals out for the brief period. I have never had any problems with the landowners since its only for a short period of time. When I did do hog hunts at night, I made sure the hunters had lights to use to shoot or that there was lights at the feeders. This is to obviously help prevent mistakes like this. I have never had any hunter make a mistake and shoot livestock, bow or rifle. I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal here or anything like that. It just seems like this is a rather difficult mistake to make with proper precautions and it seemed to me like maybe something in the story was missing. I just don't see how in heck a hunter/shooter makes a mistake like this. His place is 100 acres and I would think a donkey is going to go to corn and find it very easily. So why not lock him up? Its going to interfere with the hunting if you don't and obviously it did and this moron shot it! I think in this particular case, this was avoidable.

I have leased several pieces of land in my time and never has a landowner locked out his livestock....Nope, we were just told if you shot something you weren't supposed to it was going to cost you out the arse......
100 acres or not, that family knew what they were getting into.....BOTTOM LINE, THEY HAD BEEN THERE BEFORE....Meaning they had to know about the donkeys......There is no excuse for that.......Be a better judge of your target or don't shoot......
Cuz didn't have to go through all that crap of putting livestock away, notice he had some goats as well.....
No excuse for what that guy did....plain and simple....

If you cant tell what it is dont shoot. this is how people get shot. most hunting ranches have lots of different kinds of animals. if you shoot one your not supposed to...you will be charged a BIG kill fee. i was at a place and the guy had 3 zebras. i asked him how much if i shot one. he said you dont want to know.

we have cows on our place and we know not to shoot em.

the fact is the guy did it and then lied and tried to over it up. i wouldnt have been as nice.

ALSO,I deer hunt my place during deer season and have NEVER seen a donkey or horse at any of my feeders.This guy shot him either in the brush,on the road or in an open grassy pasture from an 8ft tower blind while.NO EXCUSE!
NEVER shoot what you cant see and ALWAYS treat a gun as if it is loaded and hunting mistakes usually CANT happen.

I've had the privilage of hunting on some ranches as a guest, that had livestock.

I remember last year sitting in a stand and seeing a huge black boar hog come out and walk to my feeder, and then take off.

The next day I went back and noticed that there was a small black angus bull in the pasture I was going to hunt.

Later that evening out around 200 yards, I saw what could have been easily mistaken as that black hog because of the angle it was standing and brush around, but what I was watching was actually that little bull.

I knew not to even raise my rifle until I was absoluetly positive of my target.

I watched it for a good while through binoculars, and sure enough after several minutes it's head and shoulder emerged as it turned and stepped from behind the brush, and it was actually that small bull.

Had I been a trigger happy inexperienced hunter, that could have been a costly mistake!

I sat there and just shook my head, thinking how easily those mistakes can happen!

I really don't like stories of this nature, I had a kid shoot my roping horse with a small cal. gun and I know how I felt. Lucky for me he was o.k. but the feelings were to say the least were pure anger, and fear. But to have shot and left to suffer , your a good man though, I think put in your position he would have lost everything that he had on my land and I would have beat the ???? out of him from pure rage. Probably felt bad later : but the adrinalin from pure anger would have taken over. Donkey, cow, dog or just any animal we can get attached to. For your I am sorry, and for what you charged the a$$hole to CHEAP. He is very lucky that is all it cost. Once again find it good that you are a hell of a guy and I commend you on your principals and the way you handled this.

Years ago my Dad told me a story about whe he was a kid in Colorado and he remember seeing some dumba$$ come off the mountain to a check station with a donkey tied on his hood thinking it was an elk. Hard to believe but true. He said for sometime after this the local farmers would paint COW, DONKEY, HORSE etc.. on their livestock. This was in the 1940's .Now with the hunters safety requirements and such there is no excuse for not identifying your targets before you shoot. This is a clear case of poor sportsmanship and a clear lack of knowledge of hunting. The shoot first see what it was later mentality is what gets hunters in trouble. I would have definately made them pay for your livestock amd gave them some shovels to dig to hole to bury it in also.
I hate to hear of you changing to bow only as there are many responsible hunters out there . Unfortunately you found the ones the were not.