'Gotta love that sheriff's department though. Kudos to them.

Yes this would piss me off royally too if it was my sister. Sic 'em.

So what excuse dos the USDA give for heli-hunting anyways? I don't know the full scope of their duties, but areial hunting seems like a bad use of tax payers money and improper use of federal equipment. I think she made the right decision, not telling what kind of recourse they could do to y'all, even though it would be retaliation.

Yesterday my sister was on our place in Haskell County checking on the cattle. She heard a helicopter flying low and then some shooting. The helicopter turned right over her and she saw a guy with a rifle leaning out looking at her (Strike 1 for the feds). She called 911 and then headed out of the pasture onto the road. As she pulled onto the road four USDA pickups pulled up full of federal employees onto our property (Strike 2 for the feds). They showed her a map and said (with a snotty attitude) they had permission from the landowner to hunt hogs there (Strike 3 for the feds). Guess what, she is the landowner. They had no landowner or agent signed authorization. Basically they had a google map and nothing else (Strike 4 for the feds). Idiots. The USDA employees said both their pilot and gunner had flown in Iraq and were very professional. Oh okay, that makes everything just hunky-dory. Big freaking deal.

Haskell County SO showed up and had the helicopter put on the ground. He asked my sister if she wanted to press charges because he was ready to make arrests and to impound all their vehicles including the helicopter. Apparently this wasn't his first rodeo with these losers. She was torn. On the one hand we are working hard at hog eradication. On the other hand we don't want armed bozos flying around our place without permission running and gunning. We have cattle and spend tons of time there. She is a nice person and decided they had just made a mistake. In the end she let them off the hook. Her call, I wasn't there.

I'm going out there Saturday to make sure none of our cattle were hit. If any were hit we will revisit the not filing charges thing.

'Here's the deal, guys. I get a day of hunting a month for life out of the helicopter or the deputy here starts slapping cuffs'

Chocktaw,

Was it a white chopper with red and blue markings, maybe a Hughes 500-D?

She's alot nicer than I am. I would have taken the SO up on their offer.

Choctaw, you are correct Sir. I have seen the attitudes that your sister faced many times, I d___ sure would not want these badge toting amateurs shooting up my place. Just a suggestion, I would still contact the SO that responded so that the "case" is not sent to the dead file. It is good to hear that you did not find any collateral damage.

Never understood how reducing hog numbers via hell-hunting is remotely cost effective. Aint it like $500 an hour to run one of those things?

What do they care, we are the guys paying the bills.

Never understood how reducing hog numbers via hell-hunting is remotely cost effective. Aint it like $500 an hour to run one of those things? they would have to shoot at least 4-5 hogs an hour to break even. Think of how many traps you could set catching complete packs of hogs with that funding? Must be nice to get funding to fly around shooting hogs.