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Time to vent a tad...

4K views 36 replies 18 participants last post by  Love 2 Takem' 
#1 ·
Hunting on Saturday sucks...last year I had the pure pleasure of being able to hunt during the weekdays due to a contract with a Japanese company that allowed me lots of flexibility but the contract was completed and now I have a regular Mon-Fri job and being the new guy no days off yet and no flexibility and that means hunting only on the weekend. Today it was like Grand Central Station at this particular landing on the Snake but it was a holiday weekend and this was to be expected, I can handle that - I have a small rig and can set up almost anywhere and I know that extra hunters should keep the ducks moving. I was able to keep about 450 meters distance from the next closest hunting group and I was okay with where I was at except that this spot had been hunted recently and it was heavily littered, looked like Detroit at low tide.

But then...right about sunrise walking along the south bank about 100 meters away from me were 2 teenagers who talked or yelled at each other at the top of their lungs (teens by their voices and cursing). Not wanting to leave a bad hunting experience half-done they then proceeded to shot at any birds overhead even if said birds were wiping cloud out of their eyes. When they missed they yelled at each other. That lasted a good hour. They left and then about 3 hours later I hear 2 voices again (same ones? - don't know but I think so). Right after a boat had passed by I hear shots on the water in my direction and then I actually see them...and get this, their shooting at poule d'eau (oh sorry...coots) from the bank with no chance of being able to retrieve any of them and one of them is wearing an orange safety vest. I can handle the crowds but not the Junior Skybusters Club Members or the idiot fathers who let their sons go off hunting unsupervised and poorly trained. Okay...I feel better now.
 
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#2 ·
waveslider said:
Sounds like a standard day of hunting the snake river. Weekend or otherwise. If I only had a decent video camera.......

Let's see. What have I witnessed JUST in the last week:

Roughly 30 road hunters. Stop on road, jump out, shoot duck (or coot) and then wonder in amazement as it drifts away from you in the current. Its a river **** nut, when you shoot a duck, its going to float downstream.

Trolling motor jump shooter. (BTW, I have your boat numbers- you're screwed)

Shooting from a moving boat going around 20 mph.

20 mins early shooting (today).

15 mins late shooting (Monday)

Waaay, waay over-limit and still shooting. (You're screwed too)

Standing in back of moving pick up, with loaded gun looking to jump shoot ducks or quail.

Coyote snares placed on private land without the owners permission.

Pretty standard week actually.
Geez, sad state of affairs. There is hope...once the low temps start getting down to the teens or single digits then that should weed out the half-wits with all of their sins. But I have to say, "...wonder in amazement as it drifts away from you in the current." is too funny, I about spit out my milk.
 
#3 ·
Geez Waveslider you could be an "in" for the game warden/fishing game with they stuff your encountering. but then again i look back at this last few weeks and seems like i encounter the same sorta issues. which i hope you do report these kinds of things even though they may not catch them right then and there but they'll at least know about what has gone on in the area and can maybe monitor it better and catch them a second time. what I've learned is that if they get away with it once they'll do it again for sure. and really id like to see fish and game more often at least down on sportsmens accesses i sometimes dont think they make and appearances. I could care less if they come check me because I'm an ethical hunter that I have nothing to worry about when i go out hunting.
 
#4 ·
waveslider, just making assumptions but you must be down towards blackfoot. was down there over the weekend for the holiday and was shocked at how early the gun shots were going off on the river before shooting hours. had permission to hunt a private field that isn't to far away and at least 20 minutes before legal shooting hours the first shots went off, not just one or two either it was more like 15 or 20. heard boat after boat running up and down the river as well. I would have been pissed with all of the crazyness, but as mentioned, and as i have seen before, just another typical day on the snake river. hope everyone has had a great first half of the season.
 
#6 ·
I am with you guys, there is legal and then there is ethical and they don't always overlap, where one leaves off the other has to take over. I am relatively new to water fowling and believe that I am teaching my son the right way to hunt. Has it always been like this in this area? I wonder if the popularity of duck dynasty and the like has turned our tradition into something of a spectacle. I believe the the duck commander show portrays ethical water fowl hunting, but I also believe that the popularity of the sport/tradition has bled off into people who are just wrapped up in the image of the crazy ******* just blasting the crap out of everything that moves. I believe that when the fad fades away, all these infidels will go with it - at least I can hope.
 
