Opinion & Comment

'Slob' hunters giving back to all who obey rules and seasons

APPALACHIAN NOTEBOOK - Steve Oden

He stood, trembling with rage, on my land with a poached whitetail deer he had killed out of season, on a Sunday morning when we both should have been in church instead of having a confrontation.

I’d heard the gun shot and seen the doe fall, tumbling down the hillside not 100 yards from my house. After easing into the woods, I saw a man in his late 30’s unload his gun and begin climbing the trail. I figured he was going to get help with dragging the dead deer.

I ran to the house and called the game warden and state poaching hot line. I also phoned the neighboring farm. My friend said a man with a shotgun had walked across the pasture and was headed to a camp down the road.

Sure enough, he was back in 10 minutes, riding an all-terrain vehicle with a coil of new white nylon rope tied to the back for dragging the deer. He had a child with him, apparently his son. An adult companion followed on an ATV.

I caught them crossing the pasture, between two “Posted – No Trespassing” signs.

“Whose land are you on?” I asked.

The poacher’s friend wiped his nose and declared, “This is community land!” He started to bluster, but I pointed to the posted signs and informed him that “community” does not pay my land taxes, bank interest, or insurance.

I pointed to the poacher and said, “I know you killed a deer. I can walk to the carcass from here, and I saw you unloading your gun. Now, y’all are headed back to drag her and load her on one of these four-wheelers.”

Yes, he admitted. He had shot the doe.

“When does season open?” I replied.

The men exchanged nervous glances.

“Do you even have hunting licenses?”

More nervous glances passed between them.

I informed them that the game warden was on his way, that gun season had not yet started, and they were trespassing and poaching on private property. “Get off my land, and don’t let me ever catch you on it again,” I warned.

The child, perhaps 10 years old, began to cry; but, they still wouldn’t give up. “What about the deer?” the shooter whined.

I didn’t want to tell a lie: “The deer on this farm don’t belong to me. I believe they belong to the state, if it is possible to claim ownership of wild animals. I can’t tell you what to do, except get off my land.”

I watched, incredulous, as they retrieved the dead deer and strapped her across the back of an ATV. They next proceeded to drive down a county road, in clear view of multiple witnesses, back to their camp with the limp carcass.

In over 40 years of pursuing game animals with gun and bow, I’ve seen the attitude of Appalachian landowners change from welcoming hunters on their property to the posting of “No Trespassing” signs on every fence post.

Unfortunately, many farmers and landowners have been forced to adopt this bunker mentality toward hunters, based on the actions of a minority of uncaring, disrespectful law breakers. I can’t blame them a bit, now that it has happened to me.

The local newspaper carried a front page headline recently at the conclusion of the week-long slug shotgun deer season. The article boasted of the 2,331 deer killed in the county, the financial benefits provided by visiting hunters who spend their money at local businesses, and of the long and proud hunting tradition passed from fathers to sons.

The reporter did not make note of the number of trespassing, poaching, and night hunting complaints lodged by tax-paying landowners and rural residents, nor did he mention the gates and fence sections torn down, dwellings and outbuildings shot up, fields rutted and driveways wallowed out by 4x4 vehicles, skinned and de-boned deer carcasses left to rot in ditches or under bridges, and the confrontations involving local citizens, including native hunters, and the out-of-town outlaws who run amok.

Many years ago, way back in the 1970s to be exact, a wildlife manager friend shared his trepidation about the resurgence of whitetail deer in the eastern United States.

“As the population of deer grows in any geographic area due to successful wildlife management efforts, so will problems. Deer hunting will break up friendships, ruin neighbor relationships, split families, and result in divorces. I also guarantee that deer hunting will turn otherwise law-abiding men and women into trespassers, poachers, vandals, and petty thieves.”

His prediction proved all too true.

Poachers have always haunted the fringes of legal hunting. In my youth, I knew poor people who hunted out of season because it was the only way they could put meat on their family’s table. Today, poachers drive new trucks and ATV’s, carry fancy firearms, and have no reason to break the law except greed and a perverse pleasure in thinking they are smarter than the game wardens and property owners.

“Slob” hunters are the name for these people. Unfortunately, their misdeeds and arrogance are painting all legal hunters with the same brush. Game enforcement officers and state conservation agencies can’t catch them without the public’s help, and we can’t stop them, period. Adults who poach – and are proud of it – are probably beyond changing. Their behavior is too ingrained.

When I think back over the encounter I had with the poacher, I remember the little boy with tears in his eyes, sitting on the back of the ATV while grown men hollered and cursed at one another. What type of example did his “role models” set for him to follow?

Hunter education is the only feasible method of reducing the growing number of slob hunters, in my opinion. Fines, revocation of licenses, even loss of firearms aren’t going to keep inveterate poachers from continuing their behavior.

Perhaps teaching hunter ethics to the next generation will help weed out the slobs. This is part of hunter education classes, sponsored in communities across our nation. I encourage parents to enroll their sons and daughters in these classes, not because this is part of the process for getting a youngster’s hunting license… but, more importantly, because the lessons taught in certified hunter education courses are based on the right, safe, and ethical principles of our American outdoors tradition.

Teach them to handle firearms safely, become knowledgeable about hunting regulations, and to treat the game animals – and property owners – with respect, and there will be fewer poachers and problems.