The game wardens actually showed up!  I'll leave the rest to him if he chooses to share.

Oh, there was drama. All seems well now.

Not much drama but...a long story.

TLDR: My brother and I didn't know who was hunting on our land, a call was made, game warden issues citations.


Yesterday (Tuesday Nov 30th) this group of hunters parked along the road and in one of our drives we have for field access.  We (5 siblings) own all the road frontage on the south side of this road from the tracks to the homestead. Our dad signed the property over to us several years ago although he still lives there.  The north side is owned by us and a neighboring farm. This group of hunters were on the Northside.

As I crossed the rail road tracks I saw a few guys walking north through a cut off corn field on the property owned by the neighbor (left of our field, outlined in light green below). As I crested a small hill I saw another truck parked in one of our ( still standing) corn field driveways on the north side (red mark lower right corner).  The road is along the very bottom of pic. We lease our tillable ground to a grain farmer and they haven't harvested yet.  

This group was walking north as well, likely to push a block of woods owned by about a gazillion people who got scammed by a con-man back in the 50s. Its a  long story but it comes into play so I'll give a brief background.



As these properties come up for sale the county has been buying them, but so have we.  Our plan is to trade our purchases that are scattered throughout this mess of an "un-development", with the County Metro-Parks.  They own several that are contiguous to our property.

During deer season there are groups of hunters who drive around and dump drivers (hunters who walk noisily through the woods or corn fields) on one side a block of woods or field, and then position standers on the other side.  

We have had problems with this for years. Monday,  Nov 29th, opening day, was no different. There were people we didn't know or give permission, walking around in the woods near our stands but far enough away we couldn't talk to them. Honestly, we are getting tired of people messing up our hunts.

When I get to the truck parked on our property I honked to get the attention of the group walking north, along the edge of the field. No response, they kept walking.  I called my brother, who handles most of the permissions to hunt and he didn't have a clue who it could be.  I decided to call the game warden.

They (3 wardens in 2 trucks) showed up pretty quick, something like 20-30 minutes. Since five of us own the property and our dad still lives there, they wanted to confirm if any other of the siblings could have given permission to people to hunt.  I said it wasn't likely that anyone other than my dad, one brother or I would have granted permission, let alone sign a form and only 3 had been signed.

The head Game Warden wanted to know if we wanted to press charges. We said no, just warn them.  They ran a plate of one of the trucks and asked if I knew a certain person. I didn't know that specific person, but thought he might be related to someone I did know.  I called the number that I had, but it had been changed. I had to get my son to his after school job so I left. The wardens waited for the group to return to their trucks.

As I was driving the Game Warden called and told me they claimed they were hunting the property of the farmer to the west of our land. Of course, the hunters popping out by the red mark in my pic kind of blew that story. Next, they said they had permission to hunt Metro-Park land.  Sadly, Metro-Parks only own the former lake (dam washed out in 2006), maybe the never built roads and a few dozen parcels scattered around.  There is next to zero chance this group contacted the owners of every lot, this subdivision is much much larger than the pic I posted. Half the people who now own them probably don't even know where their inherited property is located.  

The Game Warden said he would give them a strong message to not hunt without permission but they also had several other violations they were citing people in the group for.  

That's about it.  I'll likely see the Game Warden in the next month or so at our Conservation Club meeting. I'll see if he's willing to share the types of citations he issued.  It didn't sound like they were cited for not having written permission.  It wouldn't surprise me if open containers are involved. My brother said the guy the plate came back to had a stand on our property a few years ago with a pile of beer cans on the ground below.  My brother took the stand down and left it on the ground at the time and later found out who it belonged to.

I'll update if I hear more.

@HuntFishOhio

This the first time we've ever called a Game Warden for a hunting violation.  Next time, no matter the group, will be different.

It's not a big deal.  It plays out like this:

Someone, we'll call Bob, asked my Grandpa if he could hunt on the farm back in 1963. Bob hunts by himself for a few years, once Bob's kid is of age he joins him.  Nothing is said by my grandfather since he rarely hunts.  

The kid continues to hunt after Bob hangs it up.  Since the kid is now alone, he asks his friend to join in. His friend knows some other guys who can get the deer moving by putting on drives. Each one in the group knows their own "farmer Joe" and "Joe won't care if we (the group) push his woods".

This starts out small, but continues for years. "The group" starts thinking they can hunt all the properties each individual may have permission to individually.  Farmers are not terribly concerned since they're trying to get the crops out of the field, cows fed and harvest to market.

The feeling that "We've hunted XYZ's place for years" settles in and hunters developed a sense of entitlement.  

The actions of this type of person or group is why it's getting harder to find private land to hunt on.

Benefits outweigh the hassle by miles.

The problem there is many people own large tracts of land for themselves and their authorized guests to hunt on.  Ohio requires by law written permission from the property owner or authorized agent to hunt.  Even a text or email would be sufficient but it must name who can hunt on the permission.  It is actually pretty serious to hunt someone's land without written permission.  Technically, I believe this would apply even if you're with the property owner someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.