The following has been going around several other forums. This "scenario" could happen anywhere, USA, Africa, India, etc. Some are saying the post is a hoax, however, it makes for interesting thought. What would your response be to such a person if you caught him on your property with "goods" in hand and he tells you the following story?

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I'been called every name in the book Unethical is the most mild of the words and pond scum appears somewhere on the other end next to the diffrent expletives. I'm too poor to own land and the money I make on my full time job is not too good. When it come time to feed my 3 hungry children I can't be messing around so state land is an option I rarely take advantage of unless I'm in a pinch. Besides I figure, I'm more likely to run into the law on state land than private land. Truth be told I' been doing what I' been doing pretty much all my 40 years of life and not once had so much as a close e encounter. I don't care whose property it is what law I just broke, what animal I killed or what time of year it is.

I'm a meat hunter with skills born out of sheer survival. Most times I know where you all hunt and when you hunt. I try to slip in and kill something for the freezer and get out. I am what our President and others calls the working poor I stole food for the longest time but after my second arrest it was clear I'd be heading for jail. I might qualify for public assistance but my pride and ego get in the way. I am a man afterall just like you only with considerably less money and standing. What little money I do earn goes right back into my children, their education and the meager house we share together. Pride and ego are hard things to let go of when it's pretty much all you have left besides the love and respect I have for my kids which helps me put one foot in front of the other each day. I pray for a better life for them when I'm gone. I pray they never know the struggle of putting food on the table that I've known.

I don't own fancy hunting stuff or the latest clothing and I don't have the nowledge of debating the latest technology because I'm not in a position to do anything about the tattered BDU's that serve as my camo. I'm just trying to survive. I don't use a gun. I use a bow. I don't want to give away my position and besides bullets cost money. At last count the same arrow in my quiver has killed 27 whitetails. Your hardwood lots and rolling hills are my supermarket but it is your place to recreate.

Trust me, I want to be like you and I am deeply sorry I am this low. I want to walk the righteous path. I don't like to slink around "your" woods, shooting "your" deer and ignoring "your" signs nailed to trees. I don't like the feeling of being discovered.

I'm not a total loser as some of you probably already think. I have asked permission of several farmers in my community who can relate to poverty but between my job, my kids and living on the edge, sometimes I must take the convenient route and kill when I can. Every animal I kill is consumed, every fruit tree shook bare, every berry bush picked clean and when there is an abandoned forest, every downed tree within dragging distance is confiscated for my woodstove. When it's appropriate and doesn't arouse suspicion. pelts, bone and teeth are sold for a few extra bucks.

I leave no gut piles to tip you off that I was there I can't help the blood trails but I reason they quickly wash away at first rain. When I do run into you in "your" woods I play the lost and innocent hunter and go out of my way to apologize for the intrusion. This usually gets me out of hot water at least once and I truly appreciate your kindness although I feel guilty about the deception. Most of the time, like the animals of the wood (and I consider myself one) I see you long before you see me and get the heck out of your way.

Off-season is the best season because I never see you. I may steal your wood but I never steal your tree stands. I steal your deer but I have never lost one and I don't kill because it's fun or I have a tag to fill. Many times I have bumped deer in the direction of your stands. When my electricity was shut off for non-payment I donated your meat to my local homeless shelter rather than let it spoil. I'm a paycheck away from those people in the shelter.

Don't hate me because hate is a strong word, which as far as I can see causes more war and death than any other word. I don't do what I do for fun. I don't do what I do to see what I can get away with. I don't do what I do to hurt your recreational experience. I do what I do to feed my family in the only way I know how.

I've heard all the "get a real job" or the "get a second job" or "get some food stamps" or the "get some education" logic. As a card-carrying representative of the working poor I can say with confidence that we're between a rock and a very real hard place. Some of us voluntarily choose to become trespassers and poachers sponging off the land versus sponging off our fellow human beings. in all the years I've been doing this I simply can't imagine any of your families starved as a result of my actions or any of "your" herd suffered damage but then again I guess I have no way of knowing for sure.

This rambling is an apology of sorts and an explanation all rolled into one. This post (my first and last) has been brewing for a long time as I sit here in my local public library (free internet access) looking for a better job.

Someday if we meet in the field take a second (just a second) to ponder if I am really pond scum or a just a survivor surviving.

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I have known a couple of people who fit this description. When you and your family live in a small town in the middle of nowhere and the mill or the mine or the factory is involved in some labor trouble, you gotta put food on the table and a doe whitetail or mule deer fits that purpose. I have no problem with this as a short term solution to modern troubles. I become less sympathetic when it turns into a long run proposition.

