This has to happen other places besides just east Texas!

Opening morning I head my neighbor shoot at 7:15. It was just light enough to see. Then I heard him shoot four more times before 7:30. When I got down from my stand at 11:00, I texted him to ask if he got into a bunch of hogs or what was the deal with so many shots. He texted back that he and his buddy had not been able to make it opening morning and in fact would not arrive until about 1:00 for the evening hunt. Just a few minutes before dark I heard another shot. I text him saying, I hope that is you. He texted back, no it was not but that they were heading over to the stand where the shot came from. They said that they drove over there and saw a light. As they got closer a guy started running into the woods. They never found him. Said they where going to look for gut piles or blood in the morning, Called the game warden, but that's all I heard about it.

I had a poacher/s a few years ago on my place in East TX. I set up cameras and put up Posted signs and have not caught the POS on camera. I guess that's a good thing as I assume he/she has moved elsewhere.

It happens every where, just more often in etex. The pines are an easy escape route and the etex locals just don’t care and have no respect for land owners.

Wow, that sucks. Are their fences up out there?

I heard one vehicle Sat night driving slowly down the road from the stand I was in. You can't see the road due to cover and berm 180 yards between us. Just then a nice buck was heading that way about 250 out. Oh no I thought. Ended up being the GW luckily as neighbors texted me. He stopped by camp next to us. We are 1.5 miles back so never seen them actually.

We get a lot of road hunters in our county. Once you are off the main highways, most of the county roads are dirt roads so there's not a lot of extra traffic. The road in front of our place crosses a creek 600 - 700 yards down from the house. We always find a few carcasses down there from road hunters dumping them out after the cut them up. really sux's.

actually, it does happen everywhere (at least everywhere i've ever hunted
including west and south Texas) it just gets noticed more in eastern Texas
and noticed less in western and southern Texas because it's more open and
less close cover, and a lot of the meth heads around east Texas are too spaced
out to keep their mouth full of rotten teeth shut about their poaching activities.
lots of oil field workers out west poach day in and day out because they have
a perfect alibi for roaming all the different ranches daily.
nothing you can do really unless you want to get the sheriff's nephew in trouble,
or if you want the volunteer fire dept. to show up in a timely fashion

Where in ETx are you? I didn't have a poaching issue this past weekend, but our neighbor shot 4 or 5 times and all I could think was that better be hogs or he needs a new hobby. The thought of 4 or 5 deer going down didn't even enter my mind, but maybe it should have.

I actually caught guys in my stand when I hunted Cass County. I couldn't believe people would have the balls to get in another man's stand.

At least you live nearby. Consistently being on your property helps prevent this even in east Texas. If your not there and they figure that out, they will be hunting your property as your neighbor found out.

We are out in West Texas and there is a Marina not far away, a couple years ago one of our guys noticed a 4 wheeler leaving a property across the street from ours and headed towards the marina. The property he left isn't ours but is leased by some guys who camp next to us, so our guy knew it wasn't one of the lease hunters. Our guy goes over to the marina to get ice and see the 4 wheeler out side a trailer next to the marina and strikes up a conversation with the 4 wheeler guy. Turns out he is a local lives there at the marina and openly admitted that he hunts that property when he is pretty sure the leased hunters aren't in town. Claimed he never hunted our place, but who knows.

We had two different cross-fence gates left open recently in Mills county from somebody walking through. Bad thing was it caused mixed-stock and we spent a day unraveling it.

Have also found a couple of empty beer bottles in a stand. They better pray they aren't armed if we cross paths.

GW told me if I get them on camera without rifle call Sheriff for trespassing charges, with rifle call him for poaching charges. Wish I could get one of those POS.

Cass county

When I hunted East Texas we had a property that had a small subdivision on one side ( 3-5 acre tracts, which I thought was weird because we were not close t a major metro area).

Anyway, we had the fence cut several time along one neighbor, his dogs would always run our place and we had our windows shot out with pellet guns.

Another place up the road we would find shell casings to calibers nobody owned in the blinds.



