I just had to tell you what recently happened to me. I was out legally hunting in an area that has some shooting restrictions against "plinking" and "target" shooting but allows the an exception to shooting if your are in the "legal pursuit of birds or mammals". Upon arriving back to my car, a "Tree Hugger-type" confronted me and my partner. This person identified herself as "one of the Rangers looking for PEOPLE WITH GUNS". She was in regular street clothes and had a very presumptious demeanor. I looked at her and said "Oh really?" and gave her a very doubtful look. She then began to lecture me that GUNS and SHOOTING are NOT ALLOWED here (we were in the National forest). She did not have any official I.D. and began to change her original statement of being a "Ranger". I politely explained that we did in fact have legal permission to hunt and that guns are legal in the area for HUNTING and/or personal protection. She proceeded to become quite arguementive and defensive and restated her opinion that guns are not allowed. (One of these yes they are/ no they're not exchanges).
Not seeing that she would believe me, we proceeded to get on with our trip back home, after I had firmly but politely stated our position. What I am really pissed is that these anti-hunters /anti-gun types are getting to the point of "impersonating an officer" to shove there beliefs on others and/or restrict us from  legal pursuits. Her demeanor was very negative and accusitory. She also did not know what the hell she was talking about. The problem is that more and more of these self-rightous, tree-huggers are resorting to harrassment of law-abiding hunters. How would you of handled the situaton?

Buy some pepper spray and next time give her a lesson.  All natural of course! [:D]

I would have reported the incident to the
authority resposible for the area you were in.
Impersonating a Federal Offical- interfering
with a lawful pursuit- We can not allow these
elements to get away with their terrorist tactics. She is lucky you guys were'nt poachers!

Call her bluff;  Tell her you are a ranger, off-duty of course, write down here license plates while she's standing there, and advise her of the legal problems associated with impersonating a government employee.

I bet she would left alot faster than she came.

Fight BS with BS.  Making people like this piss themselves is what I live for.

Was she cute and single?

Yeah... start fucking with someone holding a gun out in the middle of nowhere.

Great idea.

I'm will be contacting the local officials first thing tomorrow morning to report the incident. The problem in my area is that a lot of liberal, anti-gun, anti-hunters are increasing in frequency in areas historically used by hunters. My personal philosophy is to allow everyone to pursue their legal interest. We try to be considerate to the non-hunters by hiking away from them and taking only shots that are in a safe direction, while hunting, and mimize the impact to their experience of the nature's tranquility. In other words, I try to set the example of a responsible hunter/ gun-owner, always. But these self-rightous Tree Huggers want things THEIR WAY, and do not want tolerance of other beliefs or ways of life.

ok, in arkansas, 1st day dear season you need a flak jacket. their are bullets whipping evreywhere. TONS of hunters. this family pulls up by our camp. they have a ecnoline van and a f350 pulling a gooseneck trailer full of atvs. mommy had a atv, daddy had and atv. gand ma and grand dad had atvs. about a millon little kids had atvs. probaly a dozon in all, they put on blaze orange and rode around the national forest all day spoking deer away from hunters. im really suprised they didnt get shot at. down there, good ole boys will defend their hunt (only major source of food) with their rifles. how can people endanger thier kids like that.

Point taken Frank.  I meant all this "non-aggressively", and half as a joke.  Its never a good idea to impersonate anyone, and having a gun present only complicates any given situation.  

Turn her in, let them break a foot off in her a$$.

A BIG AMEN!

Joey, yeah all their "honor diversity" crap stops real quick when it comes to somebody who goes out to do a little hunting even when it's within all the legal constraints and following the local regulations.

Make a report about somebody up in that area who is impersonating and officer and see if the actual authorities are interested in doing anything.

I'm curious, what part of Ca. are you in?  I'm down in Bakersfield and don't have to worry so much about the liberal agenda crap or worry about encountering them when I'm out shooting.  I have a friend in the SLO area over by the coast though who is much more likely to encounter idiot commie treehugging animalrights wacko types and it's got us both worried a bit.



