Well it's that time of year again snow is on the ground and bucks are losing their antlers. It's a lot of fun finding a shed of a buck you were after and hope to get the next year. It's also a great time to be in the woods cause you don't have to worry about spooking bucks over to the next county before the upcoming season. But it also awakens you to how many people are trespassing through your woods. I enjoy patterning bucks and looking for their sheds to see if they made it through the hunting season. When I dedicate a day and walk through my hunting land and see that there are half a dozen tracks coming from different neighbors who have already beat me to it it is frustrating. I feel those sheds belong to the land owner and it is stealing. But people don't care just like they could care less about trespassing despite having signs and fences. Do you guys take this opportunity to follow the tracks and confront your neighbors or do you blow it off realizing it may not be worth starting a feud over some dropped antlers?
Put up no trespassing signs and some trail cameras. If you know it's going to happen, do something about it. Sheds belong to the squirrels and mice until somebody picks them up. No saying trespassing to get sheds is okay, they just don't belong to you while in the woods.
Every year trespassers take the sheds as soon as they fall, they have no respect for property lines. Dang squirrels.
Sheds aside trespassing is trespassing... call the law and track them to their house then press charges...that will put a stop to it, if you let it go it will continue..
I wouldn't stand for it, even if my relationships were good with the surrounding neighbors its still a matter of trust and apparently you shouldn't be trusting your neighbors. Its your land and you need to let them know that they don't have free passes.
Every year we have issues with guys picking up sheds on the local piece of ground we hunt. There's No Trespassing signs around the entire piece of property so it's not an issue of not knowing - they simply don't care. Last year I had SD cards taken out of 2 of my cameras by a shed poacher. I followed his tracks in the snow straight to both cameras. The first I could see he walked in front of, then went to it. The second he must've been paying closer attention and came at it from the side. D-bag. If I can manage to get out on Saturday I'm going to set a little shed trap and see what happens. I plan on putting a small shed out in the open and then hanging a camera about 10 feet up pointing down at it. I'm going to catch these guys yet. :D
Been there, done that. Unless you can catch them in the act and get the law there before they split there's not much they can do. Can't convict someone based on a few boot tracks through your food plots...
I would stop it now. It won't be long one of your neighbors will be hunting your land. Good fences make good neighbors. If it was me I would contact all your neighbors and let them know you found evidence of trespassers. Ask them to "help" keep an eye out for them and get any license plates or pictures of them so you can turn it over to the Sherriff. Maybe they will get the hint.
Ive had these same problems. Justin, thats lucky that they didn't just take the whole camera! I saw you had that on one of the BHOD episodes if I remember correctly. I hunt in Jo daviess, and the trespassing is ridiculous. I did manage to set up a camera, and caught a flydumper, a hunter, and a neighbor on our land. I was furious to see people sneaking in with a bow to our spot for a nice little sit. good thing about the fly dumper was that I got his legible license plate, and face in the same picture. Im really having trouble with my neighbors not only shed hunting on our land, but hunting. scumbags
Private property is private property and possession is said to be 9/10 of the law so sheds on your property and wild game on your property is still your property. No one has a right to poach and remove it from your property without permission, let alone be on the property in the first place. I like Whitetails suggestion above about calling the neighbor and asking for help. If I catch a neighbor trespassing, they might as well be a complete stranger. I'd give them a severe warning and escort them off the property. I don't respass on them so I expect the same courtesy in return...simple as that.
correct but you would think the GW would do at least a little detective work.. This is why I get on a first name basis with my local GWs even offer to let them hunt our leases every now and then and gave him keys to all my gates...You'd be amazed at the results you get , it does not hurt to have a GW patrol your property even now and then, his intermittent presence all but eliminated our trespassing problems.. one year we knew we had a poaching problem in the summer I went out found atv tracks and a shell casing, called the GW and he tracked him to his barn where we found the "gentleman" skinning a buck..
I've seen guys run newspaper ads about trespassers. trust me, the whole town will know that you have a trespasser. get some pa wardens, they thrive on crap like that. they will hide on your property for weeks trying to catch them.
And bear traps...don't come on any land that isn't your in JoCo...these boys don't mess around with trespassers. Your lucky to make it off if your life let alone no broken bones... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Handle it like any other trespassing case. I've had hunters come onto my spots and steal a trail camera and scent dripper. These dudes had a reputation in my area of being sleazy hunters. I caught him one morning packing up his stuff in his truck on a neighboring piece where he had permission. I didn't bother taking the nice approach and I chewed his @ss out. They no longer hunt that piece.
We had trouble not shed hunting but in back to back gun seasons we were finding gut piles on our side of the fence line with clear drag marks going back onto their side. Posted extra trespassing signs and tied a blaze orange jacket in one of our stands along the line, and mentioned it to the GW when he just happened to patrol down our street one year. Ever since then we see him at least once during the season checking in on us. Haven't had a problem since.
I would pretty upset at any trespassing, even dog walkers (which is a problem on my buddies farm in Ohio actually). Some people have no respect.
