Road Hunting

[bigbucks]

No arguments, in reality I'm sure we pretty much agree on this topic, even though it may not feel like it.

[DitchPickle13]

NoWiser,

Lazy slobs, huh? Let me put this in perspective for you, since my buddy (commonsense guy) is the one who made the road hunting comment. We hunt our &sses off in the sloughs, but sometimes it becomes unreasonable.

He's coming back from Ft. Bragg on leave and I,m deploying next month, so we're having a rare get together with this core group of friends and will make the most of it...and are not ashamed if involves some LEGAL road hunting. Judge all you want...

[NoWiser]

NoWiser,

Lazy slobs, huh? Let me put this in perspective for you, since my buddy (commonsense guy) is the one who made the road hunting comment. We hunt our &sses off in the sloughs, but sometimes it becomes unreasonable.

He's coming back from Ft. Bragg on leave and I,m deploying next month, so we're having a rare get together with this core group of friends and will make the most of it...and are not ashamed if involves some LEGAL road hunting. Judge all you want...

Thats fine with me. I hope you have fun and are successful. Bigbucks just asked for people's thoughts on roadhunting and I gave mine.

[Jameson]

...Thoughts?

When hunting next to another persons property, private or public, you just never know what is going to happen. As was mentioned in another post someone could have just stopped on the road to watch the deer, spooking the deer and leaving you in the same situation. If you are expecting no one to influence the deer movement near you it would be best to not hunt near anyone else's property. Assuming innocent until proven guilty, these road hunters did nothing illegal, and you are whining, because someone else messed up your hunt. When hunting that close to others we just have to remember that stuff happens, and that it is part of hunting. Next time hopefully things go your way.

[deerminator]

Different strokes for different folks. As a friend once said, "if it's legal, it's ethical." And he couldn't be more right. Some people consider road hunting lazy. Some people consider drives lazy rather than "waiting" it out in your stand or blind. Some people consider hunting in a heated, enclosed box blind and shooting a deer from 200 yards away with a high-powered rifle lazy. Whatever your preference, so long it's "legal hunting," have fun! And even if it's "shooting" done in fenced preserves, have fun with that too if its legal and you want to do it. I say shooting because often times in those situations, a license isn't required, so it wouldn't be considered hunting by law.

[bigbucks]

As a friend once said, "if it's legal, it's ethical." And he couldn't be more right.

I do not agree with this statement in really many parts of life. There are plenty of things that are legal, that I wouldn't call ethical or certainly sportsmanlike. If a few more people in this world felt that way I think the courts wouldn't always be quite so busy & we'd live in a friendlier world. I'm going to have a hard time giving a great example that won't get picked apart no doubt, but I gotta believe a lot of the sportsmen on here know exactly what I mean.

Here's a couple of for instance for you, hypothetical:

1) My buddy takes me bow hunting to a sweet little funnel way back in some hidden corner of some state land that apparently very few people know about. He says, now I'm going to only hunt this with a whatever wind, say NW & only the last week before gun season. Now anybody else & their brother (including you) can hunt that spot legally, but for YOU to go hunt that, without working it out with your buddy, I wouldn't call ethical. He trusted you with that info & you'd be stomping all over that trust. Guys do that kind of stuff all to often.

2) If my buddy shows me a new fishing spot on a lake I don't tell all my other buddies & start pounding it every other day without his blessing. If it's a spot there's obviously tons of people fishing that's one thing. I'm talking about some place almost no one else seems to know or at least have figured out. I could, it's definitely legal, but it's not ethical. If I do am I then going to wonder why my buddy isn't my buddy anymore, or at least why he doesn't want to take me to any of his fishing spots I don't already know about?

[pulleye16]

I laugh at you guys that think road hunting is for "lazy" people and need to hunt the real way. Nothing like setting up your own food plot right over your deer stand right, cause thats not lazy hunting! road hunting has proven to be a great way to get pheasants, cause thats were their at alot of the times. Why fish a hole in the winter if your flasher isen't showing fish?

And I agree with the other posts, this has nothing to do with road hunting but everything to do with TRESSPASSERS!

