CO Pronghorn Buck Stolen

[drno32]

I'll try to make this complaint as short as possible. After a day of walking around public land for pronghorn I decided to pull out and glass into the area to plan for the next morning. Something caught my eye while driving and I turned around, pulled off onto a dirt road and glassed. Boom, found my perfect Colorado public land pronghorn buck. Unfortunately, there was roughly 30 minutes left in the hunting day and the buck cannot be accessed legally from the road but from the parking lot 3 plus miles up the road. Since I definitely can't get to him before the time is up I saved his location in my onXmaps and planned to starting hiking to him at 5am. Sadly, my actions of turning around and glassing caught the eye of a couple old, fat, and probably drunk hunters I had run into earlier in the day. As I drove away I noticed that they pulled out of their spot and headed to the dirt road I glassed from. I drove home thinking no way they would illegally hunt from the road right? The next morning I'm the 2nd person in the parking lot and I see the first hunter hiking away in the opposite direction so yesterday evening's buck is all mine! I set out and get to his spot and all I find is evidence of a kill and carcass dragged away to the fence line/road (150-200 yards). I can't guarantee it was the folks that saw me glassing but all evidence leads to it. I saw most of the same hunters the next day excepts those fellas so either they had other things to do or they filled their tag the evening they saw me glass that buck. This hunt hurt a lot knowing I had shoulder surgery so every ounce on my back sends a pain through my nerves down my arm and bad knees from jumping out of aircraft yet I will hike nearly 12 miles (attachment to back my claim) for a legal harvest but those old fat folks take no shame in hunting from the road. I am done with eastern Colorado pronghorn hunting, put me on the CO NW BLM waitlist and I'll go to Wyoming until then.

 

[LCH]

Maybe the old fat hunters had access through private? In any case, I wouldn't see it as "stealing" from you or anyone, potentially a trespass issue but impossible to know without all the facts.

Sorry that your hunt turned sour.

 

[drno32]

Valid points but like I said I bumped into them earlier and knew where they had access to. Plus the corner the buck was bedded was inaccessible from private within the 30 min remaining of hunting time solid hour or more from private. And the carcass drag went to the fence line at the hwy, opposite the private land they had. That is why I believe it was stolen from public land owners.

 

[JohnCushman]

Wah! boohoohoo! Someone else got a buck you wanted on public land. Happens to all of us, dude. It's PUBLIC land and whoever else got it is a public land owner too.

 

[haiku_rodney]

Sorry to hear what happened. I hope this doesn't change your attitude toward the "ethics" of hunting.

 

[BlakeA]

Should have made it happen in that 30 minutes you had left.

 

[Addicting]

I don’t know what agency keeps track of how many bucks are stole each year, from hunters laying claim to an alive animal, that has free will to go where it wants, based off from assumptions? Once you find out, you should report them!

 

[HighDesertSage]

I wouldn't throw in the towel. Just chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. I would change the title of this thread. Nothing was stolen from you. Call the warden and report the trespass issue. He/She may not be able to do anything though without something more solid.

 

[LCH]

Just an aside:

A couple of weeks ago, I was deer hunting in a reduction zone on public land here in Indiana. Reduction zones open 2 weeks prior to the normal archery opener. This was the first year that this area fell into the reduction zone.

On my way in, I passed 3 hunters along the road toting in a ladder stand. My bow was propped up in the passenger seat of my single cab truck, very visible. I waved and went on my way. I set up in my climber about 100 yards from the truck.

About an hour later, the 3 guys pull up and park by my truck. I can hear them say "I saw a bow, he's in here poaching." One starts messing around my truck and the other 2 start fanning out like they're looking for me. I waved my arms and hollered, they yelled back they were calling the law and left.

Well obviously the law never came and I never got a call, because season was actually in. These dummies didn't know the regs and/or didn't know where they were at, and as a result spoiled my hunt.


I guess my point in this long-winded story is not to assume someone is in the wrong until you actually know all of the facts...

 

[cahunter805]

I’m curious if this was the buck you wanted why not just stay put and watch him for the last 30min of legal light? Keep tabs on him in case he decided to get up or chase a doe around.

 

[Zach]

I hear Rachel Mitchell is available.


If you think those guys poached the antelope, trespassed or did anything illegal call CPW.

