Thread: Illegal hunting..does it bother you?

I think that thermals actually make hunting safer because they can be used to scan for other hunters

Originally Posted by HOO

Is it not permitted to use thermals on DOC land?


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It is legal to use thermal, just not at night.

Originally Posted by NewbieZAR

It is legal to use thermal, just not at night.

i do believe this is true. On the permit its relating to night but its not made totally clear but i have no doubt its fine during daylight.
Secondly its totally fine to use thermal, night vision, spotlights, whatever during darkness as well as long as you not hunting.. The hunting permit only relates to hunting, not hunting you dont have a permit
and theres nothing written anywhere, including in law that states you , as a person of the general public cant access DOC land during darkness and use such equipment.
The fact is you can, as long as you not hunting and any intend to hunt end of

Originally Posted by deer243

Unfortunately as we all know a number in our hunting community hunt illegally.
Be it spotlighting DOC, using thermal gear in Doc or hunting without permission on private property. As it happens to be as i know other hunters, forestry workers and other people in
the know i get to hear inforamation that i rather not know and frankly laterly its really pissing me off.

Ok, people are going to spotlight areas, hunt deer in DOC using thermal gear but when you know they shouldnt be and they hunting the areas you hunt in a illegal matter and
these guys are out there spotlighting the place up and doing thermal missions its really annoying me.
They basicly getting easy deer in a place i do hard yards in and making my hunting harder than it should be . Now i dont mind if other people hunt spots i go, i happy tell or take people to DOC blocks and tell them to go for it.
But i want it a fair playing field, good luck to them if they get out there and get a deer but these guys that doing it with spotlights andthermal i have no time for now.

Fact is its annoying me that much i feel like doing something about it. still, do i really want to be a nark? Not really, but people should play by the rules and its having a effect on some of my hunting spots
because people want it the easy way and do it illegally.
Im talking about DOc, and yes, theres a little bit oif a jealous feeling about it as sometimes i wish i could do that but i never do it and i dont see why these guys should be doing it in my neck of the woods.

I hate to say it , but i really dont want hear about the law breakers now as i feel its time something was done and im only going to be pissed off for so long.

Morals ah, they really get in the road sometimes, especially as you get older.

1. Who do you make a complaint to.
2. Is there a chance they will find out you made the complaint (are they friends or have a connection to who you are complaining to). We all know how safe our data and information is these days. Hell, I was involved in a car accident last year where the guy did a runner, 3 days later he rang me on my mobile and asked if I knew how much it was going to cost for the damage to my car. How he got my mobile, I have no idea, it wasnt from the cops, the cops didnt want to know who he was even though I had his name, photo, and details from his facebook page, they didnt care he hit my car, hit another car (mercedes) when fleeing the accident and did a runner from the scene. Wouldnt even take his details down.
3. If they do find out, as they are irresponsible and not law abiding people, is there a chance they might retaliate against you or those around you.

We dont need cowboys with guns in our hobby/sport/profession, it gets people killed, and hurts our way of life.

Choice is yours, do nothing, confront them and tell them to pull their head in, or inform the authorities.

Hard choice. But you know, they say the only good cops are the ones who have dobbed in the bad cops, and maybe its time gun owners had the same approach.

Good luck.

Well where i hunt, 2 of my spots actually the doc rangers spotlight the place. The 1 place they use the DOC ute to spotlight, sometimes a private vehicle, they spotlight the private pine block nearby too.

And the other place the doc guys with a side by side doing possum lines spotlight the place off the side by side.

Seen them both places a few times.

I dont bother, too many locals there poach the place. Im not local there so i just let them do their thing. I still shoot heaps of deer there, its an area where your ute can catch fire if you misbehave. They know me by now and leave me and my ute alone.

im too poor to own a thermal though lol, i just hunt daytime like we are allowed to.

Originally Posted by Mr Browning

Morals ah, they really get in the road sometimes, especially as you get older.

1. Who do you make a complaint to.
2. Is there a chance they will find out you made the complaint (are they friends or have a connection to who you are complaining to). We all know how safe our data and information is these days. Hell, I was involved in a car accident last year where the guy did a runner, 3 days later he rang me on my mobile and asked if I knew how much it was going to cost for the damage to my car. How he got my mobile, I have no idea, it wasnt from the cops, the cops didnt want to know who he was even though I had his name, photo, and details from his facebook page, they didnt care he hit my car, hit another car (mercedes) when fleeing the accident and did a runner from the scene. Wouldnt even take his details down.
3. If they do find out, as they are irresponsible and not law abiding people, is there a chance they might retaliate against you or those around you.

We dont need cowboys with guns in our hobby/sport/profession, it gets people killed, and hurts our way of life.

