My latest encounters with "THE LAW"
I own some land in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. I have been feeding the wildlife all summer. I guess it is "against the law" in NY to feed deer. Well, I was visited by 2 environmental law officers (ECO's) last Sunday. I believe they were tipped off because it is a very remote parcel of land. They gave me a citation for feeding "the deer". I tried to explain that I was feeding wildlife ! I was fairly calm and am very surprised that I did not blow up as I would have in my youth. I probably would have been hauled away with arm and leg irons 20 years ago ! They made me unload the side arm I was carrying, and also went through my vehicle and found the other arms in my possession. We truly are not free anymore. The government would like to control everything including even where you relieve yourself ! These 2 officers were back in the woods over ? mile on a Sunday evening to write me a ticket ! They were so brain washed by the government that they could not even be reasoned with. They would not even listen to my side. They were robots ! I am awaiting my court date and will explain my case to the judge. I am sure it will get me no where ![:(!]
After hunting this evening (exactly one week later) at another location there was another ECO waiting by my vehicle to harass me once again. He went through everything in my vehicle also ! No tickets this time ! I have been hunting for 30 years and have never had an experience like this before. I have never even been approached by the law while hunting or fishing. Times are changing fast ! Government is tightening its grip ![V]
After hunting this evening (exactly one week later) at another location there was another ECO waiting by my vehicle to harass me once again. He went through everything in my vehicle also ! No tickets this time ! I have been hunting for 30 years and have never had an experience like this before. I have never even been approached by the law while hunting or fishing. Times are changing fast ! Government is tightening its grip ![V]
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quote:Times are changing fast ! Government is tightening its grip !
Yep, forester, they are. Troubling that so few seem to recognize this fact though.
Sarcasm on..........How dare you break such a fine malum prohibitum law and to do so while carrying a gun no less!!! Heavens, what is America coming to where people go around with GUNS.
Why would you think that you are free to use your own property as you see fit, let alone public property?[:0]0 -
Pete, I don't get it.
In Indiana you may not legally use bait for deer/turkeys. Bait is corn, oats, soybeans, mineral, ECT. Anything that is not allready there. It is OK to hunt over food plot, or over a field of crops, BUT heaven forbid you actually feed the damn wildlife!
CO's have MORE authority than any other branch of LE. Just wait, bet on them "inspecting" your freezer next. You will now be targeted for some time. CO's here are the same way. I am NOW a target because the local CO's don't like people hunting on crop depridation permits. I have gotton top numbers off the parcels I was permited on, so, in turn, that painted a huge bullseye on my back.
Myself, I put out loose mineral and calcium for the deer. I belive it helps improve herd health ( makes sense right?). The CO's wouldn't see it that way however. I don't hunt over top of the suppliments, but the definitions are VERY loose in the gamebook. "AN area is considered baited". Area? How big an "area"? The whole section I hunt? Or 100 yards square around it? No, it is left to CO's to interprit that.
As a side thought, how WOULD those CO's know if you WERE using feed, unless they TRESPASSED to see it? OH, silly me, CO's don't trespass, since they have the power of "law" behind them.[:o)][:I][B)]
Good luck on your impending court troubles. Hope it all works out well for you.0 -
The put a blanket ban on feeding here in the PRNY due to an outbreak of CWD, They seem to think that if the deer are feeding in close proximity to each other they will spread the disease much more quickly through the herd. Funny thing, though, the deer that started the CWD problems escaped from a pen, and from there spread the disease to wild deer in those management areas. They culled a major portion of the deer herd in that area, only found it in like 2 or 3 more deer but killed HUNDREDS of all age groups to "prevent the spread" [xx(]. The only way the ECOs would have known about you feeding is if someone called the tip line. But of course now that they have you in their radar, I'm sure the harrasment will continue, they'll do alot of "fishing" to try to catch you doing something to bust you for. I wish they'd spend more time busting the salmon snaggin' scumbags on the Salmon River then to give folks a hard time for giving wildlife supplemental feed............. 0 -
Thanks for your support.
Here is another kicker.....I have a camper up on blocks in the center of my land. The ECO said he went looking for me and even opened the door of my camper to see if I was in there......
It was a good thing I was not in there ![B)]0 -
Sorry to hear your trouble. This country is off the rails for sure.
As far as your court date, don't get your hopes up. My experience has shown that the judge and those other government goons all get their paycheck at the same window, and they know it.[V]0 -
No search warrant to go through you vehicle?
