Always a bit amazed...

[CuseHunter]

Just because something is Illegal does not make it wrong. Some of you would turn in your mother if she did not stop at a stop sign properly. If police operated in this manor, ever person doing 1 mph over the speed limit would get a ticket. Then the police would not be doing their job and would just be ticket generating every day. We all know that these official are suppose to use some discretionary and objective thinking while on the job. ECO are in the same boat... While new people in this position get a little overzealous, as they progress in their roll they will learn and prioritize.

Many examples of this exist: Hunter driving home sees a deer on the side of the road that will die from a car accident. To end the suffering he puts a bullet in the animal but this was after dark. ECO arrives and gives a ticket for spotlighting and shooting after dark. Thrown out of court.

Putting a mortally wounded animal down after dark IMO is an obligation morally. Might not be legal but my ethics will not let that animal suffer. These are some examples of how a law can conflict with what is right. And NO I will not use a knife, no way I am getting that close to a wounded animal and risking my life.

After taking his first deer Joe Smoe goes to the DEC check station, after showing the officer where he took the deer, he gets a ticket for baiting due to an apple core that is days old 30 yards from where he was hunting. Baiting ticket given to this lucky lad. Officer is just interested in giving out tickets... Who cares if the apple was 5 days old.

Many of us follow the game laws to the best of our ability and it is real easy for someone on the internet to say I would not have done that but I find that what some say on the internet is vastly different from what they would do in real life. Sometimes ethics will interfere with the law. No one is perfect but if you follow the laws to the best of your ability and use good moral ethics you should be ok. This includes following the sunrise to sunset shooting times, do not drive with a loaded weapon! (I can not believe how many people get caught doing this!) Fair chase standards apply, identify your target and place your shot!

Not everyone stops perfect for every stop sign, or waits the full 3 seconds at a camera light. And I do not think their is a single person in the world who is a perfect driver. We all make mistake, no one is perfect. Follow the game laws to the best of your ability and be safe with your weapon, your ethics should provide the rest. Be safe, ID your target and place your shot. Only hunt with hunters that share your high standard of ethics and kick out any that do not.

General NFA camp rules

1)Only smoking in the tent is from the wood burning stove.

2)No loaded fire arms at base camp.

3)No guns, knives or axe(wood chopping) after your first drink or dark which ever comes first.

4)After your first drink you are done hunting for the day, no exceptions.

5)No quads (Lost a member due to him wanting to use a quad on state land where it is illegal. Told him to find a new camp after he insisted on it.)

6)If everyone is not back by dark turn on the radio's, that includes me.

7)No politics or religion (No arguments at camp NFA this is suppose to be vacation!)

8)No excessive noise like music, I go up hunting to escape not listen to a concert.

9)Know your target and beyond, place your shot. Don't shoot at anything white or brown, that is just me with toilet paper finishing up!

10)Don't get lost!!! Get out of the woods and return home safe so we can do it again next year. As long as this happens we had a successful trip!

26 years of hunting. One bad accident which was one too many. Two people banned. One for improper handling of a fire arm and one for insisting on using a quad on state land.

One member was given a warning for taking 3 shots at a running coyote his first year. After explaining shot placement, backstop and the fact that my partner of 26 years had NEVER taken a shot I think he understood. But he left the next day, I might have been a little hard on him. But then again this was the same person who wanted to leave after one day of hunting to get back to his family, hard for me to fathom but I have no kids...

Again no one is perfect yet If you follow the law and your moral obligations you should be ok. Just wish more would follow the moral hunters code of ethics then the laws would be second nature and not needed. Wish full thinking...

Your hunting camp sounds doesn't sound like much fun with all of your formalities.

[bubba]

Curious to your thoughts Bubba. Do you think someone who loses their license for perhaps knowingly doing something illegal even cares about losing it (talking legitimate poachers here)? How many do you think continue to hunt. Lets be honest, it's not to hard to shoot a deer, skin and cut it up in your barn.

 

On the other hand, taking a licensee from someone for bending the rules to put a deer out of its misery might not be the kind of guy who continues to hunt, but also ends up giving up on hunting and no longer buying a tag.How many of these guys do you think "get back into it" after 5 years at all, and how many just hunt their private land anyhow...

 

 

Ok where to start.  There are basically two types of people who shoot deer.   

 

1. Those who willing knowingly break the law and have no regard for anyone else  (poachers etc)  

 

     Will they care of their license is pulled?  Not at all.  If they have no regard for the law why would they for that.  Chances are if they even have a license, the tags have been used several times.  This is the same as a felony convicted dwi alcoholic cares if they have a license.  Both will continue their current behavior until it is no longer possible or they kill someone.  Then maybe they will be put away where society is safe from them.  i look at this person as every time they poach a deer, they are stealing one from you and I.  