[Musky Buck]

I've been there, the roads are the gateway to these clowns and it would be cool just once to have the CO surface at the right time to listen to their lies. Tough to regulate laziness, people willing to do these kinds of things likely skirt the law in the other areas as well, I know I generalized it but it's likely true, it's likely this is what they do quite routinely, try to get the plate and call TIP and hope they get pulled over before they make it home. I've had many a hunt ruined because of clowns and very marginal hunting tactics if you want to call them that, I just figure it's the way it is nowaday and I guess I have to put up with it, unfortunately it's part of the hunting experience more so today then in the 70's and 80's when we had more room to roam to avoid the fewer clowns that existed back then.

[BobT]

First, I’m with you bigbucks that ethical and legal are not the same thing. I can think of a few things that are legal in this country that in my opinion are not only unethical but just plain wrong and disgusting but I won’t mention them because it would hijack this thread.

Bigbucks, I think I can see your point to some degree. Assuming that those guys are ethical hunters, if road hunting was illegal they wouldn’t even have had a reason to stop in that area and would likely have just driven by enjoying that they saw pheasants. In that case the pheasants would have been safe, the deer would not have been spooked, and your hunt would not have been interrupted. Fair enough, but is that a fair reason to outlaw road hunting for those that abide by the law?

I would like to offer the following thoughts. As someone who is a reformed shoplifter from his youth (thief is more apropos) and an occasional road hunter when it’s legal, I can tell you that road hunting is no more the cause of trespassing than merchandise on open shelves the cause of shoplifting. I was a thief because I was an [PoorWordUsage] that didn’t care. Unethical hunters take illegal shots and trespass because they are idiots that don’t care.

Prior to the recent change that allows for uncased firearms in vehicles, how many of us have known about, witnessed, or participated in driving around with a case partly unzipped or untied so a gun could be retrieved quickly? I knew guys that liked to use autoloaders for this because they could lock the bolt open for fast loading. I also knew guys that would leave a hinge action single shot far enough out of the case so they could leave it hinged open with a live round in the chamber. The shell could be quickly removed, the hinge closed, the gun pushed into the case, and the case zipped or tied in seconds.

How many times have we known about, witnessed, or participated in taking birds from a road when it was illegal to road hunt?

How many of us would really let the buck of a lifetime stand 20 yards in front of us 5 minutes before legal shooting hours and not take the shot, especially if you’re archery hunting where the shot is silent?

How many of us have at least once had more than a legal possession limit of fish or maybe enjoyed a shore lunch and still brought home a full daily limit?

You guys are describing illegal hunting activity and your solution is to make even more activities illegal. They are already violating the law; do you think it matters to them? The laws make it possible to control only those of us who are consciously ethical enough to abide by them at all times. The rest of us will take a glance over our shoulder to see if anyone is watching, decide whether or not we think we’ll get caught, and do it anyway.

Edit: THa'ts weird. I used the word i d i o t twice and it was censored once.

[bigbucks]

Never in this post have I said road hunting should be illegal.

[Musky Buck]

My grandpa's Bob would've kicked my poor word usage and my dad would've paddled me again once home and maybe 1 more time for good measure, my 14 uncles as well, many a law breaker or bender never has had a consequence or that iron fist waiting for them at home every night or the extended family that helps raise a guy, society has changed, chivalry is barely a word anymore, each county has plenty of clowns in 2010 that lack the values that our grandpa's, grandma's, or extended families taught us, yet they know right from wrong and they make the choice, original poster you were lucky not to get sprayed by pellets or etc. I about got 30-06 sixed in my goose decoys 1 morning, amazingly more people aren't seriously hurt.

[deerminator]

What is the TRUE definition of what is ethical? There is none. Everyone's ethics are different. Hence my agreement with the phrase what's legal is ethical. Yes, there is a definition of ethical in the dictionary but it defines what the term ethical means, not what to be ethical is. So my point was simply, if someone is doing something they enjoy and not breaking the law, who am I to judge them?

I might not like their behavior because it is not in accordance with my preferences. Per your examples bigbucks, I agree, I would not be happy with either situation if I were your buddy because it impacts me negatively. However, I simply wouldn't help you out in such ways the next time as I now know how you would act in each situation (not really, I know, just saying hypothetically). Fool me once...as they say.

[analyzer]

I've taken my son to South Dakota pheasant hunting 1/2 a dozen times. Sometimes we go with a big group of men, who have good dogs, and we hunt the cattail sloughs, and big fields, etc.