The place I hunt now close to Boerne, the owners suspected they may have some poachers. Hadn’t been hunted in many years and I did find an old scrape drip bottle by one of my stand locations but no way of telling who left thst.

I grew up in Marshall and that’s how we hunted. Nobody cared, nothing was posted. There were no complaints as everybody knew everybody. Traditions die hard.

When we hunted in Realitos the owner of the bar there at the intersection in town was all to excited to always show us the deer he got on the asphalt ranch.

Crazy’s it’s a shame authorities weren’t called after the morning shots fired

Might not be road hunters. Lots of guys throw the carcasses elsewhere so as not to bring in coyotes.

I’ve been in three leases in East Texas. Had stuff stolen from every one and for more entertainment they burned a stand to the ground. Never again.

It happens pretty much everywhere, not just east Texas.

1. Hunted a lease in McCulloch county. Neighboring landowner came over and complained someone shot a couple of his lambs during the week. None of us were there. We looked around and found where they'd come through an old wire gate. We'd let the GW bring his son out to hunt quail so we had a friendly chat with him. We placed a 2x10 with spikes inside the wire fence. GW called me on Tues. to say there was a truck on the road with two flat tires and he was going to be sitting on our property to see who came to pick it up. Called me on Wednesday morning and said he'd picked up 3 HS boys from the local school. Got permission to search from the judge and searched their house. Found the remains of 3 deer and 2 lambs in the freezer.

2. Hunting in Missouri and saw someone walk across an open field and start setting up a climbing stand. Wondering if it was my hunting bud and walked over. Never saw someone shinny down a tree so fast and take off.

3. Found 7 'high-graded' deer near a property in Indiana. Backstraps and hing quarters were all that were taken. One had it's head taken. Found a gut-pile on the place I leased (timber property in S. Indiana). Talked with a neighbor and he said he though he heard a gun shot. I'd set up several game cameras and found a picture of a guy walking in with a climbing stand. GW there said there wasn't much he could do unless HE caught them on the property. Called the county sheriff and got pretty much the same song. Never leased the property again. Moved to some private land I'd found and had better luck there.

4. On a hill country lease one of the guys went out during the week and was on a stand and saw a flashlight in one of our box stands. When it became light, he walked over to the stand to see who it was. Turned out some low-life had sold 'day hunts' to a man and his son for $250. All he'd done was find stands close to the county road and dropped folks off to hunt. The dad was a good guy, just trying to get his son a deer and introduce him to hunting. We ended up inviting him to bring his son the next weekend to hunt with us. Ended up joining the lease after his divorce was final.
As for the 'day-hunt' salesman, most around knew who he was and he was finally caught. I know he got some jail time in the county lock-up.

It happens all over unfortunately.

I'm about 7 miles north of Hughes Springs.

My family is from ETX and we own 300 acres in Marion County and 250 acres in Cass County not too far from the OP's place. I've hunted those properties all my life (I'm 58 yrs old) only had a problem one time with a guy who leased Timber Co land adjacent to ours and didn't know his boundaries, honest mistake. Our neighbors keep a pretty good eye on the place for us though. It helps to know your neighbors be they leasers or property owners.

I don't think it is too bad around here. I haven't heard of many problems and I and hunt in Harrison and Marion Co. and work out of Cass. When I lived in Uncertain 25 years ago that's a different story.

We have problems in our neck of the woods as well. Mostly out of town relatives who come to hunt family land for deer season.

This is an interesting topic as I was just discussing this with my 15 yr old son as we hunted in Marshall last weekend. I’ve hunted ETEX for 40 yrs and have experienced theft, trespassing with atv’s, and poaching. Nothing has changed and I doubt it ever will. It simply comes down to integrity and unfortunately many people in these areas just don’t have any. My concern is my son will come across someone in our box blind someday so we discussed what to do in that situation. I’ve never had a confrontation as they always seem to scurry off and that’s probably a good thing. I try and keep trail cams posted on all my gates just hoping I’ll get a pic next time something happens. Stay safe out there!

I never found the person, but someone sat in my stand and shot my feeder last year.