#7 ·
I think Love 2 Takem' has a point. I am sure the DD reality show has an affect but also consider the fact that some of these younger guys have more disposable income and they run off to buy the big jet boat, camo, shotgun, beer, and gather up all his buddies and wreck general havoc on the nearest river (and no disrespect to you ethical hunters who also have a jet boat, camo, and shotgun). Reminds me of the scene from "Crocodile Dundee" when he encounters the group of city-folks who have the big truck and lights and go off drunk shooting at kangaroos. When you have Cabela's and other sources locally (which is nice) plus hundreds of internet sites access to hunting gear is immensely easy. However I think the biggest difference is this....most of us posting here has probably hunted as youth and have been trained by our old-school dads, uncles, and older brothers (all 3 in my case) and to me this is the biggest deficit in these crazy hooligans that we are faced with. I started going out with Dad in SE Louisiana at age 6 and at age 10 I started hunting with him and the group with a 20-guage single shot. I hunted with them for 5 years before Dad would let me hunt anything or anywhere alone (squirrels, rabbits, ducks, etc), by then I had a good foundation of what to do and what not to do. We were lucky then, we had permission to hunt a privately owned 1 square mile marsh area and then we leased an adjacent 1 square mile and except for a couple of incidences we did not have the local public running all over us (fortunately that part of Louisiana had tons of places to go). It would help that Idaho G&F were around a bit more. Last year I had 20 hunts and only saw a warden once and he was busy repairing his boat trailer and did not ask to check us. Wave is doing the right thing, we all need to be vigilant.
 
#8 ·
About 100 game wardens in the state each covering about 1000^2 miles. They can't be everywhere all the time.

Citizens Against Poaching Number: 1(800)632-5999 like waveslider does get a license plate number, boat number, description of the vehicle or people, any and all details you can. Then call!
 
#10 ·
since we're on the subject of venting. another thing to vent about is tonight i was set up in a nice area and after im set up a group of guys come in and set up no more than 50 or 60 yards away from me. didn't care on what i had to say, or didn't think "oh well since he's set up there we should go down further." then the whole time they're throwing out hail calls like they're in a flippin championship calling contest and flaring off every duck that flew by
 
#11 ·
Why is it that this kind of behavior seems to be more common this year than in the past. I drive an hour to get to an area that is a couple hours out from the population centers here, due to the fact that over the last couple of years the 1A's and 2C's have really flooded my hunting spots closer, but this year, its getting crowded out there as well, even during the week. Had guys set up on us twice- I'm trying to get out with my son, and later this year with my daughter and have an enjoyable hunt, and to have some jerks come in 15 minutes before light and set up 75 yards away, or 100 yards away directly across the river from you is pretty frustrating.
 
#12 ·
Hmmm. I'm thinking I know where this poor behavior is happening. I hunt the Snake between Melba and Marsing two plus days a week. I saw some bad examples of sportsmanship on the river around the Givens Hot Springs area on the Owyhee side; skybusting, no effort on cripples, yelling, and littering. Even picked up some cripples that had floated down to me along with the spend shells that drifted down. Same two weekends in a row. I guess the answer is to stop in and talk with them this weekend.
 
#13 ·
Seems like this is happening everywhere. I hunt a few different spots on the Boise and multiple spots along the Snake from GF to the Oregon border and I've seen pretty much everything described in these posts all over on both river systems. It's not specific to any one area, there are d-bags everywhere. Insane amounts of garbage, unethical shot selection, poor ethics regarding how close you set up to other people and shooting at birds working other setups, disregard for legal shooting hours, etc... But the worst has to be the "lost" cripples. Why you would bother to duck hunt without the proper means of retrieving your birds is beyond me. Understandable that it could happen on a RARE occasion on the Snake due to the size of the river, but the number of cripples I've seen left on the Boise is disturbing.
 
