Buck Hollow Sporting Goods - click or touch to visit their website Midwest Habitat Company

Tis the season for shed poaching!

Sligh1 said:
Question for you guys…. Can we STEREOTYPE a certain age range of dudes generally doing this and any other commonalities? Or isn’t there any and it’s too broad?
I won’t say too much as want total spontaneous thoughts…. What’s ages & your ideas of who, why & what “type” of guy might trespass or poach?
Click to expand...
In my experience it's more of a personality type than an age. I've seen/heard of it from teenagers to eighty year old's. If there is any generality it is higher in the younger age group but that is likely the case for any generation. We are normally more brazen in our youth and not as good at making decisions. High speed car wrecks, fights, thefts, etc. all tend to have a higher occurrence rate in the 15-35 age group than 45-65. Maybe we just get more tired :)
 
JNRBRONC said:
Steve Snow busts shed poachers
Click to expand...
Wow! people are nuts!

In PA it was illegal to pick up sheds about 20+ years ago, stupid, when I asked a warden about the reasoning, he stated the wildlife benefits from shed antlers! Now it's become a big-time thing and we're getting trespassers all the time, scum bags.
 
Sligh1 said:
Question for you guys…. Can we STEREOTYPE a certain age range of dudes generally doing this and any other commonalities? Or isn’t there any and it’s too broad?
I won’t say too much as want total spontaneous thoughts…. What’s ages & your ideas of who, why & what “type” of guy might trespass or poach?
Click to expand...
To me, the "casual" trespasser that I was attempting to describe is older, 50+, and lives close to the land in question. They tend to remember the good old days, back when everyone kinda traipsed all over the place looking for mushrooms, hunting, etc. They remember who used to own that land...as in 20+ years ago. They tend to not "get it" when it comes to someone owning it now that does not want human activity in the deer woods, etc.

The "real" trespassers know what they are doing and I would put most of them in the 18-35 age range, tilted towards the younger side of that range. They can be strategic and stealthy in their trespassing, using maps to identify food plots, likely artifact locations, etc, to then target for their forays and can sometimes wear masks or bandanas, etc, to conceal their identity.
 
This dude was like 78 years old so he’ll fall under the back in the day we used to go and hunt wherever we wanted. The younger generation yeah they just do it for validation and likes on social media to pad their ego’s. But in all reality, I don’t think it is a generational thing per se, greed and jealousy have been around since the beginning of time. There are very few selfless people left in this world sadly.
 
Agree with you all!!!
In my experience… spot on with what others said. 18-35 years old. A few exceptions. I’ve been around the block way too many times now. I’m guessing I’ve known, caught or seen 50+ dudes get busted shed poaching or poaching period. Pry 50/50 split. Dudes in 18-30’s…. Adrenaline rush, druggies, SOCIAL MEDIA & bragging desires. Jealousy & bitterness towards those with “great farms”. Or maybe addiction to horns/deer & once they get going - crazed & gets so bad they go down in flames….. big bust. & ya, the famed beating with Snow was on the corner of my farm. ;). I won’t get into that but that dude had it coming …. Literally got caught & then started a fight. Didn’t end well.

The older dudes I’ve seen…. Same as above… “I been hunting here forever. Screw u guys buying land.” Or dudes that are white trash & got nothing to lose. Take their license - some of em kept going. Curious how often the older guys that do it have alcohol involved?!?!

My area gets groups poaching pry a bit worse than normal. 4 examples…. We caught dude bout 5 years ago…. They nailed him on 47 poached bucks & pled guilty to all 47…. Bet it was really 100+. Dude in late 20’s that was a meth head. About a $35k fine I think & other penalties.
Another similar case maybe 15 years ago…. This guy got pinched with over 100 bucks he poached and pled it down to like “5” or something way more minor. 2023 season we found bucks with crossbow bolts within 100 yards of road. Same year or year before…. Out of stater was shooting em with thermals. It’s crazy the stuff that goes on. I could keep listing stuff too!! Could drive a dude crazy… but all I do…. Screen my road, cameras “all over” & patrol a lot. (And throw guys we catch in the woodchipper but keep that on DL ;) ) We keep tabs on it but after common sense stuff like cams, etc - I honestly don’t let it bother me or stress me out. But ya, catch a dude- he’s gonna be famous. :)
 
FWIW, somewhat related...I listened to the recent Don Higgins podcast today and he made reference that he had been in Iowa last week on some primo properties is S. Iowa and over the course of the days that they were out on the land they found ZERO sheds. Don found this very odd, but the feedback from the client(s) was that they have a real shed poaching problem. Yikes!
 
