Poaching

I think that the game laws should have provisions for persons whom are unemployed or are at or below poverty level to allow them to be able to legally hunt without buying a license but they should at least have to register and get an exemption permit from year to year....This would allow them to provide meat for their families without the worries of arrest or fines and loss of hunting (privileges)But this wont happen any time soon due to the added burden to state employees.........

I am sorry but why should I pay and another get a free pass? There is welfare and organizations that hand out food there is no reason to poach in this day n age other than pride ,wanting to get away with something or protest of using ones own land as he/she sees fit...


besides meat is not a necessity in life....

"besides meat is not a necessity in life...."

Oh Contraire Mon Ami: 7 days without beef makes one weak.

I can tell if I don't have meat. Too much makes me tired and lazy, but not enough and I feel hungry all the time. I don't need much, but I do need to eat some. While in normal times there is enough at the local food pantry when hard times hit that isn't always so.

There was an old man that used to live down the road from my parents, he lived there up until he had a stroke in his late eighties. Lived alone, and poached fish all the time. I caught him sneaking around my parent's woods looking for mushrooms and other wild plants. He seemed nervous about trespassing, I told him not to worry about it.

I suppose he could have went to the local food pantry, got food stamps, got other forms of welfare. But that wasn't the way he was brought up. He emigrated from Russia in the late 40's and always provided for himself. This old man always had a garden, foraged to make up the shortfall, and poached fish instead of expecting someone to come along give him a hand out. I gotta say I admire that, even if some of what he did was less than legal.

some states do have provisions for people on food stamps to get free hunting licenses, i don't know but it may affect their allocations.

I was laid off for 13 months....and I support a family of 6 ..Venison is and always has been a very important food in our eating habits.I was collecting unemployment for a short while ,then took some very low paying side jobs to help make ends meet...Thank goodness I went back to work a month ago.The purchase of a resident big and small game hunting license was only around 40$ ,but having little to no income makes it seem like so much more...I agree with not giving some lazy bum a free ride,,,but some folks are put in this position by no fault of their own.,and being proud and having served our country, and working for over 30 years makes it hard to take a hand out...But looking back to this past hunting season,it would have helped to not have to spend the 40$.Just my 2 cents on the issue.I would vote to help someone down on their luck to get a free or reduced hunting license,if the provisions had terms to keep freeloaders out...

3 years ago some one hit a deer at the end of my drive. Cops came and finished it off and wrote the report. I did not need the meat when they asked i8f I wanted it. They said that the food pantery would not take it unless it was processed at some processing plant. Legaly I can not touch the deer since I didn't want it. Three days latter I hooked on it in the dark of night and took to a hole I had dug that day. I had to get rid of that stinking thing some how but I did break the law.

They are always running ads on tv and the local sports page during hunting season to donate game to the food bank. But you can not process it your self and donate it. This year people were paying $80.00
in this area to have a deer processed.
So th efood banks run out of meat.

Al
Al

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Garden View Apiaries. Where the view is as sweet as the honey.
A member of SEMBA & MBA.

Yes in our area there are more deer donated than they can process..even with some of the butchers donating some of their time to do so..Now the biggest push is for people to donate money to help offset the cost of processing and to put more meat into the programs.....

When I was living in TN the limit on deer was 3, per day.
A lot of the people I know that hunted gave away the excess meat to families they knew were hungry, often just leaving a package of venison on a porch late at night.
I have no problem with killing to eat, or exterminate vermin. When I see a squirrel taking green tomatoes off my vines in May, he will be added to the frying pan. Out of season, but I will lose no sleep over it.

alan

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Formerly Known As Galump!

