Nearly got caught "Poaching".

[Sourdough]

About 50'ish years ago we had a small cabin off Scout Lake Loop Rd. near the Jack Bradford homestead. The cabin was on one acre that fronted the Kenai River. So like everyone back then we were snagging salmon, and had a fairly nice pile on the beach. Well, one of the guys had just that week purchased a nice pair of ZEISS Binoculars. So in between fishing, he is playing with his new binoculars. Suddenly he exclaims, "Guys there is someone across the river, see over there, in the bushes. Here take my binoculars and look, I think he has a camera."

So we all take turns playing with his new (expensive) binoculars. And we agree that it looks like someone over there hiding with a camera. So we bag up all the fish, and hump them up to the cabin. Nothing happens for several days, so we figure it was someone photographing birds. Well, one of the guys wife worked at the grocery store there in Sterling, Alaska. Well about two or three weeks, after we had all forgotten about this, she is working the checkout register, and a guy shows up at the store with a bunch of photographs asking the employees, if they had ever see any of the three men in the store, and if they lived in the area. He even put some of the photos on the bulletin board. That is the end of the account, we never got caught. But that was a close call.

 

[Caribou]

During the depression Grandpa had 7 kids to feed. He pulled his skiff into the beach with a nice buck tucked up under the deck in the bow. The game warden showed up immediately and wanted to check out the boat. Well, Buck, Grandpa's dog, wouldn't let the game warden near the boat. Buck ate well that night.

 

[Cnsper]

My uncle poached a deer. On the way to town there was a roadblock. He pulls up and asks what is going on? The game warden said someone poached a deer and we are going to catch him. My uncle said well he is in the trunk. Game warden said get the hell out of here.

 

[Maverickhawk]

I once shot at some squirrels with a pellet gun through our bathroom window and the cops showed up at our door. Said something about not shooting inside city limits. Wanted to ask him if I could trap them and release them at his house.

 

[hashbrown]

I’ve paid 3 fines in my life.

1 Gigging frogs out of season
2 Hand fishing “noodling catfish”
3 Over limit for deer

Pretty lucky for the life I’ve lived.

 

[randyt]

I've never been caught. Don't really want to go into much for details. When I was young it was nothing to run ten miles. Now not so much, I have to rely on old man cunning.

 

[hiwall]

I've never actually poached I guess. But when you have a 22 and see a rooster pheasant that would be perfectly legal to shoot with a shotgun......well what if your 22 happens to go off by accident and the bullet hits the pheasant in the head?
When in the woods and fields sometimes accidents happen.

 

[randyt]

A great book on poaching stories is The One eyed Poacher of Privilege by Edmund Ware Smith. It's not a instructional book, more of a good fun read.

for example Jeff Coongate hollers out his cabin door late at night "come on in for a cup of coffee, it's cold out there" So a game warden comes in and has the coffee. He asks how did you know I was out there? Jeff said he didn't, he has been hollering that out his door for the last 30 years. It's a hoot

 

[randyt]

here's one on a more serious note, it's out of stock at the moment but worth the wait

https://meattrapper.com/wildman/

 

[Cnsper]

4th of July weekend was coming up. I was about 12 and my brother just turned 10. The 4th was on a thursday that year. Dad wanted to go camping and fishing so he took my brother and I up and got a camping spot on Tuesday night. He went to work Wednesday and showed back up that night with my little sister.

We had the whole day to do whatever we wanted to. So we fished and swam. Then we fished and swam. So on all day long.

Needless to say, dad was shocked when he discovered that my brother and I had put 56 trout in the fridge. Just a touch over the limit of 8 per day per person.

Dad thought we had spent the whole day fishing but we would get bored and actually spent most of the day swimming.

My brother and I had a knack for catching trout in this river. It never took more than an hour for us to limit out.

Others fishing near us would get upset because when they moved out of our favorite hole we would move in and catch our limit with them there watching us.

If they were at the bottom end of the size limit and not hooked deep in the mouth we would throw them back.

 

[Patchouli]

I've never been caught. Don't really want to go into much for details. When I was young it was nothing to run ten miles. Now not so much, I have to rely on old man cunning.

When I was a kid I always wondered, who was "old man Cunning"?
My granddaddy had stories about fishing. Lol

 

[Caribou]

Dad and I were out hunting and I had just shot my first deer and gotten it back to the boat. Dad asked me why day it was. I said, "Tuesday, why?" " It's your birthday." "Cool I shot my first deer on my birthday." "Yes, you're 16, you need a license." Fish and Game followed us into the dock. Dad said to keep quiet and let him do the talking. It was only my first illegal deer.