About 10 years ago, I shot a real nice buck about 15 minutes before the end of the hunt. There were probably 8 - 10 does in the viewable area as well. When I shot the buck, I glassed him thru the scope to make sure he was down...he lay right where I shot him. I noticed a big ole doe, behind him...so I put the scope on her and fired...and down she goes. It was about 25 degrees that night. I go get the truck to pull around the creek bed and pick up the deer. I load the buck first...then the doe...when I shut the tailgate to the truck, I dropped my flashlight...when I reached down to pick up the light, I noticed something about 15 yards from where the doe was...it was a fawn...and I mean a little one. Guess when I shot the doe, when the bullet exited it popped the little fawn upside the head. I had no clue til then....

So, like a dummy, I hid the little one in the back of my truck...went back to camp and dressed the two deer...tell my buddy, I wanna keep the meat of the little one cuz it will be so tender. So I head to the back of the 3800 acre lease and hang this little thing in the tree and clean it.(I didn't want the other hunters to see what I had done) The hams were so small they fit inside one of those little Playmate coolers you can carry about 6 or 8 drinks...the straps might have been 12 to 14 inches long. I had a corporate hunt booked in the Davis mountains later in the year, and I didn't want to "lose" a tag... so like a dummy I stuff the hams in the cooler and don't tag the deer...

Next day as we are heading home, we pass the game warden on I-10 just as we turned off the Anderson Loop headed back to Houston, who had pulled over another vehicle. We've got 4 deer in the back of the truck with their legs sticking up...all tagged properly. We must go 20 miles before we see the lights. We pull over and tell us..."well we saw you pass us with all those legs sticking up and just had to check you boys out..." they ask us to step out of the vehicle and they ask if they can search the vehicle...what are we gonna say...NO?!?! So we say yes and they check the deer and the coolers in the back. SUPER NICE guys...they commented on how nice the deer were...how nice of a truck I had and the 4 wheelers yada yada. THEN, he asks to check the truck (thats where the Playmate is sitting)...He opens the back door of the truck and grabs the Playmate....my heart is beating so hard I can hardly stand up. He puts the Playmate on the ground and begins to look through the truck....when he is done, he picks up the Playmate and puts it back where it was and sends us on our way. I about faint because I am so relieved I didn't get caught. I guess the Playmate was so small he didn't imagine anything in it...

My buddy and I don't say a word for like 5 minutes once we got back on the road...THEN the vowing of never doing that again started.

That was the ONLY time I have been in error while deer hunting and you can bet your sweet behind it won't ever happen again...Stupid action on my part, but something I learned from...

Non-intentional and did not call the GW. Learned from my lesson and haven't shot a buck in an AR county since

i grew up goose hunting without a license or hunter safety. but we hunted a family farm in the middle of BFE. i finally got my hunter safety when i was 14 and have bought a license ever since

back in college, i was walking in to the dorm with my then girlfriend and now wife.
i saw some dove sitting about 30 yds away and for whatever reason picked up a rock and threw it.

that rock made a big loop to the right and then came back and hit that dove square on the head. dead dove...
never in a million years could i replicate that throw and while i did technically hunt a dove out of season and not take the meat, my bigger sin was doing that in front of her. she did not let me off the hook for a month over that.

+1

When I was a kid growing up anything that moved was fair game with my pellet gun. I don't have a clue a of how many or what kinds of birds I shot with my pellet gun.

Yes and No I would not call a Game Warden. Why would I turn myself in? I would never hunt on land that I did not have permission to do so. I have my own land to hunt on.

+1

Never broke any law's that I know of but when I was younger I did have a full membership to "Posted"

Funny story. Years ago I was at a skeet shoot to raise money for some needy cause and a dove flew over and someone shot him on a bet from someone else. Happens our local GW was in the crowd and he didn't have any choice but to write the fella a ticket. Me, I'm an honest Joe.

When I was younger I used to drive around on the back roads of town and schwack dove off the power lines. Well, usually I drove while my friend shot.

+1 but I will never do it again!

