Law and Order!

Tag Exchange?

What would you do in this situation?

Someone you know doesn't get drawn for a big game tag, but his wife does. He uses her tag to bag the animal. He even takes her on the hunt, but he does the "deed". Do you say anything?
 
THORN74, your comment about why some folks don't hunt is like refusing to use a checkbook because some people write hot checks.

Roy, cheating is cheating. Her application, apparently made only to improve their odds when she wasn't to be the actual hunter, was cheating. Bad news.

Flip side of the coin: In parts of central Texas, the legal limit on deer is much less than proper game management should allow. Way, way too many deer for the carrying capacity of the habitat. So if a hunter is out of time to hunt, but leaves his doe tags for another hunter, is that breaking of law really worth reporting? Which is more important: The law, or the habitat?

In 1967 I moved back to the old home place, 230 acres not far outside Austin. Jeeping around one night with a spotlight, I counted over fifty pairs of eyes. Way too many deer. I went on a serious culling campaign for three years. Way illegal. By the fourth year, body weights were up 20 to 30 percent. Instead of mature spike bucks and scraggle-horn bucks, I had bucks which looked like the pictures of what a deer oughta be. So which is more important: The law, or the health of the herd? Yet all I did was what any halfway-smart rancher does: Maintain the carrying capacity of the range.
 
Art Eatman
Staff
THORN74, your comment about why some folks don't hunt is like refusing to use a checkbook because some people write hot checks.
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you are correct, there is no logic to my statement at all. i never said those people were logical. The facts remain that there are people out there that use stories like that to villify hunting/shooting.

its the same people who want to ban guns because "guns kill people".... i say by that same logic we should ban kitchen knives, automobiles, and hammers, because they kill people too. logic never enters into topics like these.
 
In 1967 I moved back to the old home place, 230 acres not far outside Austin. Jeeping around one night with a spotlight, I counted over fifty pairs of eyes. Way too many deer. I went on a serious culling campaign for three years. Way illegal. By the fourth year, body weights were up 20 to 30 percent. Instead of mature spike bucks and scraggle-horn bucks, I had bucks which looked like the pictures of what a deer oughta be. So which is more important: The law, or the health of the herd? Yet all I did was what any halfway-smart rancher does: Maintain the carrying capacity of the range.
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I don't know Art, where I agree that you did a better job of managing the herd than the state was doing, if you would've been caught you wouldn't have had a leg to stand on. I would assume that Texas is like Michigan......those weren't your deer. they were the states natural resource.
 
Yep, couple of things about the law that are pertinent to posts in this thread.

Not knowing the law or disagreement with the law is going to require an unusually sympathetic judge to get you anywhere in court.
 
Someone you know doesn't get drawn for a big game tag, but his wife does. He uses her tag to bag the animal. He even takes her on the hunt, but he does the "deed". Do you say anything?
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That tag is probably not transferrable, but if it is, there's no foul.

The law is broken just by walking into the field with a weapon without a license in the codes I've read. Shooting the animal is irrelevant, but still illegal (another, different infraction) so If he acted as guide, unarmed, and she transferred the gun to him at the last moment, he's still in violation.

Yes, the guy clearly broke game laws unless the tag is transferrable, and he carried it and they had only one gun. It really depends on who the guy was as to whether I'd call it in. I might, depending on his character in general.
 
I follow the letter with what I'm involved in, but have to admit I've heard of abuse with turkey hunters. We've got tons of turkey in my part of the country, and particularly 8 or 9 years ago would see 400 plus at one point in the Spring before they were broken up. The state still charges for individual tags, and won't grant depredation permits. Must be a great money maker for them. This has driven many landowners to "taking on the thinning down of the population" with great gusto. I've been suprised at the self admonition from some landowners that admitted to killing dozens if not hundreds of birds. They're really considered a varmint here and where we have them, the quail population (native), and pheasant (been here longer than the turkey), seem to suffer in numbers. There certainly seems to be a double standard. They may be the states birds, but they are trashing our wheat, corn, milo and especially beans. Farmers and ranchers that consider this their livelihood seem feel like they can ignore the legal implications.
 