I agree though, these people have some nerve really when you consider that they are willing to go up to a total stranger who is carrying a firearm and they proceed to make an ass of themselves while possibly creating a hostile situation.  Why is it we see this situation as being totally unacceptable and less than ideal but those idiots who come out to harass hunters think they are furthering a cause or that it's an acceptable risk?   It also only further goes to show that we aren't the types who are looking for confrontation yet those idiots are all about confrontation.

Yeesh, the whole thing reeks of stupidity on their part, just like a great many things they spout off when they follow party line arguments or try to push their horsesh*t agenda.



mattsd, I'd have done my best to go over and see if I couldn't help them unload their ATVs, while doing it I'd take out my pocket knife and poke some holes in the tires.  That or after they left I'd flatten the tires of their primary vehicles, let them ATV it back to civilization.  If they are willing to accept a certain level of risk to go out and be morons I guess I can take it upon myself to "thank" them by whatever means possible.

Uglygun, I hunt the central coast area of CA. The problem is that there are more and more Tree-Hugger types due to the growth of population along this area. We have also had problems with the criminal elements growing pot in the national forest and incidents of burglaries or idiots partying (in excess)out in woods. I used to frequent the nat'l forest around the L.A. and I have had encounters with bears, cougars as well as miscreants. Heaven help those tree-huggers if they ever run into four-legged or two legged-type problems. Maybe if they do, they could just "channel" nice thoughts until the problem goes away.

Trouble is even if she was good lookin you know shes a Bi--h.You'll just have to store that one in the strange encounters file.Probably best you did what you did.

Every once in a while some of the local groups used to go and walk through the public wetlands areas around Grant County, Wa. to scare the game away. About five years ago a duck club heard that they were going to do one of these "rallies" near their property, so the day of the event they followed the protesters around shooting all the pheasants that the group kicked up. I have not heard of one of these marches since.

Kyle

LOL,good one Wiggins,I want 2 be at the next 1!

You should have messed with her mind. Next time it happens tell your buddy to get the shovel and the lime out of the vehicle. Ask the freak to step away from your vehicle because blood sprays, walk towards her with your zipper down and start calling her Bambi.

Ya gotta LOVE backwoods justice, although a bolt in the arse would have been funnier.  [:D]

I had a similar thing happen during my field geology cousre in Utah.  Our group did a hike in Zion National Park one weekend. This bugs and bunny tree hugger started talking to the geoloists in our group.  She thought we where just great study  mother was in her eye a worthy profeesion. She asked what I was studing. I told her engineering.  her reply was, "You engineers always mess up the environment"  I told her that wasn't true and began discussing what a great site this National Park was for a landfill.  I thought her head was going to explode.

I remember reading about an incident similar to what you mentioned. A few years in southern kalifornia some woman of 2 young children was jogging in the foothills and was killed by a mountain lion. The animal was tracked down and destroyed, but was found to have been keeping litter of several small lion cubs. Friends of the woman's family set up a donation fund for her children and the tree huggers decided to do the same for the lion cubs. In the end there was about $19,000 in donations from the public went TO THE LION CUBS and NONE to the kids! How is that for priorities?

The woods can be a dangerous place. Stray rounds and such. Most likely the tree huggers would bleed out before we could get them the help they deserve.

More of the "Its okay to be different as long as I agree with what you are doing" bs.

Too bad the bag limit on moronic liberals isn't more, well, "liberal."

I can envision the bumpersticker, "Have you clubbed a liberal today?"

Man! Some of you guys are really dangerous hunters! Number one, the first rule of hunter's safety is that you NEVER shoot at a target that you can't IDENTIFY. No shooting at shapes/shadows, through bushes or at targets that don't have a backstop. If you miss, at least the bullet won't keep going and nail someone a mile away.

I used to wonder how in the hell you accidentally shoot someone with a high magnification scope, now I know why. Some people will shoot at anything that isn't orange. WTF

As for the "Bitch", you should have made a citizens arrest for impersonating a ranger. Carry pepper spray and carry some heavy wire ties. Spray her face, throw her to the ground and hog tie her until the real cops show up and take her to jail.