 

 

2 A hunter The person who hunts legally and ethically. Unfortunately they have a grey area in between them.  When a person gets caught doing the ethically right thing which may cross a legal boundary,  I could not begin to tell you how many go back to hunting and how many hunt anyway.  The text book definition from NY state hunter ed for ethical is doing the right thing even if you knew you would not get caught doing the wrong thing.

 

I realize you are trying to draw me into a discussion about the validity of revoking someones privileges and how ineffective it is.  My stance if a person is a law abiding citizen, they will follow the law.  If they become hardened to the system and hunt anyway, they never were that ethical or legal in the first place.  This is like the old put a guy in prison he becomes a criminal.  Personally in all the dec tickets I handled over the years, I only revoked one guys privileges.  Shooting after hours with the aid of a light loaded gun in the vehicle under the influence of alcohol, shooting across a highway,as well as possession of an untagged doe where there were no dmp's.  I am just glad no one was shot when he shot from the drivers side of the vehicle out the passenger window with a passenger with him. This was his 4th violation in 6 years.  Did I stop him from doing what he was doing? I doubt it. Well I did for the 6 months he spent in jail.  I have not heard about him since.  I think he left the area.  

[SteveB]

Your hunting camp sounds doesn't sound like much fun with all of your formalities.

 

Sounds like a great camp to me.

[BUCKANDAQUARTER]

Bubba is it really illegal to have a loaded rifle in the woods past hunting hours?

[jjb4900]

I don't know how ineffective revoking someone's license is.....I knew a gentleman who got caught with a button buck to which he had affixed a regular season buck tag  (another story in itself), he was stopped at a deer check  and caught......as a result, he lost all DEC licenses for either 3 or 5 years, problem was, he is a commercial fisherman, so not only could he not hunt, but he could not work..............got his commercial fishing license back after dumping a lot of money into attorney fees, pretty sure he learned a valuable lesson........

[bubba]

Bubba is it really illegal to have a loaded rifle in the woods past hunting hours?

 

 

Not going down that road again

[jjb4900]

Not going down that road again

way too involved, I don't blame you............much like DEC's definition of a loaded firearm reads different than the NYS Penal Laws definition of the same...........you can try to explain to people till you're blue in the face and get no where.

[d-bone20917]

Bubba is it really illegal to have a loaded rifle in the woods past hunting hours?

 

Nope.

[d-bone20917]

 

General NFA camp rules

1)Only smoking in the tent is from the wood burning stove.

2)No loaded fire arms at base camp.

3)No guns, knives or axe(wood chopping) after your first drink or dark which ever comes first.

4)After your first drink you are done hunting for the day, no exceptions.

5)No quads (Lost a member due to him wanting to use a quad on state land where it is illegal.  Told him to find a new camp after he insisted on it.) 

6)If everyone is not back by dark turn on the radio's, that includes me.

7)No politics or religion (No arguments at camp NFA this is suppose to be vacation!)

8)No excessive noise like music, I go up hunting to escape not listen to a concert.

9)Know your target and beyond, place your shot.  Don't shoot at anything white or brown, that is just me with toilet paper finishing up!

10)Don't get lost!!!  Get out of the woods and return home safe so we can do it again next year.  As long as this happens we had a successful trip!

 

 

We have pretty much the same rules at our camp if you were to remove 1 through 8.  

[NFA-ADK]

Your hunting camp sounds doesn't sound like much fun with all of your formalities.

They are general rules...  It's all about safety for the most part.  You set up a remote camp for over 20 plus years with 5-8 guys from different backgrounds and fields of work.  Then tell me what rules you have at your camp.  I would love to hear them.

1 Most of my hunters do not smoke.

2 Safety in camp is not something I will sacrifice when emergency medical help is 2 hours away.  If having a few drinks and then grabbing a gun is your idea of safety then good luck.  Not in my camp.

No fighting at base camp, with all the knives and guns a fight can get out of hand real quick.  Simple rule.

 

When you have a guy inches from death in camp may be your outlook on safety may change.  Or if you get shot at by some idiot next to your camp that figures he will target shoot into the valley you are in.  Again they are general rules and I am hunting all day so I can not enforce them all but they are known.

NFA = No Fooling Around (Polite version)

Safety is not something I will sacrifice when hunting.

[Five Seasons]

cant stand smoking. it's less about how i hate it myself and more about the stink during hunting season. during gun season we all meet at my uncles barn and few family members smoke like chimney's. is what it is, but i'm anal about scent. Not so much during gun but i hate smelling like i've been out in a bar when i've only really been in the woods.

[jesse.james]

My nikon scope pulls in more light than my naked eye does. That being said the law is the law.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

[bubba]

Nope.

 

 

your opinion but not necessarily the opinion of dec leo

Edited November 26, 2013 by bubba