Oh- I even forgot!!!!! Central Iowa on here…. He catches a dude on his land, IN HIS TREESTAND maybe 10-15-ish years ago. Down road from me. Busted & prosecuted. The guy responsible (gets his pals/outfitting clients dropped off) buys land across road from me. Amish. Guy had his driver drop him off on all sorts of farms. He was always asking Neigbors “so, u gonna be around this weekend?” Shot 2 bucks that lived 5-10 miles away on guys farms that found out “he asked if I was around, I know he shot that buck here & here’s trail cam pics on my farm day before he shot it” or whatever... He got pressed “no, that buck must have just traveled a lot during the rut!”
After that he hits me up “so, u gonna be around this weekend”. I said “_______ , I know what u doing. U step foot on my farm, u going in woodchipper that’s next to my pond. Fish food. Maybe they find parts of your wool sweater & some whiskers”….. enough folks told him the same & he sold & moved on. :)
Oh man, this thread is bringing up all sorts of nostalgia!!! To be clear: 90% of hunting - I love it. The 10% is the minority but dang there’s some real paint huffing glue sniffing low-lifes that cause some major headaches at times!! Even if they are citizens…. Wish we could deport all of them! ;)
 
As of now, I have SO many miles of prime riverbottom properties to hunt/ shed hunt, it would take a solid week/ 8 hours a day to walk.

Few if any walk for sheds here. Course, we seldom get bucks here past 160".

Snow here is going FAST these last 4 days. Will try n put some miles on soon.

Best day ever was maybe 25 years ago and found 28.
 
I’ve heard several people already say this year they havent found a single shed- on primo ground too.
A story that I know- local group would get all of the out of state hunters they could get to hunt with them- they would drop them off on one side of a section and tell them “yup we have permission on all of this” and send them walking. They walked county refuges, the DNR officers land, all kinds of no go places. About 7 years of that before they finally got enough people busted to stop doing it.
Its amazing to me the people who intentionally trespass anymore- social media craze
 
When I secured my rednecks blinds for the year i found where someone had been hunting out of one of them. A couple of windows were unlatched and curtains were not how I leave them..I think guys were coming in at night with thermals..Possibly the shed poachers we caught a couple weeks ago. I just wonder how much poaching goes on that landowners never know about.
 
tall@wide said:
When I secured my rednecks blinds for the year i found where someone had been hunting out of one of them. A couple of windows were unlatched and curtains were not how I leave them..I think guys were coming in at night with thermals..Possibly the shed poachers we caught a couple weeks ago. I just wonder how much poaching goes on that landowners never know about.
Click to expand...
Man, that is wild. Sure makes you wonder.
 
To deter people, since some people suck, I don't leave any stands out on PRIVATE ground. Kind of stinks, but it is what it is.

Almost glad the properties are in areas that aren't known for huge deer and are fairly open so that trespassers don't feel real safe hidden by trees. Bummer for those in southern Iowa.

Trailcams/cellcams should be a deterrent, but I guess some lowlifes are willing to risk it and/or try to hide their identity.
 
tall@wide said:
When I secured my rednecks blinds for the year i found where someone had been hunting out of one of them. A couple of windows were unlatched and curtains were not how I leave them..I think guys were coming in at night with thermals..Possibly the shed poachers we caught a couple weeks ago. I just wonder how much poaching goes on that landowners never know about.
Click to expand...
That’s crazy! I always wondered how many big deer get popped by these thermal “coyote” guys!
 
tall@wide said:
When I secured my rednecks blinds for the year i found where someone had been hunting out of one of them. A couple of windows were unlatched and curtains were not how I leave them..I think guys were coming in at night with thermals..Possibly the shed poachers we caught a couple weeks ago. I just wonder how much poaching goes on that landowners never know about.
Click to expand...
We had the exact same deal going on our farm. Locked all towers and that helped that crap. Now I use a drone for patrolling.
 
trophybluf@borderlandnet. said:
We had the exact same deal going on our farm. Locked all towers and that helped that crap. Now I use a drone for patrolling.
Click to expand...
Geez, I didn’t realize how bad it was kind of glad we didn’t wind up relocating to a big managed neighborhood now. I’ll be ok with just the 80-year-old farmer neighbor wandering around once in a while. Lol
 
Drones will be part of the solution to trespassing. The thermal poaching issue is going to continue to be an issue and will get worse. A friend who owns land in Ohio was telling me how many "Hunters" he know that have switched there crossbow scopes to thermal for sitting on there corn piles well after legal shooting time
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom