Ground Blinds

[fabsroman]

On the first day of gun season, the wife and I were driving to Costco along I-270 with fields on both sides. I could see hunters in blaze orange in several of the fields and then happened to notice a ground blind along the edge of a road right amongst some trees. Of course, the ground blind didn't have any orange on it.

Today, I started thinking about how unsafe that could be. If you are in a ground blind because you are worried about the deer being so close that they can see you, I think you should also be worried about another hunter shooting you when the deer is that close to you.

Hang a blze orange piece of tape, or something to that effect, on all four sides of that blind. We all like to think that accidents will not happen to us, but I read enough about them to know that they happen to everybody. Lets all try to avoid them. The deer cannot see the blaze orange. Obviously, blaze orange won't work when hunting turkey or waterfowl, but high power rifles and slug guns aren't being used then either (i.e., the range is a lot less and it is easier to see a ground blind at 40 yards versus 200 to 300 yards).

The more I think about that ground blind, the more I remember a guy poaching deer in a ghillie suit during gun season. I kept wondering why the bush was moving when there was no wind of any sort and of course figured it was because a deer was pulling on it from the other side. At the time, I didn't own binos, so I brought the gun up and looked through it. Of course, the gun had a round in the chamber. I never saw a deer, but eventually I did see the flourescent fletching on his arrows. That almost made me sick and it made me understand how accidents can and do happen to everybody.

[wrenchman]

mich has been debateing the idea as you said of makeing it manditory to hang orange or pin it to the blind.
The property owner next to us has a dog house blind he hangs a coat in the tree next to it.

[Steverino]

To be honest, I never really thought about it but it seems to make good sense.

BTW- Going along with this post, I was driving into work one morning this past week and heard a story about a farmer in downstate Clinton county that has taken to spray painting his entire herd of cattle, goats, and emus(sp?) hunter orange as he is "tired of hunters shooting his animals during the hunting season."

I nearly choked on my coffee, along with spraying my windshield. Now, first of all, Illinois is a slug-only firearm state for deer hunting so you mean to tell me that a hunter can't distinguish the game that they might be shooting 100-maybe 150 yards away?

I couldn't help but wonder if either this fella has had a run-in with locals or if the media either got the story wrong or just plain made it up.

Who mistakes an emu (sp?) for a deer and shoots it?

[fabsroman]

That is what I thought, but I took a friend of mine waterfowl hunting and he shot the farm owner's pet mallards that were the size of Buicks and they didn't fly.

[multibeard]

What are you doing hunting around live decoys. I guess if your buddy allread shot the tame mallards the CO couldn't write you for hunting with live decoys.

Like the stop and search of all hunting vehicles deal I got caught in on I-80 comming back from hunting Colorado. A fed warden saw the feathers on a dream catcher done on a white tail shed I had bought. He thought the feathers looked like goose. When he finally brought it back he said that they thought they were goose feathers but couldn't prove it so they couldn't ticket me for buying migratory bird feathers.

He admitted I had him when he said that there was no way they could tell if they were wild or domestic canada feathers.

[fabsroman]

That was my first year of waterfowling and I cannot say that I knew the laws back then. However, ignorance of the law is no excuse. The tame mallards usually stayed by a pond most of the time. The farm is about 200 acres and we were hunting at least 250 yards away from the pond. I don't know what the exact "proximity" is required to be guilty of hunting over live birds, but I think I could have made an argument on it.

The only thing I can say is that it was really foggy that day. I mean really foggy, especially down in the meadow part of the farm which was pretty well flooded. My buddy and I were hunting in different spots and he saw me shoot at a pair of mallards, a drake and hen, flying into the meadow. I missed on both shots and they entered the fog. Exactly what he was thinking I have no idea, but will guess that he thought they landed in the meadow. He disappeared into the fog and I heard three quick shots, then another two. He came to me with the ducks, two drake mallards the size of canada geese. I knew we were in trouble then.

That was about 9 years ago. Just this summer, the farm owner bought another 6 mallards, but they are on a pond at a different farm that is only 40 acres. We used to hunt that pond, but are not able to do so anymore.

I am surprised that a federal warden let you off of something. Most of the time, tickets are dolled out and you have to prove your innocense in court. That wouldn't have been a hard one to win, but usually they are a huge inconvenience. You got lucky and got one of the good wardens. By the way, how do they distinguish what a "hunting vehicle" is?

[jmarriott]

There are always "Grey Area's" in law.

If a farmer spills grain in the field from the combine to the trailer and dove or deer eat it is that considered a baited area. Do i need to go out and pick up the grain 3 weeks before deer season if it's close to my deer stand or is it ok if the spill is out of range.

Is a 14 inch bass in the live well ok if the slot limit on the lake is 10-14 inches as keepers and and 14 and over release only. What if the bass is exactly 14 inches is it not a keeper and a slot limited fish. Some wording issues exist in many laws.

If a continously burning light visable from 500 feet is needed to hunt at night. Is it 500 feet on a clear night or 500 feet on any night as given conditions provide.

I could go on.

