re: Seen any wildlife agents hiding in your bushes lately?

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I read this whole thread and very little discussion of poachers. They are real. I have them come on my property and poach. Cameras all over my property showing the poachers climbing fences. Hate to see them take their guns and truck away but it's a crazy way to learn a valuable lesson. I'll gladly let game wardens come hide and wait for you to poach and lose your stuff when you come poach on my property. When you own property, you don't want the poachers there at all. Remember 30 years ago the guys who had killed something like 300 grobecks? The agents got them and they served time. Somebody who catches 3 fish too many is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about those who poach and steal your stuff on our property. Wardens can take their stuff while committing crimes on my property. Perspective if you own a lot of acres.

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I own plenty. Still doesn't negate the fact that game wardens shouldn't be able to piss on the bill of rights because some shitbag poacher is going to do poacher things. A bad apple here and there doesn't trump constitutional rights. Period. End of story.

I've turned in many poachers and given reports of poaching, and most conservationists I know will do the same. A poacher is a thief with a gun, and more often than not they're poaching on land where game and fish isn't pressured, so the hunting is easier. That's why poachers get passed off as being, "good at hunting," when all they're really doing is being the first man on maw maw's 130 acre lot where the game isn't privy to pressure. If that's the case and game wardens think it to be so, then contact the landowner and setup shop.

That doesn't mean they also have the right to drive across a mile of my property and check my deep freezer to make sure I don't have more than the allotted fish filets allowed by law. They don't have a right to enter a food plot miles back in property because they feel like checking my blackpowder rifle is really blackpowder and blow up my hunt because of some bullshite, unconstitutional open fields doctrine. They can go ham on public land, but stay off my property unless you've got a warrant.

What gets me about game wardens, and this is a universally accepted experience by pretty much everyone I've talked within my area of Mississippi, is that you can have video/photo evidence, you can have all they need to start an investigation, and more often then not they'll "muh, I've got to catch them, not you," and move on with business of shitting on 4th amendment rights. They're lazy in that respect, and I don't know if it's ego, or they just don't want to do it the way other LEO has to because they don't have to, or both.

Bust all the poachers you want, but get a fricking warrant or permission, and leave the law abiding citizens out of it.