Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Ever shoot the decoy?

In the spirit of a couple of the recent threads on shooting from trucks or shooting from the road I was wondering, anyone ever kill a fish & game decoy?

I nearly did a few years ago. Me and a friend drew a deer tag for the Willamette Unit. This season runs concurrent with duck season in Oregon. We were drifting the Willamette river in my buddies drift boat. Mostly duck hunting but we both brought slugs just in case. It was a blue bird day and very few ducks were moving so we were just drifting along enjoying the ride and screwing around with my new duck call when I look across the river and see a nice 3 point standing on the bank. My friend springs into action and gets the boat up along the bank so that there's a bend between us and the deer. I get up in the bow and load a slug and get ready. As we drift into view of the deer I have the gun shouldered and safety off. I just want to get a little closer to ensure a good hit. The whole time my buddy is whispering, "shoot, shoot, shoot!" At about 40yds I lower my gun. Turn around remove my hat and give it a couple waves over my head. My friend was like, "what the %^&^ are you doing?"

The Oregon State Police come rolling out from their hiding spot in a slew across the river lights a blazing. They checked our tags and licenses. Looked the boat over for safety violations and thanked us for not shooting Scruffy.

We were entirely legal and even if I had shot scruffy still would have been.

Thats my decoy story.

Wallaby - if you are allowed to shoot from a boat what would the violation have been if you shot at the decoy (or a deer)? Was it private property or were there point restrictions?

I don't understand what the fish and game people were trying to enforce.

Jim

My buddy and I bought a nice 4x4 mule deer shoulder mount at a yard sale for $5. Opening day of the rifle deer hunt was the next day. We got up before daylight flew up the canyon and hung the buck in a tree broadside to a very busy dirt road where a lot of hunters road hunt. We hung the buck in a tree 200 yards from the road. It looked like it was walking out of a patch of brush. It was a prefect set up. We hid on the opposite side of the road up on a rise where nobody could see us. We set up with a pile of snacks, video cameras and lawn chairs to watch the events unfold. We snickered and giggled like school girls waiting for daylight. First truck went by loaded with hunters, second truck, 10th truck, 20th truck. We thought, "Geez, is everyone blind? That's a nice buck!" We waited until traffic died down, then moved the buck to within 100 yards of the road and jumped back in the lawn chairs. Again, 1 truck, 2 trucks, 20 trucks...."What the heck is wrong with all these road hunters?" We devised the plan that we would wait until we heard a truck coming. As soon as the truck rounded the corner, we would suddenly stop and point while looking through the binos in an excited manor towards the buck. We didn't have rifles, so we thought this would get them excited, make them jump out and start blasting. Ten trucks drove by looking at us like we were a couple of fools. Okay, this wasn't going as planned. Time to get really creative. The next truck came up the road with two dads and their boys ranging from 8-16. The kids that were 14, 15 and 16 all had .30-30 lever actions. The dads had old beat up SKS assault rifles (real serious hunters). I recognized them as weekend warriors from my old neighborhood. They couldn't hunt their own shadows on a blue sky day. Anyway, we did the, "OMG....look at the size of that buck!" just as they got even with us in the road. All the doors flew open and guns started blazing. I dammmmnnn near wet myself. The buck fell out of the tree and the 8 year old kid took off into the brush screaming, "You got it, you got it! I saw it drop!" The look on his face when he got to the buck was priceless. He picked it up, smiled and brought it back to the truck as proud as if he just killed a monster buck. He said, "I am keeping this for ever!" They all got back in the truck muttering words of embarrassment and drove away. We wanted the buck back, but weren't about to fight the kid for it. It was worth the $5 ;o) Flinch

An old roommate and his cousin shot a FWP motorized black bear decoy two years ago. It was set up to get guys who were driving around the gate on ATV's to stop long enough that the officers could catch them. They walked in quietly on the road, spied the bear, and shot when it turned to look at them. It got the officers attention for sure!

Can't say about Oregon, but in Idaho you can shoot from a boat if the motor is turned off and all forward progress caused by the motor has ceased. In a current, that's a real gray area.

All else being legal (trespass, seasons, tags, etc), one may shoot from a boat in Oregon. As mentioned previously. All motorized induced motion must have subsided.

On big water, I'm amazed at how many waterfowl violations I see. It's piece of cake to roar around bends in the river in a 250 horse bass boat and overtake ducks or geese trying to escape. It seems to be a very popular method, on the Snake River pools.