In missouri, and I think, most states, a landowner whose property or real estate is being damaged by game animals can apply for dispensation and address the problem himself. In missouri, you have to do it under guidance from a game officer, and nonlethal avenues are explored first. Just like relocating a trash eating bear.

The conservation department here would probably suggest various methods to chase the turkeys off, such as destroying nests, and so forth, before allowing indiscriminate shooting. Geese in some cities are being handled like this.

A farmer who can prove that he is suffering genuine damage from deer could live off of venison all year, legally, but that agent won't give out the dispensation unless he can prove that the deer herd is huge, and that the damage to his crops is really extensive.
 
I know that in Texas, the game laws for deer came from the early years when the herd had been badly depleted by over-hunting in the the years before game laws. We had a two-buck limit, period.

As herds expanded, the laws remained. Then, with the breakup of a lot of the large ranches and the beginnings of the "ranchette" craze with cessation of hunting in many areas, the herd began to expand in dramatic fashion. A reduction in active farming for cotton played a part as well.

I spoke of the overpopulation on the family place in 1967. Twenty years earlier, even seeing the track of one deer was a rarity. Actually seeing a deer was an "Oh, wow!" event.

This last twenty years has seen much more of a scientific basis for our game laws. Even so, we have areas where a bounty on does and year-around hunting wouldn't hurt a thing for a year or three.
 
"What would you do in this situation?

Someone you know doesn't get drawn for a big game tag, but his wife does. He uses her tag to bag the animal. He even takes her on the hunt, but he does the "deed". Do you say anything? "

Where i am there are two seprate things. The Tags and the licsence. If you buy a Licsence you can party hunt with some one with a tag. so that would be legal.
 
When I started big game hunting here in Colorado a few years ago, I actually read the regulations cover to cover while sitting at an airport. Although some rules seem to be more political than logical (e.g.: why are sabots so wrong for muzzle season?), most make obvious sense and the majority fall into the camp of "common sense." No shooting after night fall? Duh. No shooting at or across a road? ok. Wearing orange? sure.
The scary thing about most of the rules that occurred to me as I read them is that probably these rules were first written down b/c at some point someone actually broke these basic rules of sense.
 
I read the regs cover to cover every year and follow them closely. Would I take a shot a little early? Heck no, with my luck there'd be a game warden right around the bend so I would be patient and preserve my hunting right.

Would I snitch on someone else, or snitch on the guy who took a Deer with his Wifes tag? That would be insanity, these people are my friends and I'd like invited over for the BBQ!

I am not a cop, game warden, judge or jury. Thier alleged crimes are between them and those in authority. I do excercise common sense. I have small gamed with the kill everything type, I have said hey don't shoot that hawk that's stupid you're not going to eat it and they are protected...He didn't shoot. If he did, I still wouldn't have snitched him out. I just wouldn't go small gaming with him any more.

I've come close to taking a Deer out of season with no tag before. For food. Some work came in and I did not but I would if the family was hungry.
 
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I'll answer this way. I don't get bent out of shape seeing a person going 5 mph over the speed limit. I do it myself occasionally. Same goes for seeing a person drinking a few beers and then driving if it appears that they are all right. Now change that to a guy going 20mph over in a school zone or driving while drunkenly swerving all over the place and I'll get bent out of shape and call the cops. Game laws are no different. I'll save the getting bent out of shape for minor things to the "busy bodies and holier than thou" types.

LK
 
My Papa used to say "A man knows when he has done wrong and the Lord knows when a man has done wrong .... It ain't about getting caught or not, it is living with yourself at the end of the day." I translate that into "Integrity is doing right, even during times that there is nobody there to catch you doing wrong".
 
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