White trash hunters

lonegunman · Nov 2, 2012

I've noticed the number of people who will gladly load up your tent and belongings if you dare leave you camp to go hunting has risen considerably. It bothers me more that no one seems to care in the least. I got back into hunting a couple of years ago and find the fact that you cannot walk out of sight of your truck more than a bit unnerving.

This fall I came back out of the woods twice to find some low-life peering in the windows to see what their was to steal. My step-son shot a deer and looked around to see three scumbags running for it. He was close and got to his deer first, I took an overwatch position to put a stop to whatever they had planned. They were not friendly and it was public land, but they left. It was apparent they wanted the deer and did not want the work of actual hunting.

I have a buddy with about 40 acres on Mt. Spokane and we set up a couple of game cameras in August to see what was about. We discovered his meth smoking neighbors think they own everything for miles around. They poach, you can't find a critter for a mile that is not running for its life 24/7. They wander everywhere and your deer stand will disappear in a heartbeat. They stole my damned game camera and are prone to steal anything else they fancy.

Anybody else not feeling the love these days? or am I just lucky?

sheepdip · Nov 2, 2012

we have been pretty lucky, leave a big camp full of goodies, saws, quads, pickups, tools, generators laying about. several camp trailers, usually a couple of pickups when we leave camp to hunt and have never been bothered. probably the lowlifes figure there must still be people around camp.

mrblond · Nov 2, 2012

I think % wise there are just as many as there always have been. The problem is there are 10x the amount of people around. In a few years you won't be able to take a piss in the woods without hitting someone.

Silver Hand · Nov 2, 2012

For over forty years I have left my camp unattended in many states and have had only one robbery occur. Back in the late 1960s, wile fly fishing the Croton River in NY state. The poor sob stole my food. Granted I would have liked to have taken him on back then, but back then I never knew what hunger was.
Silver Hand

snooopidydoo · Nov 2, 2012

After reading this i hope my duck decoys and fishing pole is still where i stashed them :gun10:

Sgt Nambu · Nov 2, 2012

Maybe I'm just paranoid but when I hunted going back some 20 yrs we always had one armed person stay in camp. Either someone brought especially for that purpose or we took it in turn. Oddly enough, more than a few bucks were taken by the camp sitters! We generally formed up so as to drive deer toward camp at the ends of the morning and evening hunts. By the way it would be pretty easy to find some older person who can't walk for any distance but would love to be the camp hunter/security.

Swedish K · Nov 3, 2012

Last year a friend returned to camp with a few buddies hauling the elk taken a bit earlier. They found a game warden at camp and another truck with some of their camp gear loaded into the back of it and the guy talking to the game warden as if it was his camp. Fortunately they got back to camp when they did and they recovered their equipment earning the thief a trip to jail. I hope the guy learned his lesson - sometimes the game wardens or cops happen to be at the right place at the right time.

longcolt · Nov 3, 2012

I think less of this occurs in Eastern Oregon than on the Coast Range. But it would be nice to see statistics. There sure is a lot of money tied up in tents, stoves, lights, generators, etc that sits unattended at a deer camp. It would be a painful experience to come back from a hunt and have your place ripped off.

hermannr · Nov 3, 2012

Hunted from 1970 to 2005 when my wife, (she's also my hunting partner) got too ill to hunt any more. I could still get a deer a year just out of our yard, but that's no fun.

Maybe we were lucky, maybe it was because of where we hunted (mostly way back in the NF), but we saw a lot a characters over the years, but never lost a thing to thieves. Early on we used a big wall tent, later a truck camper.

There are/were thieves, but I think your basic thief is an opportunist, lazy, and a coward. Take your camp where a lazy person will not go, and you will probably be left alone.