JMHO,

JohnTheGreek

Sadly, there are some that hunt illegally who would fit this description. They are far fewer in number than the ones who poach because they are afraid that they couldn't compete with honest hunters, or do it because they feel the need to do something illegal to make themselves feel more "like a real man." If this is genuine, and written by someone down and out of luck, I suspect he is wasting his time hunting. The text is too well written to have been composed by someone in this country (USA) that can't get work. Most I know of who are in this category couldn't write a complete sentence. Therefore, I suspect it is a hoax.

Ann, Ann, Ann
This topic will bring contoversy

Here in South America meat hunters are everywhere, the ones that hunt illegaly for necessity I forgive them , only if they hunt what they need for eat, but not for sell

The ones I hate, are the ones that cut off a deer head and run away leaving all the meat to waste

I've seen this in La Pampa.

To give you a clear picture, once, while hunting red stags in la pampa with a friend, he started to ask the guide about the poachers, if he knew them etc, after insisting he say yes, that he knew some of them, but that they were good people not like the ones from the city that only takes the heads away....

They move to other part of the property and he whistle a couple of times and a bunch of youngsters get out of the bush!!!

My friend NEVER noticed they were there !!!

So they were in permanet contact, they don't bother each other, an arrengement like: I hunt here you there, don't bother me I'm working..

They were friends, from the same little nearby village and grew up together, everyone knows everyone in those places, some farms hire the most famous poachers as head guides to avoid the problem because they know everyone.

L

Other than the very narrow sutiation described by John The Greek, guys like this need to be carted away in irons.

2 Thessalonians 3:10 --

"......if anyone will not work, neither let him eat."

AD

I have known of one or two like that - usually the arm of choice is a .22 LR and I really don't have a problem with subsistence hunting. I think it is a much more "true" reason to hunt than "getting back to nature" type thing that most of us use hunting for.

However, that reason is is fast loosing it's relevance in this day and age. Two examples: I once had a guy come onto our lease (not fence, but posted) right off of Forest Service land (open to everyone) - his excuse, he thought that that land was "open" even though he admitted he knew it wasn't Forest Service land. He hunted the area often, knew where our camp was, had met some of us before; he was just a "local", we weren't, and he thought he'd just make a loop through a remote part of our lease - where I'd scouted out some very good sign. I sent him packing with a stern admonition and within weeks my deer stand was gone.

Next, on some government hunting land near where I work a hunter is going in to hunt with his son and sees a late model PU truck pulled to the side of an access road and stops to chat. The owner of the other truck is loading up two does (not during our doe season) and remarks "why go to all the trouble of getting out in the woods when you can just shoot them from the truck". The first hunter doesn't make a scene because he has his young son, but does report the incident later.

In my experience, most poaching is related to the "thrill" of getting away with something, disrespect or jealously of someone elses land or lease, or pure greed as in the cases of poachers in South Texas getting onto big leases just to shoot big deer for the black market value of the antlers.

Have we gone a little overboard in the direction of landowners "owning' deer and the commercialization of hunting? You bet. But does that lessen the "wrongness" of 99% of poaching? Not in the least.

What a load of crap!

Anything to rationalize poaching. Not that I could swear to God that I never poached a thing,
but if you can afford gas in the truck to go poach, spare me the poor-little-me story.

But I'm glad to see he is a "pure" bow hunter instead of a "nasty" gun hunter!

This is definitely a hoax. I picture some bleeding heart liberal coming up with that to help calm the issue about private property rights.

Anyone that can express themselves that well doesn't need to subsistence hunt for 40 years! If that individual can't feed his family legally, its because he chooses not to.

Most of us can understand temporary loss of work and the tough times associated with that. Around here anyway, you won't find farmers/ranchers turning away people in real need.

Chronic unemployment is usually a choice. If you choose not to work and choose to break the law, you deserve to end up behind bars.

My 2c CDN,
Canuck

Lorenzo: still sorry for not being able to meet you, I need to point out that these poachers at La Pampa do indeed know each other and the farms hands as well. This notwithstanding, usually they steal deer for the sheer pleasure of doing so under the nose of the landowner. And our blind Justice doesn´t punish them at all. Once I´ve asked one of them the reason for his killings and he gave me one of the most stupid things I´ve ever heard: his alibi was that he needed the meat in order to feed his dogs. Of course he owned that pack for poaching.

Only thing I have to say about this article is this: Deer on private land dont "belong" to the landowner. Now, this doesn't give anyone the right to go onto that land to shoot them, but they still aren't the property of the landowner. Game animals belong to the citizens of the state or the citizens of the U.S., or, depending on how you look at it, to nobody at all.