 

[AZBridger]

I had a pronghorn ACTUALLY stolen from me in Colorado as well a few years ago. I was hunting in one of the walk in only zones and found a nice buck. Laid down and shot him. i hit him a little low but the bullet went through low in his chest, shattering his leg in about the elbow area and most likely clipped the bottom of his heart. He was bleeding good but ran off at about mach 12, like antelope always do. the country i was hunting was flat and wide open so it was really easy to keep track of him. i knew it was a fatal hit and i was just watching and waiting for him to run out of steam. he made it about 3/4 of a mile and piled up mid-stride but ended up falling about 150 yards from a road near some road bombers. I assume they were watching him and saw it all happen. as soon as he hit the ground, they piled out of their truck ran to the antelope and drug him to their vehicle, loaded him up and sped off. i was making my way over to them as fast as i could but they got away when i was a couple hundred yards from them. They surely saw me and heard me hurling some not-so-nice comments their direction. reported it to the game warden but there wasn't much they could do i guess other than keeping an eye out for the vehicle i described. Ended up not filling my tag that year as that took the wind out of my sails. Still don't know who would tag and steal a buck they didn't even shoot at. He was a dandy, especially for Colorado.

 

[Doublecluck]

Could have ran 3 miles in 27 minutes, ranged whatever distance was left, dialed, caught your breath, got your hr under control in 2 minutes, and squeezed one off with almost a minute to spare.. that’s how I would have done it anyway..

 

[drno32]

Good point LCH, ignorance is bliss I suppose. Funny that CPW was there in the morning giving tickets to those that entered the area outside of the designated parking lot. Too bad he didn't hang out longer.

And look, to some of the others saying I'm boohoooing... I came to this forum after watching Randy's respect for the animal by limiting his shot distance and closing in for the kill, doing everything ethically. So if someone harvests an animal from the road (same thing that people were being cited for earlier in the day) while I am doing it the legal and ethical way, with respect for the animal and that's booohoooing then so be it. Don't get hung in the verbiage of "stolen" and forget the message of hunter ethics and trespassing legalities or whatever the CPW officer was citing people previously in the day. I know the buck wasn't in my pocket but I sure hate to him harvested by someone that trespassed. I shared the story because I assumed everyone else here had the same respect for the animal.

 

[Zach]

Good point LCH, ignorance is bliss I suppose. Funny that CPW was there in the morning giving tickets to those that entered the area outside of the designated parking lot. Too bad he didn't hang out longer.

And look, to some of the others saying I'm boohoooing... I came to this forum after watching Randy's respect for the animal by limiting his shot distance and closing in for the kill, doing everything ethically. So if someone harvests an animal from the road (same thing that people were being cited for earlier in the day) while I am doing it the legal and ethical way, with respect for the animal and that's booohoooing then so be it. Don't get hung in the verbiage of "stolen" and forget the message of hunter ethics and trespassing legalities or whatever the CPW officer was citing people previously in the day. I know the buck wasn't in my pocket but I sure hate to him harvested by someone that trespassed. I shared the story because I assumed everyone else here had the same respect for the animal.

You've assumed a lot without witnessing anything other than what you found the next morning. Maybe you're right or maybe you're not.

 

[MN Public Hunter]

Stolen? LOL....

 

[drno32]

Stolen? LOL....

Jump into the fray without reading whole thread much? I can't say I went to journalism school so again, before you all, I admit to a poor choice of title selection but the message about trespassing and hunting ethics is there.

 

[JohnCushman]

What breech of ethics was there?

 

[dirtclod Az.]

No breech in ethics,and why would you have to go 3mi. back to the trail head to stalk the buck?Pull off the roadway and make a stalk.
No harm no foul.Welcome to public land hunting.Stolen my AZZ!

 

[drno32]

No breech in ethics,and why would you have to go 3mi. back to the trail head to stalk the buck?Pull off the roadway and make a stalk.
No harm no foul.Welcome to public land hunting.Stolen my AZZ!

What breech of ethics was there?

Bc you can only enter the land from the one and only designated parking lot. CPW issued tickets to those that parked any where else. I don't make the rules folks. For the record the location was Turkey Track Ranch STL, GMU118. I heard a 2nd lot may open up on the north side next year.