#14 ·
fetch21 said:
Seems like this is happening everywhere. I hunt a few different spots on the Boise and multiple spots along the Snake from GF to the Oregon border and I've seen pretty much everything described in these posts all over on both river systems. It's not specific to any one area, there are d-bags everywhere. Insane amounts of garbage, unethical shot selection, poor ethics regarding how close you set up to other people and shooting at birds working other setups, disregard for legal shooting hours, etc... But the worst has to be the "lost" cripples. Why you would bother to duck hunt without the proper means of retrieving your birds is beyond me. Understandable that it could happen on a RARE occasion on the Snake due to the size of the river, but the number of cripples I've seen left on the Boise is disturbing.
It is happening everywhere and it's not just waterfowl hunters. I primarily hunt pheasant and quail. There's not a field I walk through that I don't pick up empty shells and garbage. It's also pretty obvious why there are fewer and fewer private land owners willing to let hunters on their property.
 
#15 ·
jdinid said:
fetch21 said:
Seems like this is happening everywhere. I hunt a few different spots on the Boise and multiple spots along the Snake from GF to the Oregon border and I've seen pretty much everything described in these posts all over on both river systems. It's not specific to any one area, there are d-bags everywhere. Insane amounts of garbage, unethical shot selection, poor ethics regarding how close you set up to other people and shooting at birds working other setups, disregard for legal shooting hours, etc... But the worst has to be the "lost" cripples. Why you would bother to duck hunt without the proper means of retrieving your birds is beyond me. Understandable that it could happen on a RARE occasion on the Snake due to the size of the river, but the number of cripples I've seen left on the Boise is disturbing.
It is happening everywhere and it's not just waterfowl hunters. I primarily hunt pheasant and quail. There's not a field I walk through that I don't pick up empty shells and garbage. It's also pretty obvious why there are fewer and fewer private land owners willing to let hunters on their property.
Yeah I don't doubt it at all. Like someone else said, it's not all that hard to understand why some people have such an unfavorable opinion of hunters. Think about who we are being lumped in with and it's pretty easy to understand.
 
#16 ·
waveslider said:
Fetch21,

You are making the erroneous assumption that these are cripples that people wanted to collect but couldn't. I literally filled my limit one day picking up dead ducks that other idiots were shooting and not even attempting to pick up and just let float down the river. .

It is NOT uncommon at all for me to add birds to my bag that float past me on the river. So much so that I carry a thermometer for that very reason. If they are still warm, I will keep them. If not, they get pitched in the tules since I can't be confident of when they were shot.

It's a foreign concept to us, but for many people that is their normal M.O.
I was trying to be optimistic that they were lost birds, not intentionally neglected birds... especially considering that most of the places I hunt on the Boise are spots that a guy could retrieve all of his birds with very little effort, even without a dog. But I'm sure you're probably right. Like you I also have added recovered birds to my limit, both cripples and dead birds floating by. Pretty annoying when you're having a good shoot and your efforts are paying off and you have to short change yourself to account for other people's birds. The thermometer is a good idea. I usually just do an inspection while cleaning and hope that I'm guessing correctly.
 
#17 ·
I sit up here in the Panhandle after we get frozen up and it is really hard (but certainly not impossible) to set yourself up for a productive hunt. I look at you guys down in the Snake River Plain with your warmer temps and higher bird counts and get jealous from time to time. And then I see a thread like this.

Fact is, although our birds are fewer and farther between up here in the Panhandle, there is so many places and so fewer people competing for them, that if you find yourself in a combat hunt you've probably been lazy in your spot selection.

I have said it before and I will say it again. I will take three birds on the strap from hunting at a spot I can enjoy in solitude any day versus going shoulder to shoulder with jackwagons for the chance to pass shoot a limit of scared birds boogeying through a shooting gallery.
 
#18 ·
I have said it before and I will say it again. I will take three birds on the strap from hunting at a spot I can enjoy in solitude any day versus going shoulder to shoulder with jackwagons for the chance to pass shoot a limit of scared birds boogeying through a shooting gallery.
Amen to that!!
 
