Illegal blinds

desperatehills

desperatehills

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I have a antelope archery hunt here in Oregon next month. I spent 3 days scouting last weekend. I know the unit well but I continue to find water holes in new remote places. This weekend I found a new pond that has tremendous potential. Unfortunately there is a blind already set up on it.

According to BLM rules blinds are to be placed no sooner than 10 days before the season. Our season starts Aug 5th so the soonest I can legally set my blinds is Monday July 26th. So I am going to take time off work to play by the rules while hunters that either don't know the rules or don't care place blinds in places I would like to be.

I spoke with a lady in the BLM office. She says they will take down illegal blinds or they will wait until the season starts and approach illegal blinds and educate the owners. Either way a great spot gets wasted. I do not see a blm enforcement officer walking 3/4 of a mile to check a blind.

What would you do? I have plenty of other places to go but this new pond looks to good to be true. I am cool with letting him have it, he was there first. But I do feel like he is a cheater, might as well call him a poacher.

What are your blind stories? Ever get to your blind and find someone in it? That is actually legal. I could get up early and sit in his blind. I don't have the nerve to do that and I would likely have to shoot him in self defense. I will stick to my own blind
 
It's usually not a problem. A guy from ifish complained a few years ago when he drew warner and they took down some blinds but that area of BLM hasn't had a leo since then unless they just hired one. He flew the unit then drove in and left notes. If nobody called him he went back and took them. If you wait 10 days you'll be the last one. I have access to private so we put up blinds when we want.
 
We (my hunting partner and I) put up a real nice duck blind on public land but we seldom got to hunt it because other people would be in it, no matter how early we got there. We actually spent the night in it a few times to make sure we got it when the birds were in thick.

We finally decided it wasn't worth the hassle so we tore it down and moved on.
 
I have 2 friends who are serious wildlife photographers. They commonly use blinds to get great pics. Water sources are great spots. I would consider leaving a note with the regs on the blind in a ziplock with orange tape. Bet it’s gone soon after.
 
It pisses me off all the crappy blinds on BLM, one officer for 1million acres and the poor animals cant even get a drink in this god awful drought.
 
C84106A1-24DA-4E11-8937-53B8253D979A.png
 
Hunt it. FC, FS. Beat him there and record the encounter. Slap a hunter harassment charge on him in addition to the illegal blind placement.
 
One of our latest problems is people hauling in a poly stock tank by illegal ATV, and burying it, then filling with a 100 gallons of water to hunt antelope over! Usually dig an illegal pit blind too!!
 
Blank said:
One of our latest problems is people hauling in a poly stock tank by illegal ATV, and burying it, then filling with a 100 gallons of water to hunt antelope over! Usually dig an illegal pit blind too!!
Click to expand...
so is that baiting now to put a water tank out there. Did they leave the poly tank or hauled it out too.
The illegal ATV is the worse thing, digging the pit and not refilling would be the second worse thing.
 
Many years ago in MS I would build duck blinds to hunt from. We had to actually acquire a permit to attach to the blind & pay a small fee. If you didn’t take it down at the end of the season Game & Fish would do it for you then send you a ticket in the mail. If you didn’t pay the ticket you could lose your hunting rights. I never caught anyone in my blinds but I would find evidence that people had hunted it.
That is a tough call Jim. How big is the water hole? Like you said… the wind might take care of the problem for you. I would probably just put up a blind on the 26th & go hunt it.
 
Bait is defined as "any substance placed to attract game animals", and baiting is illegal, except for black bears.
 
3TOE said:
Many years ago in MS I would build duck blinds to hunt from. We had to actually acquire a permit to attach to the blind & pay a small fee. If you didn’t take it down at the end of the season Game & Fish would do it for you then send you a ticket in the mail. If you didn’t pay the ticket you could lose your hunting rights. I never caught anyone in my blinds but I would find evidence that people had hunted it.
That is a tough call Jim. How big is the water hole? Like you said… the wind might take care of the problem for you. I would probably just put up a blind on the 26th & go hunt it.
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This area has a huge dry lake bed. The middle of this lake bed stays green for a while. This time of year there will be 200 antelope out there with no way to get close. This water is the closest water to those Antelope. The pond is 3/4 of a mile from the nearest road. I know of 12 other ponds within 2 miles of the lake bed. This pond might be the best but the others are not bad.
 
Could you post the BLM regulation that says 10 days? I'm not aware of it. Where I hunt if you wait until 10 days prior you won't have a spot.
 
desperatehills said:
This area has a huge dry lake bed. The middle of this lake bed stays green for a while. This time of year there will be 200 antelope out there with no way to get close. This water is the closest water to those Antelope. The pond is 3/4 of a mile from the nearest road. I know of 12 other ponds within 2 miles of the lake bed. This pond might be the best but the others are not bad.
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Whatever you decide to do… good luck to you!!! Send me some pics when you drill one. ??
 
easy_money said:
Could you post the BLM regulation that says 10 days? I'm not aware of it. Where I hunt if you wait until 10 days prior you won't have a spot.
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This one is specific to Oregon, but the same rules apply on BLM land in all states.

Placement Dates
• Blinds may be placed no earlier than 10 days before the beginning of the huntng season for which the hunter has a valid tag.
• Blinds must be removed within 7 days of the close of that huntng season



This is for Idaho:

 
www.reviewjournal.com

Blinds can put hunters in bind

www.reviewjournal.com www.reviewjournal.com

“Increasing use of hunting blinds has resulted in resource damage, more litter, conflicts among hunters and problems for other land users,” reads a policy on hunting blind use issued by the Bureau of Land Management in Idaho. That policy outlines the types of materials that can and cannot be used for building blinds, time constraints for blind placement and right of use.

Paul Podborny, a supervisory resource management specialist for renewable resources for the Nevada BLM in Ely, said the agency has no such formal policies on the use of hunting blinds in Nevada but encourages hunters to follow the unwritten code referred to as hunter ethics. Doing so, said Podborny, could go a long way toward preventing resource damage and confrontations between hunters in the field.
 
easy_money said:
Paul Podborny, a supervisory resource management specialist for renewable resources for the Nevada BLM in Ely, said the agency has no such formal policies on the use of hunting blinds in Nevada but encourages hunters to follow the unwritten code referred to as hunter ethics. Doing so, said Podborny, could go a long way toward preventing resource damage and confrontations between hunters in the field.
Click to expand...
There you have it. If you live in Nev. take your chances. (y)
 
So last weekend I went to check cameras and and set up blinds.

First water hole I went to did not have a blind but instead had a note in a bottle staked to the waters edge. The note had a hunters name and it said he would be hunting that water hole for the duration of the archery hunt.

The next water hole had no blind and things looked good on the camera but I wont be the only one hunting it.

mad cat.jpg


The next morning I went to 4 different water holes that I had set cameras on. 3 already had blinds and the 4th had gone dry. Now I realized if I wait till the legal day to set blinds there likely will not be any water holes left. Now I am looking forward to my hike in the dark to hunt with the kitty.
 
If its public land I'm walking in and setting up my blind and hunting. Now if there is someone there we can alternate times/days or both be there at the same time. Up to him. But that is why I usually archery hunt WY during the gun season. Rarely have a conflict.
 
Haven't been for a couple years, but there are permanent blinds at nearly every water hole on the parker. Cedar posts etc. A little fresh sage brush, a few cedar branches, maybe some burlap and they are good to go. A bottle with a note on it always helps. We've never tried to claim a blind for an entire hunt. Only a moron would do that. We'd never walk into a water hole and set up when someone else was already in another blind. Only a moron would do that as well.
 
I feel I should follow up on this Thread after the hunt. While it seemed like a race to get blinds set up, I was amazed at how sharing everyone was once the hunt started. Before the season I was headed to a lakebed water hole to set up a blind and I met a hunter with a small boy. His blind was set on a waterhole about 3/4 of a mile from where I was headed. I told him my plan and I could tell he was bummed. They had just found the waterhole and were getting ready to move their blind, their current location was too close to the road. I had other options so I told them to take it. He killed a buck opening morning. Another father and son spotted them packing out their buck. They offered to leave the blind for them to hunt and he killed a buck in it that evening.

There were about 4 of us that met before the season. We exchanged numbers and we were able to text each other from our blinds. Kinda made it fun and the day went a little faster. As we tagged out we would leave our blinds so the remaining hunters had options.

Another hunter had to cancel his hunt for health reasons. He reached out through another website and I offered to pull his blind for him and get it back to him. One of the guys that was there lives not that far from him so he sat that blind a time or two and returned it to the owner.

The only funny business was the guy with the note in the bottle. Turned out the note was from a hunter from last season. His buddy was using the same note with his tag the next year. I guess he did not want people calling him. He had multiple blinds set up and was not much of a team player. I had a camera on that waterhole and I am convinced if he shot anything it was small.

I met the game cop and blm enforcement officers one day while returning to camp. They were both great guys. We talked about the illegal blinds and they said it was a calm year and they only had one complaint filed. Yup, it was me reporting the July 4th blind. I have to admit I felt a little like a ***** being the only one to complain.

Here is my opening day buck

antelope side.jpg


antelope top.jpg
 
Congrats on the buck! ... know a guy worked at a duck club in the Butte sink in Ca. Had a adjoining club caretaker put up a new platform blind next to one of their better ponds. He approached the guy who he knew, guy commented he knew it was to close, but owners wanted it there.
Blind got heavily skunked the day before the opener, never got hunted. Natural deterrent... lol
Mike
 
desperatehills said:
I feel I should follow up on this Thread after the hunt. While it seemed like a race to get blinds set up, I was amazed at how sharing everyone was once the hunt started. Before the season I was headed to a lakebed water hole to set up a blind and I met a hunter with a small boy. His blind was set on a waterhole about 3/4 of a mile from where I was headed. I told him my plan and I could tell he was bummed. They had just found the waterhole and were getting ready to move their blind, their current location was too close to the road. I had other options so I told them to take it. He killed a buck opening morning. Another father and son spotted them packing out their buck. They offered to leave the blind for them to hunt and he killed a buck in it that evening.

There were about 4 of us that met before the season. We exchanged numbers and we were able to text each other from our blinds. Kinda made it fun and the day went a little faster. As we tagged out we would leave our blinds so the remaining hunters had options.

Another hunter had to cancel his hunt for health reasons. He reached out through another website and I offered to pull his blind for him and get it back to him. One of the guys that was there lives not that far from him so he sat that blind a time or two and returned it to the owner.

The only funny business was the guy with the note in the bottle. Turned out the note was from a hunter from last season. His buddy was using the same note with his tag the next year. I guess he did not want people calling him. He had multiple blinds set up and was not much of a team player. I had a camera on that waterhole and I am convinced if he shot anything it was small.

I met the game cop and blm enforcement officers one day while returning to camp. They were both great guys. We talked about the illegal blinds and they said it was a calm year and they only had one complaint filed. Yup, it was me reporting the July 4th blind. I have to admit I felt a little like a ***** being the only one to complain.

Here is my opening day buck

View attachment 49858

View attachment 49859
Click to expand...
Very cool Jim. It’s good to hear that most fellow hunters will work together & share in the success of others. I’m happy that you tagged a great buck & everything worked out well in the end. Congratulations to both yourself & your wife on both of your harvests.
 

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