You have free access to a large plantation(ranch, farm) with thousands of acres. One of it’s fields abuts a State Game Preserve / Wildlife Refuge. This field is 900 acres, with about 100 acres of Beans reduced to stubble by the Deer coming to feed. The Wildlife Department has issued the plantation 600 Doe/Buck Tags and a document that allows 24 hour Killing when the Deer Season is not open.

You are one of five people who has been asked to participate in the Killing. Each of you goes out and erects a few Deer Stands and try to locate some old trees that lend themselves to easy climbing. After a couple of months, there are about 30 Named Stands/Trees around this Killing field and the Killing is going well.

You have an Aerial Map of the plantation with Dots marking the Stands/Trees and everyone swings by the main barn to mark on a board where he will be Hunting. Everything is running as slick as can be and lots of meat is being distributed to people in need.

One of the guys mentions a particular old tree to you, The Ancient One, and asks if you have Hunted it. You haven’t simply because the other Stands you have used are doing so well. He convinces you to try it the next day and mentions it is one of the Game Wardens favorite spots.

You arrive at The Ancient One in total darkness and climb the limbs with ease. It seems this tree was grown just to Hunt from. It is absolutely HUGE and you stop where a board has been nailed to a limb for a seat at about 25'. It has another limb which is perfectly positioned for a foot rest, one behind you for a back rest, a limb stub to hang the rifle sling over while you wait for enough light to see the Deer clearly and one positioned directly in front of you as if it is a Benchrest. You attach a Safety Harness, just in case the cool air and heavy cloths cause you to "rest your eyes".

There is all kinds of movement in the field and a cloud moves enough to let the moon illuminate the field as if a spotlight has turned on. At your first shot a large Doe drops where she was standing. Rather than run off, the other Deer just stand around, so you drop another one. The rest of the Deer seem to think the ones getting shot are just laying down. You end up with five Deer on the ground and hear a few more shots off in the distance. Plenty of meat to donate this morning.

You come down and are standing next to the tree noticing that you can drive the truck within 80 yards of the Deer, and take off to get the truck as it is getting light. As you are driving back, you are looking at the Tree, and from about 60 yards away notice something that apparently no one else has and stop. The Shooting Board, appears to be right over the property line. When a person is in the tree in a shooting position, their rear end would be hanging over the Wildlife Refuge, but their rifle, head, arms and feet would be above the old Plantation, due to the way the tree grew.

Do you all continue to take shots from this tree?

It seems to me that you would need to get your "ass" back on the right side of the line.

To be honest I would probably just quit hunting from the tree and let others do as they wish. I've never liked hunting very close to a property line if I can avoid it, anyhow.

A hairsplitter, ir there ever was one. I'd leave the tree so as to avoid possible problems.

I would take the spot. Your butt would be in the airspace above the preserve and technically not in the preserve. Furthermore the rifle would be completely out of the preserve by anyone's definition.

The Game Warden looked it over real close and said he wasn't sure about the Legality of the situation. So, we decided not to use "The Ancient One".

No telling how many Deer had been killed out of that tree throughout it's life.

The question is whether or not your butt and only your butt is in the game preserve. If the tree fell and landed entirely out of the game preserve, the portion of the branches that had been in the airspace over the game preserve would become the property of the land in which they fell. I would therefore conclude that the branches are not owned by the game preserve and, until such time as the branch was actually touching the game preserve, said hunters butt would be in a legal hunting area.