Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Private land question

New to PD shooting and am going out this weekend, with some lines on some private land areas to hunt.

What is proper courtesy after you shoot a town, leave the carcasses lay for the coyotes and hawks, or clean up the mess a little in case the owners might object?

Nature will clean up the battlefield overnight in most areas. It is amazing how nothing goes to waste. But if you mention it to your landowners, do as they wish. Good shooting.

Plus one on asking the Land Owner what he wants you to do.

Yep. Most won't care and indeed we have more often than not had a retinue of raptors follwing us...they take care of it in a hurry...

I don't have an answer to your question. I just wanted to say "good on you for wanting to do right". miles

Dats a BIG +1

Anytime, anyplace we are shooting on private land, whatever the land owner says, goes....

Thanks for the responses folks. I was actually a little reluctant to ask expecting to get some grief about this.

Just a quick note - Prairie dogs carry the plague. Were it me and the landowner wanted me to pick up the carcasses, I would shoot somewhere else. As has been said, you can come back in a few hours and not see much left for carcasses - In a day's time nothing at all to speak of.

Thx I'm aware of that, we see it around here fairly frequently and had a case of pneumonic plague in our ER a while back, not sure of details. Was planning on taking a shovel or something if necessary.

+1!

ducttape Good on you, if more so called hunters adopted your attitude. There would be less no trespassing & no hunting signs.
Keep up the good work. Cheers NC

Asking the landowner will gain you style points.
I would guess it depends on how close their house is to the dogtown.
I had a rancher ask me to kick them back into the hole, because his dog would go out there and eat until he got sick.
Between the badgers, eagles, and coyotes, It isn't usually an issue IMO.
Make sure you ask him about gates! The location of his livestock is important too.
whelennut

when it comes to gates on any property , leave them the way you find them

I have never hunted PDs, but when crow and woodchuck
hunting landowners have me and my friends not to use
large rifles when close to to their houses. Didnt like
the noise.

When I shoot gophers in Central Montana, the farmers are so happy to see me shooting them, they just want them dead. (Dead gophers eat no wheat) And I was very surprised to see Sea Gulls flying in to feed on the still warm carcasses. Coming back to the same area the next day, you won't find any evidence of the previous days kills. Probably the Gulls, hawks, eagles, badgers, and coyotes doing nature's cleanup.

Take the time to "visit" the landowner if he or she wants a visit. The point here is to establish a friendship.
And it's always good to report back how well you did and how much fun you had, even if the shooting was less than stellar. Leave a nice note with your contact information if they are not home.

I usually leave a bottle of Jack Daniels with the landowner. I get invited back quite often.

+1

I agree with everyone above in asking the landowner.....i would phrase the question around "Do you or your wife have any objections if I just leave the dead prairie dogs in the colony?"

Every so often I come across a landowner's wife who doesn't want to come across dead critter bodies.....even tho predators will likely clean up the prairie dogs quickly.

And don't forget to ask the landowner if you can also call the coyotes. Use that dog colony as a little dog bone yard. Coyotes are opportunistic......you be the same!

For our Kansas pheasant contacts we take Honey cured hams or turkeys every year. The alcohol option backfired for us once a few years ago.

Good advice from all above. We had some good shooting and are going back this weekend. No one asked us to clean up. I actually had some neighbors who were visiting ask me to come to their places too to help shoot out their dogs. The down side is most of these folks are planning to put out poison later this spring.