Busted a poacher, got a free moose..

[lightmag]

so me and 2 buddy's were up north hunting moose about 45min from FST John, was the last evening before rut closure. My and one buddy were walking a block at dusk, seen a couple cows, then heard a shot close by, minute goes by 2 more quick ones. We were hoping it was our other buddy who was successful. So we get out to the road, get in the vehicle and drive down the road towards the light.

Its not our buddy :cry: another hunter had shot a small bull, so we pulled over, to see if he needed a hand as he was alone. He was acting a little weird.. i got out to have a look see and see a small 5 palm sticking up???? its 10 pt, 3 on brow or 2 pt up there.... so me being the curious guy i am walk over and lift the head up and see........ 3 pts...... and i immediatly drop it like a hot rock. So not wanting to assume the worst and not from being around there i casually asked if he had a bull LEH?? to which he replied no.. i then said you realize he is a 3x5 right, to which he replied, "looked like a spiker to me" as he had his head buried in his truck. He was driving a new truck, big trailer with a new quad, and a safety vest. So now im thinking, ok im outta here, its his deal, as it looked like he was going to take it. So not really thinking as id never been in this situation before , i returned to the vehicle and started to leave as i explained it to my buddy. But then i look in the mirror and see this guy booking it at about 100km/hour and im like WTF.. we turn around, moose is still on the side of the road... he left it there to rot!! no way to catch him for a plate number in the samurai .... now kicking myself for not get a plate number!!!!

So i call the poacher hot line, give all info... call a local buddy up there, with info.. and wait. CO calls wants to meet and be taken to moose and get reports. We meet up and he informs us the RCMP pulled him over on the HWY on way to FST John based on my description, at first he played dumb, but then admitted to it!!!

We take CO out, great guy, pics taken, reports taken, casing picked up....on the road.... we were informed he was being charged with shooting an out of season animal, shooting from a road way , and a couple more and would lose his license and PAL for 5 years plus fines.

Long story short, he said he needed to give it to a needy family, it was late at night, he was swamped with calls.... and it so happened my hunting buddy is a single father of 3 teenage boys.. definatly a needy family lol, CO said it was ours if we processed it, no tag needed to be cut!! he wrote us a letter out, gave use all the required paperwork and it was ours!! moose was only on the ground 2 hours before we returned with CO to gut!! meat was fine!!

So needless to say karma played a factor, poacher got busted, good guys got the free moose :-D no wasted animal!! The CO was the FST John CO sargent, very good guy, proffesional, reasonable and easy to work with , over all a great experinece out of what started and could have ended as a bad experience. Just thought id share a unique story .

[IronNoggin]

AWESOME All the way around!! :mrgreen:

[Grousedaddy]

Great score

[coach]

Well done, Lightmag. Good on you for telling your story. Sounds like you did everything right.

[The Silent Stalker]

Good for you guys, great score on the meat. Even better score on busting a poacher! I hope he never returns to hunting.

[Bighorn hunter]

SUweeeet:)!!!!

Good for you guys
BH

[Litzodd6]

wicked story man good on ya

[Chiron]

That's awesome! Karma for sure.

[Wrj]

nice work! it's a nice change hearing that the criminal got caught and/or fined!

[Caveman]

This could be a good idea to give incentive to report what a guy sees in the bush. A bunch of Deputy CO's with their eyes open. Just a thought!

[lightmag]

This could be a good idea to give incentive to report what a guy sees in the bush. A bunch of Deputy CO's with their eyes open. Just a thought!


definatly not a bad idea lol, it never crossed my mind that id get it , just didnt want an animal wasted and 2 any guy that makes a mistake (if it even was a mistake??) and then leaves it there shouldn't be allowed to ever hunt!! makes the rest of us hunters look bad, waste's animals, and is unacceptable.

[BlacktailStalker]

That awesome ! Never hear of that before, good on you guys and the CO. Too bad they didn't do the same with the Roosevelt on the other thread :(

[scoutlt1]

Well done!
Great story and thanks for posting it.
And good on you for mentioning the CO so positively. So often we here the "bad" side of those guys.

Good job!

[shallowH2O]

man thats awesome! glad the guy got got and the animal didnt go to waste

[swampdonkey]

Good for you. Glad it work out

[Davey Crockett]

Your good work paid off. Just curious, what kind of a road was this? You mentioned the charge of shooting from a roadway.

[Son]

Good for you guys!

[300]

3 points on one side, looks like it probably was a legit mistake. Obviously it didn't go well for the guy just trying to leave it and get out of there, what should he have done?