I think that there are Hunter rights laws in effect, but I don't think that it prevents these "Bitches" from giving you an ear full at the parking lot. They just can't go running around chasing all the game away or follow you through the forest interfering with your hunt. As for those 4 wheelers that you encountered, who knows? They may have been Tree Hugger in disguise? Chasing away your quarry in a "legal" way.

does cali have a hunter protection law? ohio does
If you see someone out banging pans or even idiot ATVers you can turn them in.

on another note DO NOT,I repeat DO NOT assume its safe to take of your  blaze orange when feild dressing your deer.Happened last year to me idiot dragged  his  already gutted doe up against the base of the tree and was on the other side doing something.Walked up to him and asked what he was doing and he realized how seriosly he could of been shot if a weekend warrior would of tried to bag his first deer.alot of supids wannabe rambo's around here that take deer season as a war, shooting across highways and torwards residential areas.Its scary enough without having to deal with tree-huggers

The antis have us out-organized and for the time being, out-smarted.

Spray her with pepper spray and that is a possible felony.  See-ya guns!  THAT was a bright idea.

A camcorder?  She, or her friend in the woods you can't see, already has one on you.  If you have one too, she'll be stymied for sure.

The zipper / Bambi thing is freaking hilarious; just make sure to keep you voice down.

Most of all, we're better off recruitiong those people.  Make sure to tell them about Pittman-Robertson and how much money goes to wildlife management.

she sounds like a future Darwin Award winner to me.

I think there are harrasment laws in this state I read a story in won about an encounter by jpl inpas. during deer season where an employee was following the hunter along the trail honking his horn and continued after he got out of the truck and kept harrasing The incident was reported and action was taken against the tree hugger.

Here in Louisiana, we have laws against such things.  The gal here should have been arrested for impersonating an officer.  The way I usually handle this situation, is the fool is issued a citation for violating L.A R.S. 56:648.1-Harassment of Persons Lawfully  Hunting.  They are then told to move along.  If they keep up with their b.s.,  then they get locked up and taken to the parish jail.  At this time they are additionally charged with violating L.A. R.S. 56:648.3-Fail to Obey Cease Harassment Order.

Hangfire: I did just that today. The Forest Service got me in touch with their enforcement person, a female who was very interested and concerned about the incident. She also said that I was within the reg's and laws to engage in my hunting activity. I gave her a description of the person, her companion, vehicle, tent and location. The enforcement person stated they will go to that area and see if they are still around. She was very supportive of legal hunting. Funny thing, she said the same thing about how stupid it was to confront armed strangers while copping an attitude. I'm the type of person that would not give it a second thought to help someone out there if they needed assistance, but I wouldn't impose my beliefs on others and want that same consideration.

Best thing you can do in a situation like that is memorize their license plate number and description, and walk away. You never know if they have a friend in the brush with a rifle trained on you in case it goes bad for their friend.

Kyle

Quick question...
Did you happen to have a shovel with you?



John[heavy]

Wow, forum's getting slow even with high bandwidth!

Alas, I can't imagine the People's Paradise of Kalifornia having hunter protection laws like somewhat more sane states.

Joey, wanna move here to Arizona? We need more good Californians, as opposed to the million or so that have been raising our housing prices, lowering our collective I.Q., and dilluting our conservative voting base.

Hmmm...maybe I need to keep my Glock shovel in the trunk :  )

FIRST thing...MY PARANOIA.....

IF I dont see a gun on you, I dont trust you when I hunt...YOU ARE at MY gunpoint...PERIOD....

Even with no finger on the trigger, they get REAL nervous.....

Second, she must realise she REALLY needs to leave ME the piss alone....the twitch and/or a thousand meter stare will hopefully suggest to her I am NOONE she wants to stand there and 'preach' to...

They came to the West Virginia (from DC I think)woods a few years ago ...didnt stay long, never came back.....

[b]There was a very happy ending to that Mountain Lion story, above![/b]

When Rush Limbaugh heard the story, he got on his radio show and asked for donations to be sent to the special account set up for the two kids, and gave the bank's name and address.

Within forty-eight hours the Father tearfully called Rush and thanked him for the overwhelming response that his listeners had made to his children's fund. He told the audience that more than enough money had been collected for his children, and that no more should be sent!

Neither Rush nor the Husband let on how much money was raised, but, later in the show, Rush said that the amount was 'well into six figures'!

Guess you didn't hear about that on the Nightly News!!! Didja??

Eric The(Dittohead)Hun