Constitution? What Constitution?0 -
quote:Originally posted by nyforester
They were robots !
A sign of things to come?
Oh wait.....that time is here NOW. [:(!]
Sorry to hear of your encounter with the JBT's. Like you, not that I expect a judge to be any different, but I hope your court appearance goes better.0 -
You should have told them that you are a member of the NRA and tried to work out a reasonable compromise with them.
[:o)]0 -
NY let us know how court turns out.[:(] 0 -
Don't forget to mention how your Constitutionally protected right against illegal search was violated, if the judge forgets to. Maybe mention that you are thinking of bringing suit against them for it. I bet the "authorities" might backpedal at the thought of a CITIZEN who intends to hold them to the rules designed to protect that citizen from THEM. Then again, you will have a new bullseye on your back the size of a blimp. THEY don't like individual citizens with the guts to resist. That might result in some justice and they can't abide that. The beast doesn't like it when you try to remove the plank from his eye. 0 -
Yeah, but if someone did call the tip line for DEC, they would have their "probable cause" to run roughshod over his rights. Once they have that, no judge is gonna get his robe in a twist about their tactics. I think they were just trying to tag him for hunting over bait - they don't have enough crooks they can catch breaking the law - they gotta manufacture some kind of success to keep the $$ flowing into their coffers............ 0 -
NY,......I didn't know things were getting this bad.
Hope it doesn't cause you too much of an issue.
Stay calm, and make your case.
I understand about temper, and being younger.
I am still amazed to this day that I have never been arrested.
One good thing about getting a bit older I guess.[;)]0 -
I have news for you. I have only met ONE FISH AND FEATHERS cop, as they are called in AK, that even an ounce of commonsense. THEY ARE ZERO TOLARNCE, and zero tolerance is for weak mined people who either can't or are afraid to make decisions for themselves. I have had several run ins with the DOW officers is CO.[:(!]
One came very close to being shot because he didn't realize we (my friend and I) were off duty cops. He saw we had weapons under our coats and he was inching back to try and get to his gun in his vehicle after he had litterly pushed us around and called us every name in the book when we enlightened him as to the consequences if he pointed a gun at us.!![xx(]0 -
Thanks Jim, hope he carried that lesson. I am utterly sick of those DOW knotheads. 0 -
It is illegal to feed the deer in Illinois also. The fact that the deer help themselves to millions of dollars worth of the states farmers crops every year seems to be a different matter. Personally I beleive that feeding wildlife is a bad idea even though my wife makes me keep our bird feeders full. The problem is that what you do on your own property should be nobody's business but yours. 0 -
mn. you werew a bit slow...i would have said to them as i looked in their eyes and said "i ain`t feeding deer..i own this land, and ive got a couple of pet goats that i frop food off to sometimes"...let them prove you`re lying![}:)]
it`s illegal to feed up ducks here too...i told the wildlife rangers when they tried to book me for doing it that i was`nt feeding ducks...i was feeding swans!..they could`nt prove otherwise so they had to walk off.
unless they actually caught you shooting deer over the bait, if you tell the judge the goat story you might get away with it for lack of evidence...
good luck, and don`t forget to tell us what happens.
sometimes the law sucks!..if the deer are on your property and you want to bait them, it should be your buisness!0 -
NY, provided they don't toss you in and throw away the keys, next year, find or clear a small parcel of land and just plant a bunch of corn. I don't think it's illegal to plant a crop. Kansas deer eat the heck out of it. We call'em cows with antlers. Best of luck. 0 -
I got busted a few years ago in New York for poaching (hunting without a license). They were real pricks. They walked right into my grandmothers house, went through the freezers, the bedrooms, the closets, handled a .22 I had in the closet-advised that I should lock it up. Every question he asked me, I answered another question. "How long have you been hunting here?"
"Uhh I married his (my hunting partners) niece 3 years ago."
He made me open my trunk, looked in the car, under the seats. And then he went and confiscated the deer we had in the barn. He asked me for help getting it off the meat hooks-I told him I had a bad back. Was hoping the meat hook would fall off the rafter and hit him in his head.0 -
Mayby I am missing something here, but you killed a deer without a liscensce and the game warden that caught you was the prick?