If you actually NEED the meat and use it to feed a family there is no such thing as poaching in my eyes. It is at that point providing for the needs of the family. I agree with the others here...if you kill for the rack then you need to be in a rack and face the fines. If the babies are crying and the checkbook is empty then it is harvesting food just like going to the garden and picking a ripe tomato. Not a darn thing wrong with harvesting the garden for meat so long as the need is there. I have been known to take a few salmon during the spawn. I actually debated the whole dying after the spawn issue and no harm in taking them. I was told that they die for the coons and other scavengers to eat. I told him I guess I am a scavenger because that old fish will be a great meal for this scavenger. We agreed to disagree and you can bet I was out that night scavaging the rivers for the next meal.

Yucca
after i broke my leg in Iraq i had some time on my hands, so i did the math on how many critters we'd need to raise/kill to feed my family. knowing how little meat is really on a deer, eating it for ONE dinner a WEEK, it would take 6 deer 100-120 # per year to feed my family. now i can fit all that in the freezer i have right now, but what do i do for the other 6 days.
also where am i supposed to find the time, in baiting states the average days hunting to deer killed is 4 days in nonbaiting states it goes up to 10 and on high pressure public land higher still. some states don't even have a season that long. right now only 4 of us can actually legally hunt (in many yankee states only me & my DW) so THEORETICALLY in TX we could take 20-24 deer (counting mulies). the problem w/ that is that TX only has 1 million acres of public land w/ about 1/4 open for deer (much of that is lottery hunts). realistically TX only has about 100,000 acres open to the public for the price of a license & public land permit. that land is in 3 spots the national forrest near houston, a bit near dallas & some in the panhandle so what is everyone else supposed to do. the point of subsistance hunting/poaching is that they can't afford to feed themselves, so they sure as heck can't afford to hundreds of dollars to drive accross the state to the limited open lands nor for a hunting lease. also not all counties are 5 deer counties some are only 3 deer again requiring driving to max out on the bag. exotics belong to the land owner and there are darn few on public land except for lottery hunt areas & the permits for most lottery hunts are $100-150, so unless you really get lucky and have freinds or relatives w/land subsistance hunting in TX is pretty unworkable unless you are willing to eat a lot of things most people won't like fox, bobcat, & coyote. feral hog sounds great but i KNOW at least 1/2 dozen guys that have approached farmers to hunt problem hogs and been told they can fix his problem if they pay for the priviledge.
in fact due to meat storage issues & the money involved in solving the problem legal subsistance hunting is a really limited option for most people. hunting is mostly supplemental to the meat bought or raised. trying to subsist from legal hunting & fishing is a full time job in itself & requires expenses that are counter to the whole purpose.

all of that said i'm right there w/ Haggis

Pops, man I guess I got it pretty good up here in Wisconsin. There are 133,000 acres of public land in my county alone. The county to the south is over half public land, not sure how many acres. I happen to live only a mile away from public land. I suppose in Wisconsin subsistence hunting would be a bit easier to do legally. But then when your a sittin there hungry in the spring it doesn't matter much that the tags are cheap when deer season is in November.

Taking game illegally, either out of season, after legal hours, or over the limit......all are poaching.

I'll disagree vehemently with any of the people that say poaching is OK, if they're feeding their family. If you can't feed the family, stop increasing it. Stop drinking. Stop smoking. Stop doing drugs, legal or otherwise. Stop eating out. Stop. Stop. Stop. Get another job. And then, get another job. No jobs? Move where there are jobs. Plant a garden, build a pond, grow fish.

Still hungry? Get Food Stamps. Raid grocery store dumpsters. Hit the day old bread store dumpster.

All of my personal experience with game thugs are bad..... they exhibit every bad human characteristic possible... Yes, they may be feeding their family, but there also spending more on smokes each week than I spend on food for two months. Carton of smokes will get you 50lbs of rice.

Poachers are poachers cause they want to be... it's not about food, it's about greed. In my area, poachers are dealt with harshly. We've got a family member currently poaching... and selling the meat for meth ingredients.. when he's not cooking, using, or selling meth. The entire family is ready for an intervention, if we catch the little crock off the pavement. Several have mentioned him never getting to do it again, if caught!

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming