We have a 35 acre farm/camp in SW Arkansas. Last Sunday morning I am sitting on the front porch overlooking the orchard, pasture and river bottom. The.260 is in the varmint rest waiting for deer or varmint to present itself. Modern gun deer season is open till December 3 as is most varmint and predator seasons.

6:35 am I'm glassing two doe and a fawn at the edge of my neighbors open field maybe 70 yards to the west when I here a gunshot from my neighbor's property, maybe 100 yard to the west, followed by a thwack. The deer don't flinch and I continue to glass them and they walk back into the woods toward where the gunshot came from.
Few minutes later my Dad comes over from his place which is unusual as he seldom gets out of bed before 8:30 am. He seemed a little upset and anxious. He ask if I have seen any deer and I tell him about the deer I had been glassing. He then say,"come see I have something to show you".

We walk over to his trailer which is on the backside of my trailer and about 30' east from my back porch. He points to a bullet hole about 5 1/2' from the ground. When he sleeps his head rest about a foot below the bullet hole. The impact woke him and his dog which sleeps beside his bed. Thankfully the bullet did not hit him, the dog, his truck or, my new shop.

As Boudreaux says "I bout los my mind".

I thought I had cooled down enough to talk calmly to him but I lost it when I got up to his place. I belittled his intelligence, used words I thought I had forgot, over all just cussed him out. I finally had to walk away as I was not thinking straight and shaking uncontrollably at the thought that he could have ruined two families with his stupidity. His excuse "that bullet should have went into the ground". He knew the deer was between him and our trailers and he knew we were there.

I am very safety conscious about where I shoot. I spoke to the neighbor last year when he moved in about gun safety, where it is safe to shoot, and gave him the lay of the land on all sides of him.

What would you have done?

Would have done is irrelevant. Do now? Call the warden and the cops; should have done that then, too.

Called the cops, it is a crime to shoot into an occupied dwelling. He would not be doing any shooting for some time.

Shooting into an occupied structure is generally a felony.

Let him explain to a jury how the bullet "should have went into the ground".

I would of called the game warden.

The guy would of got a good sized ticket, maybe more.

Agreed. The conversation you had does not mean you can't call the cops. Do it.

Tom

That area needs to be designated bow only. Obviously too populated for firearms.

Same's what all the others have said.

Quit fooling around and deal with this.

GTC

Call the sheriff's office and the game warden. Sometimes it takes that for some folks to learn how to behave.

I'd probably have been up on murder charges.

Brick house next time? Call the Sheriff.

If he denies it now, how will you prove it was him who fired the shot?

Some people have a tendency to lie when the popo drives up in the yard.

Just curious...

This "story" is weak, and very sketchy, as far as any real details go.

We got a "Bullet hole 5 1/2' above the ground",....

OK,...THAN what ?

I dunno.
The guy knows he phuqqed up bad....you made sure he understands that.

If you bring in the law you will have a feud forever with the guy and you may be good with that.
He could have killed the ol' man after all.

You could invite him over and have a beer.
Then show him the bullet hole and how lucky it was that the ol' man wasn't hit.
Then remind him that if you report him, it might change his life....like no more gun ownership, a fine and who knows what else.

Then you have him by the nutsack.

Take some pictures and see if you can find the bullet for backup just in case.

I had a similar situation several years ago...
I had finished doing a brake job for my 79 y/o neighbor.
We were gabbing in my driveway when bullets whizzed overhead missing us by mere feet. You guys may know what I mean, that whump, whump whump of a tumbling bullet.

He and I quickly headed to my back property where we found a Native American guy and his clan dragging a ivory-tipped bull elk down my back hill to the road.
They already had a large bull moose in the pickup bed.

I came back and called the local cops and they came out, only the Native cops could legally do anything. They showed up as well.
The guy admitted to after-hours hunting, but the dangerous silhouette/skyline shooting scenario was never addressed.
The guy was reprimanded by tribal police and as punishment instructed to kill more elk for the elders...true story.

Last I heard he was actually serving time for shooting a bald eagle.

I have a neighbor who likes to shoot a semi-auto of some kind fast and often, Seems to like to do it more in late evening on weekends. I suspect he doesn't want me shooting any pretty little deer, is purposely trying to spook them.

Last Friday night after a lot of shots from him, a had a game cam pic of a little buck at my water trough no far from where the shooting took place, same thing happened Friday night, except my pic was of a really nice 8 point.

I didn't see a deer either morning after the shooting, but it really seems like he may be wasting his efforts - and ammo, because it doesn't seem to scare them very far. First bullet comes over to my place, though, were are going to have real trouble. I met the guy soon after I bought the property, told him I shoot and hunt, and that if he heard me shoot he could be sure it would NOT be in his direction. He said he understood, and there would be no problems.

Call the cops ASAP.

Getting reamed by a neighbor won't stick long. The goal is never having it happen again. The Big Dog is the best way to get the point across.





P

Does the sock puppet volunteer to have a neighbor firing rifle rounds through his bedroom wall next?

Doubtful.

The first words out of my mouth to him were "did you shoot a few minutes ago" his answer "yes I did" that is when I lost my mind and went off on him.

mark shubert: that is why I did not carry a firearm with me when I walked up to speak to him

watch4bear; if he shoots west to northwest he is ok nothing but woods and pasture no structures for miles.

direct drive; I am not ready for a feud or to have beer with him

4ager: he has not, too my knowledge

I will admit to not being the most outgoing of neighbor but before the season opened for safety sake I invited him and his young son to hunt at my place. He did not responded to my invitation with a smirky grin.

Agreed. Got the same kind of knuckle head on one property line. Used it to my advantage last year to tag a fat doe for the freezer. Still hunting toward the shooting in dry grass/leaves mid afternoon. When he was shooting, I was walking/moving. When he stopped to reload, I stopped and scanned. About 20 minutes into it, my doe came walking out of the brush about 30 yards in front of me...

Moderately well restrained in my opinion.

I'd try to find the bullet in case you need proof of the incident.

...words from an idiot


You were well advised right off the bat,....and apparrently still feel like TALKING about this, as opposed to doing anythinhg.
Knock off listening to all the stupid chit and get a DEPUTY SHERIFF or the SHERIFF himself to find the bullet,....it is THEIR job.

You screw around with that end of deal, you throw away the last GOOD card you hold, by destroying a chain of evidence.

GTC

This.

Quit f'kin' around, call the damned cops and deal with this properly. Or, keep f'kin' around and hope the neighbor misses the next time - because if you don't fix this, there WILL be a next time.

I'd worry a LOT more about being shot, than smirked at, myself.

GTC

The FIRST thing that any competent SO is going to ask, at this point is, "Why did you wait so long to call us" ?"

I have one of those situations just waiting for a happening.

White trash neighbors put up a deer feeder and blind right on my fence line.



Feeder is only 7 yards from my fence, and directly behind it 35 yards is one of the cheap ground blinds.

Any way they shoot in the direction of the feeder, the bullet or arrow comes across the fence line, onto my property.

Probably wouldn't be so bad in the back of the ranch somewhere, but this is only 100 yards from my front porch, and we are in that direction a lot, everyday. It's also within 50 yards of the area I have been doing supplemental feeding for years, and within 75 yards of one of my livestock water troughs.

The feeder and blind sit on a whopping 5 acre tract. There is NO place on their 5 acres that they can shoot safely. He has neighbors on all sides.

In Texas you can't have stand closer than 50 yd so from fence. Against law for bullet to cross fence line.

I'd love to see more about this law...

i beleave in tx you need at least 10-12 acres to legally be able to hunt on it.

Somebody asked Ol Mully Garret how far they should stay off his fence lines with feeders and blinds.

"Where my shotgun won't reach".

Anyone on the receiving end of your reaction should surely understand your anger. Sounds like they got the message or you would have likely reinforced it.
If you don't want to call the Sheriff for fear of startign a feud maybe record it all in a video and send your neighbor a copy as a reminder to be safe and that you have maintained at least a record. Save the email and the video.

Once I was just observing from the hilltop view of my sisters trailer she uses as an office while Dad hunted from the lower pasture about 20' below and maybe three hundred yards away. I heard Dad shoot then heard and felt a hard thunk. After passing through the deer the bullet hit a rock and ricocheted up the hill, into the under pinning of the trailer and lodging in a pier directly below where I was standing. It will get your attention. He freaked when I showed him the hole. I was quick to tell him he could not have expected this but that from now on we eliminate all shots in this direction. Since then I tend to use my 44 mag model 92 (lever) out there as it is not far from town and her place is small. Figure a slower heavy round is a safer option.

What's to know? There it is. BANG

In Texas we take our guns/hunting/property rights seriously. You gotta have ten acres to gun hunt, bow hunting on less is fine. Your bullet or your arrow crosses a property line or a road, you're toast.

Shoot your deer legally and it runs to your neighbor's property to die, you can't go and recover it without permission. Do so and you're toast.

Texans are friendly and respectful and expect the same in return.

If you need more info, visit Texas Parks and Wildlife site as I am not a Texas Game Warden, just a Texan.

As far as this incident, the OP should have immediately called the GW. He should be in your contact list, and you should know him on sight. Not sure about AR, but in Texas a GW is a state lawman just like a state trooper. The neighbor needs to be treated harshly to learn of the severity of the crime.

If a bullet hits my house, I'm calling the cops.

It is amazing what a bullet is capable of. I hunt near the back of a farm and look out over a small field (150 yards to the back fence). The farm behind me, got subdivided about 10 years ago into 25 acre lots. They built one house about 8 years ago and now they're building another, so I'm careful where I shoot. Out in the field, about 20 yards from the back fence, there's a tree with an old beer keg in it that we used to shoot at. We have to use a shotgun with slugs here. A couple of years ago, I shot an 8 point, but got a spine shot on him. He was down laying in the grass about 50 yards from me and sitting up. A neck shot was my only option to kill him. There was a slight grade going up behind the deer. The grass was long and hadn't been mowed in a while. The dew was heavy that morning and the grass was real wet. I took the shot and missed. Looking through the scope, I could see the slug hit the wet grass and it sent out a spray of water. A split second later, I heard the slug hit the beer keg 100 yards further away. That new house is now sitting directly in line with where that slug went that morning.

From what I can gather from P&W, I can't really do anything unless I can prove that a projectile has crossed by property line.

The minimum acreage to hunt depends on county ordinances, not state law. The state doesn't regulate how many acres you can hunt on, nor how close to the property line a blind or feeder can be.

These are the same A-holes that would get drunk at night and start target shooting pistols on their 5 acres, and we can hear the bullets striking the trees around our headquarters here...

There's just no cure for being white trash.

Oh, there's cure alright....