There are places where they would confiscate your gun and property for this illegal action. I am not saying that such actions are necessarly right or wrong, but most of the mistakes I got caught at, I had to pay the penalty.0 -
salzo
id say your lucky for not getting into deeper snit. i believe the game wardens have more power/authority then the local pd. and can do these searches on just a tip[xx(] uve heard of people loosing not only the deer but also the firearm used to take it and if cought in the act loosing the vehicle your driveing as well.0 -
quote:Originally posted by joshmb1982
salzo
id say your lucky for not getting into deeper snit. i believe the game wardens have more power/authority then the local pd. and can do these searches on just a tip[xx(] uve heard of people loosing not only the deer but also the firearm used to take it and if cought in the act loosing the vehicle your driveing as well.
Josh- I know it could have been worse. A friend of mine had his rifle confiscated when he was busted by a warden for walking through a "safety zone" with a loaded rifle. He was on public hunting land, and a strip about twenty yards wide, which also happend to be a trail, was within a couple hundred yads of a house-law says within two hundred yards of a house is a safety zone, hence, he was busted for walking on the trail. Later it was realized that the trail was like a "speed trap" on a highway. Many hunters would walk the trail, not realizing it was a safety zone, and the warden would hang out and bust them as they went through. He got his gun back after a long time. Had to go in front of a judge, plead guilty, and his firearm was returned.0 -
quote:Originally posted by slumlord44
Mayby I am missing something here, but you killed a deer without a liscensce and the game warden that caught you was the prick?
There are places where they would confiscate your gun and property for this illegal action. I am not saying that such actions are necessarly right or wrong, but most of the mistakes I got caught at, I had to pay the penalty.
Notwithstanding my illegal activity, the warden was still a prick. I paid the penalty, never complained about it. They got a call that there was a bunch of out of staters running a deer factory-shooting a hundred deer, and processing them. The call was made by an ex girlfriend of one of the people I was hunting uhhhh I mean poaching with. The four of us were all former New Yorkers, and we never let the state of new york know we were no longer residents- we kept buying resident licenses, and because we were out of staters, that was fraud.
It was quite obvious that there was no great deer massacre going on. We had one deer hanging in the barn, we told the warden about it right away. I could understand checking the freezer-but to go rifling through the house, with my eighty year old grandmother with a case of diarreha getting very upset-totally unecessary, and the prick knew it-it was obvious there was no factory.
My actions were wrong, I had no problem with the penalty the law required. But if I was speeding and got pulled over and the cop demanded a body cavity search, I wouldnt say a body cavity search is "OK", because I was speeding.0 -
I have yet to see a game warden or DOT cop(or weigh cop or goon squad or whatever ya want to call them)that wasn't a total dog pile. 0 -
I got pizzed off at a squirrel, on the wrong side of a tree once. He would show himself, bark at me, and round the tree he went.
After about half an hour of this, I unloaded five through my Springfield single, real fast. They were my last five rounds, and I didn't get the squirrel.
Up shows the DWF, Dept. of wildlife, and fisheries. He wants to know where my auto is. Swears I have an illegal, unplugged auto. Nobody can shoot a single that fast, he swears. Makes me wait over half an hour, while he searches. Then he challenges me to do it again. I tell him I can't, I used my last five rounds on that worthless squirrel. He followed me out, to my car. I'd bet he waited hours for me to go back to retrieve that 'auto'.
The thing is, the squirrel was still in that tree, barking at me the whole time. I hate that squirrel, and I bet he outlives me too.0 -
The problem with "Specialty Cops" is that they have such a limited scope of what they can and can't do that they take full advantage of the can do part. Game wardens, evironmental, OSHA, Shoot, even your local motor officer, (motorcycle cop). They are there for one reason and they are so focused on the ONE reason, that's all they see. And they will not, as a rule, give their grandmother a break. They are a very Special lot. Kind of like Jerry's kids with a badge 0 -
I defended myself pretty good !
The judge fined me $25.
I guess it could have been much worse.
Case closed !0 -
Not too bad, I would guess.
Was there any points involved?
Here, they assess points against your hunting privileges for certain violations.0 -
Amazing...and almost unbelieveable. There are a few good judges left, I reckon.
Good show, feller.0 -
No points of any kind were given. I have never heard of points given in NY for hunting. NY gives points on your drivers license for moving violations.
Yes Highball.....it seems almost unbelieveable. I made my case to the judge, explained everything point by point....I guess the judge feeds the deer also perhaps.....[;)]0 -
Way to go. [:D] I allways like to hear the good guys winning once in a while. I'm guessing the 25.00 was court cost. Nothing more. Congratualtions[:D] 0
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