Some buddies of mine back in high school would go shine a wheat field north of Jermyn almost nightly during the colder months. Always got a few. One of em would go find them and drag them to the fence and wait an hour so on the others to come pick them up. They would throw the deer over the fence, load em up and be on their way. Well one night the GW is cruisin around and decides to make a few passes up and down the county road, the guys in the truck met him as they were headed back to pick up the other guys and the deer. They panic and haul it back to the pickup spot. The others think it's the GW so there layin low. When they finally figure out who it is, they load the deer up and wouldn't ya know it, here comes the GW with lights on and horn blowin'. These friends of mine take off running from him with there lights turned off. After a quick debate turned argument, buddy #1 decides to climb in the back at 70 mph and throw the deer out in the bar ditch. After this, the buddies went another mile or so and decided to pull over for the GW. When he caught up to him he was mad as hell and wanted to know where the deer was. "What deer", buddy #1 exclaimed. "You know what ---dammed deer I'm talking about son" says GW. Buddy #2 states that they don't know anything about any ---dammed deer to at which time the GW points out an awful lot of blood in the back of the p/u. "coyote blood" was the reply. "What about all these bloody acorns?" GW asks. "Coyotes eat acorns", besides, those acorns fell from the tree I park under" buddy #3 touts. So GW loads em all up, 4 of em, and goes back to look for the coyote. They don't find any coyote, but the do find a pretty decent 8 pt. that has been neck shot. GW throws the deer up on the tailgate and acorns go everywhere. Buddy #3, a real wise acre, says "Dam, would ya look at that, that ---dammed deer's been eatin acorns just like that coyote we threw out whalla go" All minors except 1 got off with a little community service. Buddy #1, who wasn't a minor, was our starting middle linebacker and quick guard, got bailed out by the head football coach because his dad was gonna leave him in there, and he would have missed a very important district game the next night. They all learned their lessons, best I can remember....

When I was a kid we had several "runnin' leases" but as I got older I got too winded to run anymore when the landowner showed up unexpectedly.

Nope not me never, not even once, and if I did I would call the game warden and confess my guilt.

Couldn't agree more thats the way I roll too, shame on all you other unethical hunters

I hunted to EAT in college. Had just enough money for some potatoes and veggies. No license. No limits. It was up in Pennsylvania... the shed served as a freezer cuz temps were sub-zero. Corn field behind the trailer I rented was fortuitous. I stopped when I had enough to feed me for the rest of the year. On the plus side, I never wasted anything I shot. This was 30 years ago. I done been re-ha-bill-i-tated since then!

A long time ago I jumped out of a truck with a knife on a deer no it did not work. I blame it on the beer.

When I was probably 13 or 14 I went up to my Grandma's farm in Iowa. I'd grown up in a household that was very overbearing and stifling to what our interests were, one of mine being hunting. Up until that point my only hunting exposure was looking at the free bass pro catalogs I could get. Looking back it was my mom who was the kill joy.

Well this particular trip my mom wasn't there so my dad said "what the hell, if you want to hunt then being up here is your best bet". We went to Walmart to get a youth license but it was denied because I didn't have a hunter's safety course done. After reading the manual I grabbed I saw a clause that said something to the effect of immediate family didn't need a license to hunt family land. So I called my uncle up and went to his seperate farm under the ruse that if a GW stopped us he was my "father" since we shared the same last name. I borrowed his 870 but didn't get any pheasant though.

I did however go squirrel hunting the next day back at my Grandma's farm and probably got more than the legal limit. I even had to beat one to death with the 870 because I shot him as he was jumping and didn't kill him. I don't really feel bad about it because for once I got to do something I was interested in, but i digress poaching is poaching.

These days I'm very by the book.

born and raised deep in the sticks of East Tx.... don't think any further explanation is needed.



edit: may have had a little alky-hol involved, but have seen an instance where ppl were debating the age of a buck and whether or not it was old enough to shoot...despite the use of a Qbeam. And seen worse.

Some of you are some law breaking SOB... Personally, I plead the 5th on this thread!

I didn't do it! Nobody seen me do it!! You can't prove a thing!!!

I grew up with less then most poor people. We didn't have any help from the government because dad wouldn't go for that. We ate every thing we killed. Lets just say that between the ages of 13 to 17 I killed more deer than most every one on here combined. We ate ever bit of it and was glad to have it. I don't need to do that anymore. But I still cant frown on someone to heard for poaching IF they are feeding their family.

I have run into more GWs than the odds would allow. Not that I mind because they have all been really good people. But almost each time my son or nephew (or both) has been with me and being honest with the law has been a relief for me and lesson (I hope) for them.