[drummer]

Last year I heard about a guy hunting in a dove field full of sunflowers.He picked up a sunflower seed off the head and flicked it on the ground.Out of nowhere comes a Game Warden and sites the guy for "baiting", because the law says standing grain/ag crops are permissible but "broadcasting grain" is illegal.Whew.

[Deerman]

Good idea about the ground blind,I never thought about it.

[fabsroman]

Drummer,

If I was a judge and that case came before me, I think I would read the game warden the riot act. That is utterly pathetic. I would love to know what happened on that case. Poor guy probably decided not to go to Court and just live with the fine.

[drummer]

I never did find out how that came out.I agree that the judge shouldv'e socked it to the CO.This is why I avoid public dove fields altogether. (That and the fact that doves are fond of weed seeds, which nobody would question.)I Usually have alot of respect for wildlife officers, but there really are some Barney Fifes out there.

Personally, I hunt out of a wooden "deer hut", permanent blind when the deer are running the field and have no problem with an orange sticker, although a sign saying "If you can read this, your'e trespassing" might be more appropriate in my case.

[multibeard]

As far as I was concerned the whole thing about getting pulled off the interstate and having to allow them to seach my vehicle because I was a hunter was not right. They had taken over a rest area and had at least three big army tents set up to work out of.

The whole situation started off on a bad note when the guy came up with his clipboard with an attitude from the get go. I had to give him my drivers licence and wanted everyone hunting licences. He only got mine as the other guys licences were packed in there hunting clothes.

He left and then the nice guys [peons] came up and wanted to look in the back of my van. I told them the could go ahead and search if they wanted but to remember where it was so they could repack it. This is when the fed officer took off with the dream catcher.

The peons were nice guys and wanted to know if I just wanted to wait for the dog. I asked " Meat sniffing dog or drug dog?" They just chuckled. We stood around for 10 minutes before the fed guy came back with the dreamcatcher. He knew that even if they were canada goose feathers, which they were not positive of, they couldn't prove wild over domestic and he admitted that. He was really an OK guy in Nebraska from Georgia just to work this operation.

After the drug dog got done sniffing I was oked to go. I saw the jerk with the clipboard watching intently so I made sure I shook all the peons hands and tipped my hat to him as I was getting in the van. He looked ticked off and that is what I wanted.

[fabsroman]

What exactly gives them the right to search your car? Is it just the fact that you were hunting? Does the mere fact that we are out hunting mean that there is probably cause to search our car. Of course, once you gave them the okay to search your vehicle, they no longer needed probable cause.

I bet you never would have dreamed of them making an issue out of that feather. That is why I always tell LEO's no when they ask to search my vehicle if though I have nothing to hide.

At BWI airport a year or two ago, they were doing random searches of vehicles and I happened to get pulled over. Mind you, I was driving a Taurus which wouldn't be the ideal car bomb. Anyway, they asked if they could search my car and I said no. They then told me they had the authority to do so anyway and asked me for my driver's license and registration. I got out a tape recorder to record the conversation, but the LEO refused to let me record the conversation and said he would arrest me if I hit play. I told him that at the minimum I was going to record his name and badge number, that I was giving him advance warning of this, and that if he chose to speak while I was recording his name and badge number, that was with the full knowledge that I would be recording at that time. They kept me there for about 10 minutes as they "searched" my trunk, which was pretty clean, and ran my license and registration. I know they were hoping that they would find something on me.

Turns out that during an orange alert, LEO's have the power to search all vehicles entering airports pursuant to the Homeland Security Act. The warning wasn't up at that point, but on subsequent trips to BWI I noticed that they had a flashing sign warning people that vehicles were subject to random searches. I wrote Homeland Security an e-mail, which I never got a decent response to. I was also going to write the Governor a letter and inform him of the way I was treated by the Transportation Authority Police, but I never got around to it.

[rubicon]

I talked to a guy at a rest stop on the way home from Wv deer hunt who had just had his wagoneer searched by Md DNR. He had a nice buck tied on the roof and told me after they were done searching his suv they told him if he wanted to avoid this in the future to wrap his kill in a tarp so it would not be offensive. The deer was tagged from WV .
I go throuogh security on gov bases in my company van and they just have me open all doors and hood and stand aside while they briefly peer inside and they send me on through. They dont really check to see what is on board. At government buildings, they have me set my cart full of materials and tools aside and walk through the xray then go around the outside of it and get my cart without ever checking it and some of these buildings are secret service, treasury, global positioning. I love my country but it never ceases to amaze me how some of this stuff works.

[multibeard]

Every eastbound vehicle except Semi trucks were stopped on I-80 in Nebraska. Any one that had been hunting was directed into the rest area. I can't remember now if I was asked permission or told that they were going to search. I never thought about the feathers.

We were parked in the semi parking lanes. Thre were trucks with every thing that was inside laying out the length of the parking lane. They even had the meat they had laying out in the sun. My wife saw them going thru dirty underwear and even sniffing half empty bottles of booze.

Easy but costly way to look for drugs in my mind. Hell of it was the semis hauling dope sailed on thru. The more I have thought about it over the years I felt that my rights were violated by being classed as a criminal just because i was hunting.