Same rules in Oregon.

I didn't think to ask at the time what law they were trying to enforce. I'm guessing they were trying to get some duck hunters who didn't have that particular early season deer tag to take a whack at scruffy.

Pe

I suspect they were simply/mostly using it as a way to pull people over and check them....maybe.

I�ve never seen a DOW decoy. A hunting partner in our group (who is a real joker) would and still does bring a 3-D antelope decoy out during antelope season trying to fool people into shooting it. In five years no one has been fooled. The only shots in his decoy are my shots (one per year), just to piss him off. The first year I shot it he was pissed off, after that he tries to hide it to see if I can find it. So far I have a 3-inch group going on this decoy (75 to 300 yards).

In Montana if you shoot the FWP decoy your in trouble even if everything else is legit.

One year on the way to town for some supplies the decoy was set up on the edge of a side road shortly after shooting hours were over. Driving down the main road we saw it and turned down the road the decoy was on and floored it toward the deer with the bright lights on. Before we got there the FWP guys flipped on there lights thinking we were going to ram there deer. There reaction was pretty good trying to stop us from running it over.

Several years ago Tx Parks and Wildlife had a decoy set up on a pipeline to catch people shooting from the road.Deer season was open and the decoy was of a legal buck so a buddy of mine got the idea to slip out into the the woods a legal distance and shoot the decoy just to mess with the wardens. He shot, they caught him and ticketed him. When he got to court he told the judge he know it was a decoy, but it was a legal buck and he was legal in shooting. Short story: the judge fined him $200 for destruction of gov. property.

When I was a kid I heard a story about a guy shooting a decoy. According to the story it was set up within sight of a highway pre-rifle season, but archery was open. I believe the purpose was to 1) catch individuals shooting from the road and 2) catch individuals shooting with a rifle before the season.

According to the story, the guy saw the deer, drove past to the next turn off, parked his truck, went into the woods, and came in from behind the decoy. He got to the edge of the woodline, and made a nice shot from there with his bow. I believe there was something about him knowing he was in trouble when there was no reaction from the decoy and sawdust flew. The game warden didn't give him a ticket, but gave him a stern warning about shooting in the direction of a road.

Don't know how true the story is, but I remember hearing it....

I believe there is a fairly new law now about a "right-of-way" with no hunting for a set distance from roads....not sure how far that is or if it applies to bows. There is also a law now that the hunter must have written permission on his person for the land he is hunting from.

JCM

No decoys - but I once potted a spruce grouse (legally) up on the berm along the road (and in the public right-of-way)...

When I went to pick it up, I noticed it was just about 2 feet from a very weathered and faded hand-painted 10 inch by 14" or so "no shooting" sign on an 18 inch stake put up by, presumably, the adjacent land owner - who had no legal right to so post.

Still- had I seen the sign first, the bird would have lived to pose another day under that faded-out "no shooting" sign....

What they call "embarassingly funny", I guess.

Decoys. Just another reason people love/hate game wardens.

Anyone ever shoot a game warden decoy?

I never shot a decoy but I saw one shot.
I had a lot of rye grass planted for grazing one year and I knew lots of road hunting/spotlighting was happening by the tracks in the dirt road. County road.
I got Jack and Marty, the game wardens in the county at the time, to put up the TP&W decoy when it came their time to use it.
Old Bucky was set just in the edge of the brush about 100 yards across part of a rye grass field. Bucky could nod his head when you pulled the string.
We hid off to the side.
Sure enough just about good dark here come this pickup shining a spotlight out across the fields. They saw bucky and stopped. Fellow jumps out of the back of the pickup an KerPow. Nothing happens. Bucky nodds his head. Guy walks across the bar ditch to the edge of the field and Kerpow. Nothing happens. Bucky nodds his head again.
Guy walks about fifteen or so steps out into the field, kneels down and Kerpow. Nothing happens and bucky nodds again.
Guy stands up and just stares for a heartbeat or so. Then he yells and damn if he doesn't do a bayonet charge at Old Bucky.

When he gets up to where Bucky is standing nodding his head Jack stands up out of the ditch and says,"What in the hell do you think you are doing?"

Fellow almost does a backflip.

We couldn't hold it anylonger and just broke up rolling around on the ground and laughing.

Charged them with hunting at night, trespassing to hunt and discharge of firearms on a public road.

I never will forget that guy hollering Yahhhhhhh and high stepping across that field with rifle leveled.


BCR