Poachers

pheasant sniper 1

Well-Known Member
Trying to take me moobs down a cup size :oops: ive been enjoying running in the grounds of a private estate near Wareham and have permission to be there..

Driving in i could see the Police chopper overhead but didnt think much of it however when parking the car i was met by a young lady that explained three cars were on site and two of which were armed response vehicles..

Apparently the place is over-run with poachers and somebody had reported shots in two diferent directions..

The estate is 350 acres

Well that put paid to my run so i stood around gassing to the very nice young lady instead who explained the chopper had been there over an hour..

No run and no phone number - :evil:

However it has had me thinking of the scenario when an armed police officer comes face to face with an armed poacher

Terry
 
It would be nice to see the police actually do some good. Unfortunately they don't seem to make much difference where poachers are concerned.

I have a beautiful ground that is a true roe paradise and had a buck that was my honest chance of a medal that I was getting ready to take. There's always decent bucks there but this fellow was really choice and the best i've had on there. Two seasons ago and early on in the season I was stalking down from the farm where I park as usual and heard the boof of a bigish suppressed rifle up the woodland a bit. I carried on but saw nothing and no signs of anyone or deer.

The next night I was out and late on at the start of darkening I clocked this prick and rifle with can up over the other side of the open ground in the tree line fringe spying the other way up the wood. He was in good gear as if he should have been there. No one else shoots my ground or the next farm either since that's my perm too. So I headed on to get this guy mad as hell because this git was after the deer no question.

He saw me and legged it, I was so angry I'd have smacked this guy but he disappeared off through the wood towards my other perm and that was that. I went straight back up to the farmer and told him what had happened and he had said he thought this guy might have been on before but he had though it was me and that I had walked in from the other farm. I went over to my other perm and asked there. My other farmer knew exactly who had been walking on and it was the dairyman from the next farm over again who had driven down the track that leads to the property a few times and left after dark. They had also been loosing their hares on the ground which I hadn't shot and they wanted them left which we'd agreed. They though it was the same guy because he lamped over their fields when foxing although he wasn't supposed to.

So I phoned the police and they said they could do nothing because there was no evidence of any poaching but they would have a word. What really annoyed me was the poacher was a farm worker at a nearby farm who shoots beside my perm for the foxes and knows who I am. He probably saw deer at some point and couldn't resist a go or two at my bucks so it makes you think well who really is doing the poaching we blame the scumbags for? The absolutely heart breaking thing was on a clay shoot a few months later this guys name came up and how he'd shot this great roe buck that season. The guy doesn't have any stalking perms and everyone knew it was poached. It's really shitty when this can happen to us all and there's not much can be done unless the poacher is actually caught red handed.
 
Watch and wait then watch where he parks his vehicle. Rough farm tracks are hell for tyres and its not unusual for them to get multiple punctures 8)
 
There seems to have been a significant rise in poaching this year, I'm not seeing anything like the numbers of deer that I have in the past few years.

I've heard fairly reliable reports of whole deer (not gralloched) being sold into the afro-caribean community as bush meat at upto £100 each. One of my landowners spotted pins, blood & drag marks leading to a roadside gateway this week, so I'm feeling pretty p*ssed off at the moment.
 
I find as I get older the more forgetful I become.

I have even forgoten to move the upsidedown chain-harrows from the gateway that the poacher used the last time he visited.

1 visit to the Machinery auction £20
1 old and rusty set of chain harrows £30
Poacher with 4 flat unrepairable 4x4 tires miles from home Priceless :lol: :lol:
 
I would love to get these poacher types like these rest of us but unfortunatly they are just nasty ignorant people who would probably try to get you back.

The problem is it would be the farmer who would get it and that's just not fair. Road side stock field gates left open are a danger and damaged farm gear really costs money. Yes you can put padlocks on gates but they are too often cut off or a bit of stick gets forced into the lock so you can get the key in.

Most farmers padlock gates around towns and cities to stop people driving in, dog running and that kind of stuff.