[dakoda62]

Well done guys

[The Hermit]

Excellent!! You should write this up for the newspaper! It might encourage others to report!!

[keithb7]

If it was an honest mistake and he seriously thought it was an immature bull, he should have cut his tag and immediately called the RAPP line to report his error. They know mistakes happen. He would have lost his hunting license probably for the rest of the year, but I don't believe there would have been any charges. See the section about this in the Hunting Synopsis. It's all in there, where they talk about making a mistake.

[TyTy]

you guys were rewarded for a good deed. good on you

[TheProvider]

To me thats a well earnd moose for you guys

[Iltasyuko]

Nice story, thanks.

[mr7mm]

karma has gps

[Brambles]

Great story, good to see the system isnt completely broken

[blindcast]

Stories like this are heart warming. The scum got nailed and will hopefully never want to pull the same stunt, thanks to you. And hats off to the CO who made a smart decision that not only prevented a moose from going to waste but put it in the hands of someone who deserved it. See? Some of those guys really are humans.

[angus_83]

Good story. Poachers are the scum that give honest hunters a bad name, glad they are throwing the book at him. Not to mention good job to you, sounds like a sweet deal you ended up with.

[kgs]

SWEET !!!!! Good job guys and Charma is a wonderful thing :)

[greenhorn]

Sweet story! Don't usually see a story where COs, poaching, LEH, and spikes are mentioned and it all ends well!!!!

[marcus44]

Awesome story and a great reward for a good deed!!

[ActionJackson017]

Wow, hell of a story and good on you for your actions.

[buckguy]

Good on you for doing the right thing and actually seeing a positive result.Sounds like the meat went to the right place.Good Karma.

[buckshot]

PIctures! Or it never happened. Just kidding. Enjoy the moose. Good on you.

[Gateholio]

3 points on one side, looks like it probably was a legit mistake. Obviously it didn't go well for the guy just trying to leave it and get out of there, what should he have done?

Called himself in, Get instructions from the CO and take whatever lumps you are given. Whatever you get, it's going to be less than fleeing the scene and getting caught.

[WKCotts]

pretty awesome! good to hear the he got roasted too! too many guys getting away with a slap on the wrist these days

[Rattler]

Good on you for reporting this poacher. Nice to hear a good news story.

[ElliotMoose]

Great job fellas, good to see the animal did not go to waste. Good on ya for reporting

[bccanadian]

Good for you for reporting and good for the C.O. for rewarding a job well done.

[curt]

good work!!

[coquitlam]

good on you a real hunter

[tomahawk]

Good on you for taking a poacher out of the bush

[lightmag]

thx everyone, like i said id never been in that situation before and hope i dont have to be again. That being said it turned out well.. well except for the poacher. People make mistake, own up to them, self report, running and wasting an animal should never be an option, if it is, you shouldnt ever hunt. People like that make all us hunters look so bad, and that's all the anti hunters remember, a dead, wasted animal and then we all get stereo typed unfairly.

To be honest if he was going to take the animal i probably would not have reported it, but the fact that coward left and was prepared to let an animal rot because of hismistake made me sick and extremly angry, probably a good thing we couldnt catch him.....

The Head CO from FST John was a complete pleasure to work with, proffesional, personable and reasonable, he definatly left a very positive impression of CO's with me.

So thx again for the postive comments, but really I only did what all of us should do in that situation, it's our lively hood and our childrens future in hunting that we are trying to preserve and that poachers are threatening with actions like that.

[hunter1947]

Good for you guys we as hunters out there have to do what we can when we are out in the hunting areas,,,,right on...

[fearnodeer]

Good on you, i have found a few dead animals over the years that were left to rot and always wished i could fin the sob's that left them there. Its great you guys got to keep the moose without cutting a tag.

[Piperdown]

AWESOME All the way around!! :mrgreen:

X2, good to see someting positive happen out of a bad thing!

[russm86]

I too am curious about the "shooting from the road charge"? Did this road have a restriction on it or have I missed something?

[Spy]

Story of the year ! A very big congrats to all involved !:mrgreen: I would go as far as recommending this CO for CO of the year Just Awesome ! Your buddy should write that Co a thank you with a picture of him and his boys ! Im just stoked to hear this win win story !:-D:-D

[Ltbullken]

Awesome story! Moral - man up and take the consequences. It might have gone a lot easier for the guy with just a fine if he admitted his mistake and waited for CO to deal with him.

[lonnie]

Nothing more shameful than a person killing an animal and purposefully leaving it. If you kill something, deal with it, SERIOUSLY. I'm happy to hear that y'all got to have the meat and that disrespectful a$$hole got charged.