#20 ·
I'm in North Carolina and yes, we have the same idiots here as well. One good thing is that our DNR has a 24/7 communication system. You can call at 0300 in the morning and someone will pick up. If a Warden is not on duty they can contact any Enforcement agency in the state, from local PD, sheriff dept's, or Highway Patrol. Many local sheriff deputies will respond if they are not working on something else at the time. They will take the info for citations and turn it over to the Wardens later or arrest the offender if need be. A lot of the time they will find something besides a wildlife violation, such as drugs, drinking, probation violations, outstanding warrants, all kinds of things. :hammer:
 
#21 ·
All good points here. My girlfriend and I set up Friday morning. We were the only car in the access parking lot at 630am. Come shooting light, the artillery battery of skybusters opened fire about 50 yards behind us. Birds would circle our decoys and get shot at on the outside pass to our backside. We had shooting on all sides of us. The birds were high enough that we could see them, and not one fell. We had one drake come crashing into the decoys, we took him and packed up. The rest of the morning was spent scouting. We set up on the spots where we found birds on Monday morning. The weather didn't help our prospects, and the birds never did come out of the stratosphere, but we had solitude.

Scouting and finding birds is one of my favorites parts of the game. Scouting and finding birds, then having a successful hunt is the best part to me. My willingness to scout has paid dividends for my lazy buddies who just want to shoot birds. This season especially, it seems I've had to get further and further back to find birds, and most importantly, solitude. I'm glad that this community is concerned not only about their own hunts being ruined, but about poaching and enforcement as well. The officers are busy, but they're doing their best to ensure a quality experience for all of us who abide by the rules. Remember that between Loveridge and Parma there are maybe 4 officers responsible for the whole stretch.
 
#22 ·
idaho slim said:
All good points here. My girlfriend and I set up Friday morning. We were the only car in the access parking lot at 630am. Come shooting light, the artillery battery of skybusters opened fire about 50 yards behind us. Birds would circle our decoys and get shot at on the outside pass to our backside. We had shooting on all sides of us. The birds were high enough that we could see them, and not one fell. We had one drake come crashing into the decoys, we took him and packed up. The rest of the morning was spent scouting. We set up on the spots where we found birds on Monday morning. The weather didn't help our prospects, and the birds never did come out of the stratosphere, but we had solitude.

Scouting and finding birds is one of my favorites parts of the game. Scouting and finding birds, then having a successful hunt is the best part to me. My willingness to scout has paid dividends for my lazy buddies who just want to shoot birds. This season especially, it seems I've had to get further and further back to find birds, and most importantly, solitude. I'm glad that this community is concerned not only about their own hunts being ruined, but about poaching and enforcement as well. The officers are busy, but they're doing their best to ensure a quality experience for all of us who abide by the rules. Remember that between Loveridge and Parma there are maybe 4 officers responsible for the whole stretch.
You must be better at scouting than I am... seems like every time I find birds I also find another truck or two.

That's crazy to think there are only a few wardens between Loveridge and Parma. If that's true it's no wonder guys can get away with so much.
 
#26 ·
Slidellduckhunter said:
But then...right about sunrise walking along the south bank about 100 meters away from me were 2 teenagers who talked or yelled at each other at the top of their lungs (teens by their voices and cursing). Not wanting to leave a bad hunting experience half-done they then proceeded to shot at any birds overhead even if said birds were wiping cloud out of their eyes. When they missed they yelled at each other. That lasted a good hour. They left and then about 3 hours later I hear 2 voices again (same ones? - don't know but I think so). Right after a boat had passed by I hear shots on the water in my direction and then I actually see them...and get this, their shooting at poule d'eau (oh sorry...coots) from the bank with no chance of being able to retrieve any of them and one of them is wearing an orange safety vest. I can handle the crowds but not the Junior Skybusters Club Members or the idiot fathers who let their sons go off hunting unsupervised and poorly trained. Okay...I feel better now.
Just want to say that not all 16 and 17 year olds out there are unethical idiots! I'm 16 and try my chances at some ducks or geese with my buddies every chance I get! I'm fairly new to it but I do my best to follow good ethics. There are a lot of disrespectful teens out there that have no common courtesy for other people whether they are another hunter or not! I definitely agree with you on that. However, I happen to know a lot of people my age that have a lot of respect for the outdoors! I spend a lot of time scouting birds whenever I'm not in school and just today I had people set up 100 yards down river from me who skybusted every bird that circled my spread and were yelling at the top of their lungs in between shots! Frustrating! I've been raised to be an ethical hunter but I see a lot of people that apparently haven't(people of all ages). Just thought I'd let you guys know that not all teens are the way you described above!
 
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