Choice is yours, do nothing, confront them and tell them to pull their head in, or inform the authorities.

Hard choice. But you know, they say the only good cops are the ones who have dobbed in the bad cops, and maybe its time gun owners had the same approach.

Good luck.

Yes, its a hard choice but from how much of it is going on around here claerly the police dont give a toss. So many areas are being hunted at night its a joke.
Where i went on weekend i was informed by someone that there mate was hunting there with a thermal week before, and saw a number of deer at 1am in the morning there.
I heard of other people that hunt the main highway at night and average 3 to 4 deer a night which they selling.
Then theres the forestry guys hunting the forsts without permits during the week and using thermals etc.
Risking their jobs for a deer but this sort of thing has increased big time over the last year or two after the cool of period after the camper was shot in a DOC campsite and they cracked down on spotlighters.
scared the crap out of a lot of them now its back to the old ways.... illegal hunting back in force big time
Out

Regarding thermals and night visions, there are two types: the monocular (or binoculars) type for just scanning and detecting and the scope ( or scope adaptors) for Shooting as well. I can clearly see how the scope version could be possibly a higher risk of shooting somebody( I have played a bit with the thermals of friends and I have seen their advantages and their limits), if used as the only mean of detection as well, and lacking the opportunity of properly identifying their target.
I have no problem if people were using thermal monoculars responsibly to detect their deer during daylight and then carry on doing their normal stalking. Same if used by Bowhunters in that way . Yes it gives them an edge over the guy who don't use them but so is a dog .
And I am not complaining about people using indicating dogs.

I can understand the frustration of some so see their favorite area being cleaned up by poachers or selfish hunters not following the rules on general public. I have a similar frustration when I meet hunters during the roar , who shoot deer after deer in a valley, and let the small trophies and the meat rot ( if they even bother to cut the back steaks)in place because they have not shot yet that 12 or 14 pointers , or they want to brag about how many stags they "smashed" during their hunting week.

But from what I understand, we have a lot of deer out there at the moment and not enough hunters spending enough time out there to knock the numbers down.
We all know how it's ending : 1080 of our favourite spots on regular basis.
How many of you report to doc the number of deer they harvested on their quarterly permit?
How many people out there go and hunt with out a doc permit?

I think at this stage we need to reduce the deer population in some areas seriously if we don't want doc to do it for us.
And as I said somewhere else, I would not be against some new type of hunting or culling permit allowing people to legally spotlight certain blocks to reduce the numbers.

Talking about spotlighting, I wonder if doc over the years have not closed their eyes on the subject as they wanted deer number reduced anyway one way or another . And their was a big wake up when that young lady got shot in the head a few years back while brushing her teeth which. Changed their attitude on the matter.

Originally Posted by longrange308

D O C

Yep, they cull the shit out of lots of blocks with Thermal gear, Lands & Surveys farms even around/boarding Doc Blocks, near wiped out Sambar in a few areas, where it was very hard to impossible in day light, Bush Hunting, with out a Dog lol !

Good Dog is amazing advantage to a hunter, I think better than Thermal gear !

@Friwi:

PHP Code:

How many of you report to doc the number of deer they harvested on their quarterly permit? 


Hasn't been a requirement since the online permit system was put in place.
Only hard copy permits obtained from DOC office have provision for kill returns, have noticed this anomaly when getting Restricted Area permits for pest control.

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

I think that thermals actually make hunting safer because they can be used to scan for other hunters

so can binoculars...so can eyes..... when you rely on what you see and believe it 100% BECAUSE I can see it and forget to tick off the boxes needed for positive ID ...thats when any form "yip its a deer" falls over and fatalities happen.

As to the original question, yes illegal hunting and for that matter, anything else that brings our fraternity into disrepute pisses me off.

Originally Posted by deer243

i do believe this is true. On the permit its relating to night but its not made totally clear but i have no doubt its fine during daylight.

Thats not how I read it. On the not allowed list under section 4 on the permit shown on page 2, there is a separate line that states Spotlights, thermal and infa-red is not allowed to be use for hunting...it does not state at either night or day. Now of course it is more common to use these items at night, but it does not say that. it just says you cannot use them. So if you have a themal on your belt during the day when you are out hunting I would say that is a No-No according to the permit.

Plenty dont get a permit for hunting on DoC land. Plenty use spotlights, thermals, shoot from vehicles whether allowed or not. Drone use is another thing that pisses me off. Go to any popular tramping area and there is a good chance that a drone will be or has been buzzing around. DoC, police dont care or cant be bothered, those breaking the rules just think they are not doing any harm. Its just 1 drone, thermal, spotlight whats the problem. I dont have a problem with thermal use as long as they are not hunting during darkness.