[rides bike to work]

I'm just looking at this from a different angle I think what you did was great but.

The fact that you heard gun shots immediately drove to them then picked up the mans kill sounds a little intrusive to me.I recently had a experience where I shot a white tail Doe and had a guy pull up to me get out and tell me I was in big trouble because I killed a doe I showed him it was a white tail and explained they were open he said that there were no white tails in that area and disagreed that they weren't open. I showed himthe regs and the big white tail on the deer. He uttered some stuff under his breath and drove off.This really wrecked my hunt and put a damper on my personal party. I don't hunt to have guys chat with me on the road and would rather be left alone.in this case you busted a poacher and that's great .just wonder if this is ok to check out other peoples kills and point out there mistakes before all facts are known

[mklaver]

Good on you......

[jrjonesy]

You seem to mistaking what happened to you with what happened here. It is absolutely fine to go see someones kill and congratulate them and be friendly (offer help).....and if they've obviously poached an animal..report them.

There aren't enough C.O.'s out there to cover all the ground so a little self policing is good I think. Would you not of had a different opinion if the guy that pulled up to you had been friendly and congratulated you rather than be an a$$hat? Who knows if you had just shot a moose rather than a deer and some curious hunters came along, you may have been thankful for a helping hand.


I'm just looking at this from a different angle I think what you did was great but.

The fact that you heard gun shots immediately drove to them then picked up the mans kill sounds a little intrusive to me.I recently had a experience where I shot a white tail Doe and had a guy pull up to me get out and tell me I was in big trouble because I killed a doe I showed him it was a white tail and explained they were open he said that there were no white tails in that area and disagreed that they weren't open. I showed himthe regs and the big white tail on the deer. He uttered some stuff under his breath and drove off.This really wrecked my hunt and put a damper on my personal party. I don't hunt to have guys chat with me on the road and would rather be left alone.in this case you busted a poacher and that's great .just wonder if this is ok to check out other peoples kills and point out there mistakes before all facts are known

[300H&H]

Some times good things happen to good people.

Good for you guys.

[The Dude]

I'm just looking at this from a different angle I think what you did was great but.

The fact that you heard gun shots immediately drove to them then picked up the mans kill sounds a little intrusive to me.I recently had a experience where I shot a white tail Doe and had a guy pull up to me get out and tell me I was in big trouble because I killed a doe I showed him it was a white tail and explained they were open he said that there were no white tails in that area and disagreed that they weren't open. I showed himthe regs and the big white tail on the deer. He uttered some stuff under his breath and drove off.This really wrecked my hunt and put a damper on my personal party. I don't hunt to have guys chat with me on the road and would rather be left alone.in this case you busted a poacher and that's great .just wonder if this is ok to check out other peoples kills and point out there mistakes before all facts are known

Get away from the road and the dumbasses that whine and don't know the regs. Problem solved :D

[Everett]

What a great outcome scumbag gets busted and the good guys get a moose.

[paulgug]

i love reading stories about bad people getting caught. it seems they get away so often. I am glad the meat was salveged and went to a family in need.

[ActionJackson017]

You know, I often wonder when it comes to poaching whether it's the same type of bad decision people make when they get in an accident and flee the scene. You often hear in the news their character witnesses sticking up for them saying, regular guy who made a very regrettable decision in the heat of the moment for example.

I imagine the temptation for some is just too much, and not necessarily that they went out with that intention.

Anyway, I digress.

[dogger]

Good job guys! CO should have confiscated that new truck he was driving and the quad. Hurt him where it counts.

[landphil]

I'm sure you are correct in some cases, and thats the impression I got when reading this story too, that he was too much of a coward to admit to his mistake, and take his lumps for it. I know people that I refuse to hunt with as they think this is acceptable behaviour if a mistake happens.

Good story, glad the moose went to a better place.


You know, I often wonder when it comes to poaching whether it's the same type of bad decision people make when they get in an accident and flee the scene. You often hear in the news their character witnesses sticking up for them saying, regular guy who made a very regrettable decision in the heat of the moment for example.

I imagine the temptation for some is just too much, and not necessarily that they went out with that intention.

Anyway, I digress.

[BCMinistry]

Nice work, Hope more Poachers get cought , thats why I am hanging my game cams in the unusual areas.

[Looking_4_Jerky]

Congrats on a great move and an even better reward!

[Bear Hunter]

I am not sure he should be called a poacher, I think a better term might be a hunter that made a mistake, a really big mistake.

[The Dawg]

I am not sure he should be called a poacher, I think a better term might be a hunter that made a mistake, a really big mistake.


So what did you end up losing? :)