If this story were true (and I doubt it is, but it is a good point to discuss) I would tell the author that he could very easily obtain food with less risk and expenditure of energy. Maybe a garden, or raising animals himself would be more efficient.

Heck, if he's dead set on commiting a crime to feed his family, why not just shoot a steer in pasture? He'd yield a heck of a lot more meat that way, assuming he could get the animal back to his house (or trailer or whatever).

Bullshit. I don't buy this "survivalist" pablum and he can't find work. He's a poacher a law breaker amd a lazy bum. Get a job, get a life and stop playing Rambo. jorge

I guess my experience is that people who rationalize ignoring the laws in one area of their life rarely limit their "special status" to just that area. They're often just stinkers all around. I don't doubt that there are those who stretch the game laws to augment the food on the table. I also know that subsistance hunting takes out a lot of animals over the course of a year. Bulk food isn't that expensive in the U.S. and requires much less prep time than than hunting, transporting and preparing wild game. Eggs, milk, peanut butter, beans, rice, potatoes, apples, etc are all dirt cheap in this country if you need high quality nutrition on a shoe string budget (been there, done that, don't have to anymore).

I would favor that this is a forgery- essentially sentimental crap

Oh my gosh, Robin Hood is back and doing his thang, poaching the Kings deer....called stealing, theft, cheating, trespassing, all those things that are allowable in red states.....

In my part of the country, the blue states, its hazzardous at best.....

Were I starving I would poach if it was handy, if I got caught then I would pay the piper and go on about my business, not whine my ass off like this poor soul is doing...If he expended the same energy on productive work, he wouldn't be starving in this country...He could also go on welfare, probably is...

I been down an hungry and had hard times, but I didn't go on welfare, I didn't cry about it, I didn't poach (couldn't afford to) and I found work of sorts, dug post holes, burned pare, and chopped Cedar, sheard sheep, herded goats on foot, cowboyed mostly, and finally crawled out of it and made a very decent living...

I'm Not saying I didn't poach a bit in my mispent cowboy youth, not saying I did, but if I did it had nothing to do with hunger, it was just a ignorant kid enjoying life on the wild side, for which I am an unrepentent sinner for the most part, besides I was never sober enough to make rational decisions in those days, I ain't like that anymore.......

He's just another thief with eloquent writing skills and an undisiplined liberal attitude! .

SSS

Hog Killer

While I was at school I poached my first axis deer....in a classroom mate farm !!!

My mother do a strogonoff with it and I invite for dinner some friends. The farmer's son was there, everyone was laughing and making jokes about the origin of the meat and he just smile and eat saying: "I recognized my deers by the taste of their meat.."

He has not any problem but his father doesn't like hunters so...

But thanks to this post I now know that Will and Ray have jump a couple of fences in their youth ... man, each day I love them more !!

Now I just need to know if Saeed wacked some neigbours camel in his youth

L

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
all those things that are allowable in red states.....In my part of the country, the blue states, its hazzardous at best.....

Funny, both of the situations with which I am indirectly familiar took place in one of your "BLUE states" (one Utah and one in Idaho). As for the biblical quote above...please SPARE US! I don't think the bible really takes into account modern economic reality much less the "ownership" of access to wild game as a food source do you?

JMHO,

JohnTheGreek

Now, we need to keep our colors straight!


2004 US presidential election results

RED = state voted Republican
BLUE = state voted Democrat

-Bob F.

Canuck got it right early in the game. This is so FAKE! Read the letter carefully, and you can see lots of signs that just don't "fit". Most likely this letter came from a blue state, was done on a laptop while sipping their Starbucks coffee and they drive a BMW. Somebody has way too much time on their hands.

Ah, yes . . . the Jean Valjean of hunters.

Sorry, but I'm Inspector Joubert on this one.

I call it a fake to for a coupla reasons. I know one of these people up around the cabin and first off he doesn't have any electricity, so no computer to post such a message, and even if he had both he doesn't have enuf education to know how to write that well. The man walks 2 miles down the road to watch a neighbors TV once in a while. He's also the hardest working man I've ever seen and will do any odd job for a few bucks. Mostly for beer and cigarettes. I suspect, but don't know, he runs a little shine on the side, but he's more afraid of the fed's than the local game warden, so I don't have his trust enuf to know for sure. But, he will kill me a deer any time I want, and I know for a fact that the local deer herd is his meat larder. No one in the area begrudges him taking a deer when he needs it. I really suspect the local Game Warden knows what he's doing but turns a blind eye to it, and would only do something about it if he got a complaint. No one has in the 40 years I've known him personally.

I've never heard the man make an excuse for what he did. It just was!

PETE