Around cities is the worst, a farmer just ouside carlisle was telling me that he had padlocked a roadside field gate to a silage field on his way to town one time and on the way back after dark he saw the chain and padlock was gone. He stopped and had a look and down the back of the hedge and saw a car parked neatly down the field a bit so phoned the police and guess what :eek: :eek: They were there in 5 minutes and went down to the car with the farmer and caught loverboy boy racer at it with dodgy age girlfriend. Police found a set of bolt cutters the chain and padlock so nicked the **** and all was good. Parent had to come and pick up the car :lol:

I'm not saying that all boy racer types have bolt cutters for such reasons but this one definately had his favorite dogging spot ;)
 
Rangefinder said:
Watch and wait then watch where he parks his vehicle. Rough farm tracks are hell for tyres and its not unusual for them to get multiple punctures 8)
Anyone notice how sometimes a sump plug comes loose & can even drop out completely sometimes. :eek:
 
Well guys always nice in theory but just take care a lot of these individuals play with a different set of rules.
We "stopped" :confused: some pikeys several years ago that were coming on the estate, got a burned out campervan for our trouble.
You call the old bill they never turn out, so now we do the same as the cops ignore them it's not our land, and although it makes me suck through my teeth everytime I see the little sh*ts what can you do?
The fact is if I did something you can bet I'd be nicked for interferring with a racial minorities right to behave like tw*ts or some other new labour trumpted up lunacy.
They were even pointing a lamp at us while out walking our dogs a few weeks ago, called the police they "popped round" for a chat the next day, I give up not worth the hassle. :mad:
 
You cant disagree with some of the above posts when it comes to dishing out some rightfully deserved punishment.. however quite often what you get back may or may not be ten fold :evil:

Even worse the retaliatory acts may be against an unsuspecting farmer/his family or other innocent party as said above..

A true story from down south - a local fella had a dispute with some nasty b"=-!rds over land-- working his land one day he ended up dragging himself just over a mile back to the farmhouse with both legs having been beaten with baseball bats.. His fear of what may have happened to his wife drove him on..

She was okay - until she saw him

The guys who did it are well known to all-- Alibi given by mates placing them in Scotland at the time of the incident - no further action taken by the Police.. :evil: :evil: :evil:

hope i remembered that correctly..

Would somebody in the now mind putting a poll up??

Have you ever poached or something along those lines

It would be interesting to see how many members in their young, early days or whatever had poached and if so what ie pheasants, rabbits,deer etc..

Its armed trespass however you look at it..

Terry
 
I'd bet most poaching is done with dogs and snares not with guns,not that i'd know anything about it 'onest guv!, could prove an interesting poll though.I wonder how many gamekeepers started their days poaching,they've always said poachers make the best gamekeepers :)
Neil
 
Up here like most other places with good numbers of deer poaching was pritty bad but in Lancs we have a reasonable police force with Duncan Thomas leading a anti poaching drive,
They are now taking DNA of a gralloch from poaching. Then travelling round game dealers, Butchers, Pubs etc and so far 2 successful prosecutions have resulted.
They also have a help line that they do respond to with feedback if you want it and so far they have followed up all my calls and they do react quite well.
In general poachers are scum and come from the general criminal back ground and are out for anything they can get.
The some poaching prosecutions so far have caught up with well know criminals who have form from armed robbery to serious assault with all kinds of stuff stashed when searched.
So approaching them is not what I would advise but use the example of the Lancs police it is a long road but we have to keep at it.

Smithy
 
I think there is a huge difference between a few kids snaffling the odd bunny and gangs of armed thugs in 4x4's

Where I grew up we all used to roam the countryside catch trout, rabbits or the odd pheasant while out camping or playing in the woods, it was a different era, there was no knife or gun crime in the way we know of now.
We all had a sheaf knife, made bows and arrows if we did something it would be just to see if we could actually get away with it :lol:
We never burned down anyones house, broke their kneecaps, if we got a single rabbit it was a real bonus.
Although you may not have liked the cops or estate keepers you respected them and would never have dreamed of hurting someone because they chased you off or whatever.
Terry you can't even compare these mindless toe rags with how we were as kids, totally different scenario.
 