But there are other times when it's just him and I, and often we don't have a good dog with us, or no dog at all. It changes the game.

It's almost impossible to hunt a big field of crp for pheasants with 2 guys and no dog. The pheasants are likely to just keep running away from you, and even if you get a young one that was dumb enough to get airborne, if you don't kill it, the cripple will be darn near impossible to track down.

We are left with 2 options. Hunting very small sloughs, or hunting the ditches. The last couple years in South Dakota (where we hunt is right along the north dakota border), there has been a lot of water. Many of the public areas we've hunted in the past, are under water.

The one strategy that we could employ that was successful, was walking the ditches, with narrow strips of grass/cover, next to cut corn fields. With little cover, we're able to push the pheasants one way or another until they are forced by a road, or open field, to get airborne.

We hop from one ditch to another, often getting back in our truck and driving a short distance to the next favorable spot. Sometimes we pass a pheasant in the interim.

I've checked the rules in SD. IF, you are 50 feet from your vehicle, the engine can be running, and road side door can be open (that's different from MN). If you are nearer to your vehicle than 50 feet, the doors must be shut, and the vehicle off.

Technically, you could ride on the tailgate, as soon as you saw a pheasant the driver could stop the vehicle, shut it off, you stand up, take two steps to the ditch, AND YOU'RE LEGAL!!

Do I prefer to hunt ditches? NO. Would I prefer to have a dog or two and hunt the more traditional way? Absolutely. But when you pay $115 each to hunt for 5 day period, and don't have a dog, you hunt in the manner that's legal, and affords you some opportunity to be successful.

No, I don't do the tail gate thing. Yes, sometimes I stop the truck, get out, walk back, flush the pheasant, and shoot it.

It's not a whole lot different than the way guys hunt grouse with a 4 wheeler. They drive down the trail, drop their hat by the spot where they saw the grouse. Drive another 50 yds, walk back, flush and shoot.

When you're fishing. Do you use the most challenging method, or the most successful?

Incidentally, on more than one occassion our bigger group of guys have worked some public fields/cover, and accidentally walked through where some guy was bow hunting deer. We were apologetic, and sorry we interrupted his hunt, and didn't hunt there again the next couple days, but it was public land and unavoidable. So sometimes you ruin folks deer hunting, even with the traditional methods.

I'm not a huge fan of road/ditch hunting. I think there are more interesting/fun ways to hunt. But I would consider doing it again if my son and I want to go to SD, and we don't have a dog.

[BobT]

Never in this post have I said road hunting should be illegal.

That was what I thought you implied when you stated that you have not agreed with it for quite some time. I guess I misunderstood.

[slyer]

i don't have a dog, never will, how hard is it to follow a dog and have them point a bird so you can walk up to it and then when it flushes shoot it!! call me lazy but i find my own birds without a dog showing me where they are. as long as i'm legal who cares

[Musky Buck]

No doubt hunt how you wish, do so lawfully, and don't spray bullets into peoples land as you don't know for certain someone could be hunting there in a ground blind, a brush pile, stalking a cornfield etc. Be careful and don't give hunters a blacker eye than the one we can barely see through now.

" The big russian's cut "

[InTheNorthwoods]

i don't have a dog, never will, how hard is it to follow a dog and have them point a bird so you can walk up to it and then when it flushes shoot it!! call me lazy but i find my own birds without a dog showing me where they are. as long as i'm legal who cares

This post is funny.

[walleyehunter80]

road hunting is not ethical, shooting a gun on or in the ditch next to a public road is never a good idea ever. ever ever ever.......there is a time and a place for just about everything and there is never a good time for road hunting......nuf said

[pulleye16]

road hunting is not ethical, shooting a gun on or in the ditch next to a public road is never a good idea ever. ever ever ever.......there is a time and a place for just about everything and there is never a good time for road hunting......nuf said

Sweet...one less person I have to worry about scaring away my ditch birds! Yeah they may not taste as good as those field birds but throw enough gravy on anything and their good!

[CommonSense Guy]

I LOVE IT! First time reading this since my infamous post a week ago. If we could harvest the amount of energy spent on petty internet hunting forums the vikings would be playing at home this weekend. Why don't we all meet this weekend at a western Mn wpa and compare the size of our cockfeathers an call It a day.

