A few years ago, Master Officer Toby Jenkins and I interviewed a young man that Toby had recently charged with several hunting violations. He took a liking to Toby and offered to give us some insight into the mind of a poacher. He talked almost nonstop for nearly two hours, telling us story after story. Ironically, Fred Weisbecker and I had issued this man his first wildlife citation when he was only 16 years old. The words are his own.
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I remember one time sitting against a tree and the woods were quiet. I mean, not a single sound – the deer season was closed. And I heard, SNAP, you know like a stick breaking. Well I was up and running like hell, I didn’t even look back. I passed my buddy and he’s up and running, he didn’t ask why. Must of run a quarter mile before we stopped – out of breath. It might of been a squirrel, it might have been the warden; I don’t know. We laughed our ass off afterwards.
The thing I don’t understand is why we ain’t been caught
more often. I mean, we are careful most
of the time, but every once in a while, we do something so stupid that afterwards
I’m like, “Damn that was dumb.” The
wardens, they try to think like us, like me.
But that’s all wrong. I don’t
think like a poacher; I think like a deer.
And a big buck can be had, but most often he slips away.
How many deer have I killed? I don’t know exactly – a shit load. One year, in one week, I killed eight or nine
nice bucks. I not talking about scrubs;
I mean nice bucks. That year I figure I
killed 25 to 30 racked bucks. There were
some scrubs and does too, but I don’t really count them. I was working a four-day a week job that fall
and I had time to work on them. I would
get with my buddies and they would say something like, “There’s supposed to be
a big buck using over in such and such field.”
I would smile and say, “There WAS a nice buck using over there.” I hammered them that year.
Most, well maybe not most, but a lot of the deer I have
killed were during the daytime. Not that
I’m opposed to shooting one at night.
But, I have never used a spotlight.
A man that uses a spotlight is begging to be caught. A million-candle power – hell, you can see
something like that for miles. That
light fans out but it narrows back to where it comes from and points directly
at the man holding it. That is pure
stupidity. We can hit most fields with the truck headlights.
Unless they have been shot at, deer, even big bucks, will
just stand there if it’s headlights.
See, they’re used to cars moving up and down the road. Remember, you’ve got to think like a
deer. Even if they have been shot into,
they will usually hold if you hit them with just the edge of the lights. But swing the lights around full on them and
BAM - they are in the bushes.
It’s during the rut that deer get stupid – that’s when I
get stupid. I have seen bucks that
couldn’t be run off. I was heading over
to a buddy’s house one fall. I popped
over the hill and saw six or seven deer in the back of a field. So I went a ways up the road, hid my truck,
and slipped back along the edge of the road to the field. About half way across the field, maybe 250
yards, was a power pole with a clump of brush around it. I put that between me and the deer and worked
closer.
I got to the pole and scoped the deer. There were two bucks fighting. One was a nice eight-point. The other was a scrub. It is a long shot, 250 maybe 300 yards. I braced against the pole and BOOM, the eight
point folded up. The scrub just stood there. He walked around the big buck and was like,
“I kicked your ass old man; get up and I’ll give you some more.” Kind of pissed me off, so I rolled his ass
too.
A buck can be patterned.
It’s just like the magazines say.
If I see a buck, or somebody tells me they’ve seen a buck using in a
field at such and such time, I’ll be there the next day. If I don’t see it, I will start adjusting,
trying to figure out when it’s using.
My buddy heard about this big ass buck using this certain
field. He went down there two evenings
in a row - no deer. The next day he was
there from 12 noon till dark. No
deer. Next day he shifted, daylight to
noon. Still no deer. So he decided it was moving at night. He watched that field from sunset to
midnight. Still no deer. Now it’s getting personal, you know what I
mean? So there’s only one more section
of the day to watch.
It was a full moon night.
He hid his truck and eased out to the edge to the field. He’s got this big scope that gathers a load
of light. It wasn’t thirty minutes,
12:25, when that buck bounced down the bank into the field. BOOM, he rolled his ass. Took him nearly a week, but he got it.
See, that’s how it is.
If we get on a deer, one of us is gonna kill it. There’s about four of us that hunt together;
not all at one time but mixed and matched.
There’s a little competition, you know how it is, so if one of us gets
on a deer, sometimes the rest might pile on just to piss the other off. Kind of like kids.
We’ve been accused of killing deer and leaving them. I usually try to get them out. Daytime - nighttime, it doesn’t matter; it’s
basically the same. If I pop one with a
big gun and it’s like BOOM, you might as well go hunt for it. If it’s hit hard it will drop right
there. And with all that noise rattling
their windows, everybody in the community is awake. Somebody is on the phone calling the game
wardens or deputies. Might as well drag
it out and get the hell out of there.
If I use something small, so there’s not as much noise,
like a .22 magnum, I will usually come back later. With the smaller calibers, deer tend to run a
ways and you have to hunt for them. I
would rather let it cool down, you know see if anybody shows up, before I
start traipsing around beside somebody’s house at 3:00 in the morning.
But if it gets hot, like if I think somebody has called
on us or saw us, I ain’t coming back.
Leave it laying and forget it.
Now if it has a big rack, I might show up a couple days later and try to
saw the horns off, but the hell with the rest of it. That’s how I got caught this last time.
Sometimes, if I get a new gun or work up a new load, I
might pop one just to see how good the load is.
Or if it’s a ways off, I might shoot just to see if I can hit it. One time we were riding around and I saw this
doe in the back of a cutover. I had just
bought a .338 – a hell of a gun. I told
my buddy to stop, that I wanted to see what my new gun would do. I laid it out the window and BOOM. I was watching through the scope. That deer’s ribcage caved in and blood flew
out the backside. It had been raining
and water sprayed in the air. And then
there was just steam where it had been standing. It was awesome.
The only other time I will leave one is if I need to send
a message. I was with my buddy one day
and this little doe runs across the road in front of us. He said, “I asked that son-of-a-bitch that
owns that place to hunt. Said he didn’t
let outlaws hunt. Roll that one and let
him know we were here.” So I lay it out
the window - BOOM. A calling card.
Another of the guys had been hunting this big buck. Everybody had seen it. It fed under this apple tree almost every
afternoon. We could never get a shot at
it because there were so many people up and down the road looking at this deer. Anyhow, my buddy rolls through there late one
night and there it was under that very same tree. He dropped right there. It was big bodied and he couldn’t drag it to
the road by himself. So, he caped it out
and left the rest under the tree. The
next evening, folks were through there to see the deer and there laid the body
- no head. Everybody knew it was one of us.
It’s kind of hard to explain why we kill so many. I guess everybody has their reason. But, me?
Well, it’s kind of like sex. You
know how the first time you get some and you thinking, “Damn this is some good
stuff.” And your very next thought is,
“When can I get it again.” It’s the same
thing. Once ain’t enough, twice ain’t
enough. There’s no such thing as enough.
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