Terry
i can't and won't deny it
i poached as a child
rabbits , salmon , trout, eels, pheasant , partridge , ducks etc
but all for a reason
to put food on the table
i came from a poor family and we never had any money
cardboard in my shoes to act as a little defence from the ever growing holes in the soles of my shoes
hand me down clothing from several generations of family, even uncles and grandparents so i had some extra

by the age of eleven i had my first real paying job at the weekends
picking stones of a ploughed field prior to planting not a nice job in the rain
12 hours a day working 11 of them for 65p an hour due to my age
one days wage in my pocket the other day in the pot mother kept for bills and stuff (i am talking 1981 )
and i worked for that i can assure you
one for the pot i can except and relate too but the rest i'm afraid don't wash with me
but i certainly don't feel i should be tarred with the same brush as some of the evil beggars i hav come across in my time
that i can assure you as i never even had a dog or gun till i could afford to buy one and that was only due to stone picking
but i do know of a few realife horror stories that hav arisen from keeper/baliff meets poacher incidents
they are not nice, nor was the aftershock
 
Thanks for the honesty Stone

As a kid i was as guilty as the next and would spend numerous hours out in my canoo with my shotgun visiting the various beautifull islands we are blessed with here in Poole

Hid amongst the reed beds wildfowling it was an exciting and eventfull time

Days when your mum saw you first and last light not sat around the house overweight playing bloody computer games..

Leagleagle
agreed - we all had and walked freely around with air guns, sheaf knives and the likes and it was all good stuff for a young man..

Having shared a pint and some memorable storys with a good few members off here we are not alone..

Terry
 
Okay, seeing as how it's confessional!, I have been law abiding as far as game goes since the age of 13, but I will admit to my first cock pheasant belonging to a very wealthy Duke, whose clock tower I can still see from my present home, the same land also provided a good many rabbits along his river bank, one day doing his bunnies with air rifles my schoolfriend and I were almost bulldozed into said river by a gamekeeper driving oddly, a HA Viva van!, just like a mechanical rhino! needless to say we were both wet & minus our rifles when we got home, & a little sore from Mams backhanders :lol: (we preferred our Mams to the Keeper's, as you could still take a walloping from a Bobby those days!) :lol: Steve.
 
Is it true that if you don't know your poaching then you are not actually poaching. I have been blessed with living in an area that is surrounded by ground that is not keeperd and only the farmers are on it for a living the consequence of this is i roamed free. Taking all manner of game from rats and rabbits up to large medal roe bucks . I never cut a wire or stole a padlock and was met lots of time by farmers asking what the feck am i doing on there. My answer was always the same i am after a few rabbits and anything else i can catch, is there anything you would like me to pay attention to on your ground. Most time it was met with a yes i have so and so in such an area can you get rid.
poaching is a word that gets people up set but to me like snow there is lots of different words for it. ;)
 
L.D.G
said
Is it true that if you don't know your poaching then you are not actually poaching. I have been blessed with living in an area that is surrounded by ground that is not keeperd and only the farmers are on it for a living the consequence of this is i roamed free. Taking all manner of game from rats and rabbits up to large medal roe bucks . I never cut a wire or stole a padlock and was met lots of time by farmers asking what the feck am i doing on there. My answer was always the same i am after a few rabbits and anything else i can catch, is there anything you would like me to pay attention to on your ground. Most time it was met with a yes i have so and so in such an area can you get rid.
poaching is a word that gets people up set but to me like snow there is lots of different words for it.

L.D.G
I'm sure if it was your ground that was being poached you would look at things slightly different.

If I caught anyone on my land taking a rat or a Roebuck they would have it explained to them in my charming way that they would not be welcome there again ;)

WD
 
WD THAT IS WHY SOME FARMERS LAND OWNERS END UP AT THE WRONG END OF PROBLEMS ;) I don't have my own ground and poachers are not a problem in my area as they seem to be thin on the ground. But looking at the posts there are different opinions on what a poacher is. From the young lad taking the odd rabbit hare fox etc to the drive by thugs who are will to create conflict over the ground for me its a fine line and i never cross it.
 
Well L.D.G. what you have been doing is `armed trespass` and if you did it around here it would not be long before you were brought before the courts and fined and also possibly have your FAC removed.
Without having permission from the owner of the sporting rights you could be in deep fertiliser.

HWH.
 
Back
Top