But seriously me and my boys love pheasant hunting. We love everything about it. And do it HARD. Hell pheasant season doesn't even get started for us until the new year. This weekend we will walk a mile in deep snowjust to get to one of our spots. And our dogs make a hell of a team.

But. Chasing late season roosters is no joke. I can clock a ten minute mile for several miles with full ruck and keep going. But after hunting a big slough I need me a break. And its time to hit the road, which is well within my god given rights as a free man. Ditchpickle on tough sob as well and agrees. We love road hunting and I think most people do too except the "purists". Hell in NoDak if you don't hit the road without a .243 wssm that is dialed in, and a case or two of beer you ain't hunting. Like I always say, if I could drive around a drink beer and shoot out the window I probably would because I know it would be fun.

Anyway can we agree that killing the rooster bumper crop is awesome and we all need to keep the tradition aliveand pass it on to the next generation of road hunters.

[walleyehunter80]

I LOVE IT! Like I always say, if I could drive around and drink beer and shoot out the window I probably would because I know it would be fun.

Anyway can we agree that killing the rooster bumper crop is awesome and we all need to keep the tradition aliveand pass it on to the next generation of road hunters.

Where is the common sense in that?

[lovebigbluegills]

Good catch WH..... I overlooked the irony there.

[BLACKJACK]

I LOVE IT! First time reading this since my infamous post a week ago. If we could harvest the amount of energy spent on petty internet hunting forums the vikings would be playing at home this weekend. Why don't we all meet this weekend at a western Mn wpa and compare the size of our cockfeathers an call It a day.

But seriously me and my boys love pheasant hunting. We love everything about it. And do it HARD. Hell pheasant season doesn't even get started for us until the new year. This weekend we will walk a mile in deep snowjust to get to one of our spots. And our dogs make a hell of a team.

But. Chasing late season roosters is no joke. I can clock a ten minute mile for several miles with full ruck and keep going. But after hunting a big slough I need me a break. And its time to hit the road, which is well within my god given rights as a free man. Ditchpickle on tough sob as well and agrees. We love road hunting and I think most people do too except the "purists". Hell in NoDak if you don't hit the road without a .243 wssm that is dialed in, and a case or two of beer you ain't hunting. Like I always say, if I could drive around a drink beer and shoot out the window I probably would because I know it would be fun.

Anyway can we agree that killing the rooster bumper crop is awesome and we all need to keep the tradition aliveand pass it on to the next generation of road hunters.

A spade is a spade and a troll is a troll.

[analyzer]

road hunting is not ethical, shooting a gun on or in the ditch next to a public road is never a good idea ever. ever ever ever.......there is a time and a place for just about everything and there is never a good time for road hunting......nuf said

So I can safely assume you've never hunted the Dakotas? Hunting a ditch off some minimum maintenance road in the middle of buttfck South Dakota, where there isn't another human being within a mile or two of you, and it's a bad idea?

It's perfectly legal to ditch hunt pheasants all over the midwest, and one of the few ways a guy can be successful by himself, with no dog. I frequently hunt the ditches in South Dakota, and we might not see another vehicle all day. IF you're suggesting it's dangerous. It's not.

To say there's NEVER a place for it is B.S.

I don't want to participate in "Deer Drives", but that doesn't mean there's NEVER a place for it.

I don't want to spear fish Northerns, but that doesn't mean it isn't legal, and there's NEVER a place for it.

Ditch hunting pheasants merely gives me an edge because they can't run away from me as easily as they can in a large open field. It's nearly impossible for one or two guys with no dogs to hunt an open field of CRP. It's very difficult to get the birds up in the air, and even harder to find them after you shoot them.

Are you suggesting I shouldn't pheasant hunt without a dog? Period.

[walleyehunter80]

The thing i dont like is when guys are walking ditches WITH their dogs and I yes "I" have to wonder if "THEIR" dog will run out in front of me and cause an accident! My truck has been peppered by bb's because a ditch hunter has jumped the gun on a bird that got up without knowing what was coming over the hill. There is never a good time to shoot a gun on or near a "WELL MAINTAINED" road in areas of a state that are densly populated.

"ROADHUNTING" does not only exist in BFE of north or south dakota!!!!!

You can have all the ditch chickens you want out west, leave the ones in southern minnesota alone