Hunting hours??? humorous look at it, but point made

[The Vanilla Gorilla]

SEMO...

There's a diffrence between being in the woods with a bow at 4.30am and actually cutting loose an arrow at a deer at that time.  

In our regs, they word it as "legal shooting hours".

[Eugene Slagle]

Originally posted by The Vanilla Gorilla:
SEMO...

There's a diffrence between being in the woods with a bow at 4.30am and actually cutting loose an arrow at a deer at that time.  

In our regs, they word it as "legal shooting hours".

Virginia has it as Legal Hunting hours:

•One-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset for nonmigratory birds and game animals except during spring gobbler season.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Yes Cameron I know.......That's exactly the point I'm trying to make.

We don't see anything unethical about jumping up in our stand an hour before sunrise, but if you sit one minute longer in your stand at night then you better get yourself a good lawyer.....Right?

Anytime you are in the field or woods with a weapon in hand.....you ARE Hunting!
Doesn't matter if it's 7PM or 3am.......in the eyes of the law you are hunting. No matter what your intentions are......Legally speaking of course because none of us would do something like that.

Good Point Eugene.......your state says it's ok to get in there early during spring gobbler season.....what does it say about bow season?
Does it specifically say that it's ok to get up into your treestand an hour before sunrise?
Does it also say that it's ok to sneak through the woods with a bow in hand on your way to the stand an hour before sunrise?

Probably not, but how many guys do it?


See my point at all?

It's not that cut and dry as some have stated. It's just a standard by which they set the rules and a certain amount of ethics on the part of the hunter has to be left open.

I have never heard in my life of a hunter getting a ticket for going to his stand an hour early. I have never heard of a hunter getting a ticket for staying in his stand 10 min. after shooting hours, and I don't expect anybody would get a ticket for trying to get close to a roosted bird either.

[onewhohasfun]

In Michigan you can spend all night in your stand legally. As long as you don't have an arrow nocked before legal time you are fine.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Originally posted by onewhohasfun:
In Michigan you can spend all night in your stand legally. As long as you don't have an arrow nocked before legal time you are fine.

If that is truly the case, then it's all a mute point anyway and comes back down to the ethics of the hunter when to leave his stand.
The law about legal shooting time is intended for one purpose and one purpose only.......To deter anyone from poaching.......correct?
If you aren't spotlighting a field with a handheld artifical light on your way in or out of the woods then I don't think you will ever have to worry about anything.

Uh oh....what if your tracking a deer after dark?
Hopefully the warden will understand.  :rolleyes:

[lpcjon2]

"Can't we all just get along"-Rodney King

 twist it, pull it, and re-word it however you like but the laws were made for a reason and without laws we uncivilized.Follow them or take the chance of getting prosecuted.Think if a snapper head decided to take a shot after the legal time at a silhouette he thought was a deer,and that silhouette was you.

 And it's intended for safety(yours and mine) and keeping people from poaching.

[Doc Nock]

I've enjoyed reading this thread.

We have public lands around here that dictate that you be OUT of the woods by end of shooting hours which used to be sunset, now 1/2  hour AFTEr sunset.  These "areas" dictate more stringent requirements...usually "parks" that allow hunting but basic park rules are Dusk to Dawn you have to be OUT! Creates a challenge...

Truthfully, it seems all the interesting discussion (thankfully, not debate) has been on "how late" on the far end of ethical.

Did we review the other end?  

There are many overcast days that I still have 15, 20 or even 30  min of "legal" shooting "time" left, but I'd consider myself HIGHLY un-ethical (even dangerous) to loose an arrow as dark as it had become.

The converse might also be true on a field edge on a clear bright day/evening...where there is plenty of light--but the legal time ran out.

In my state, the concern for ending at sunset was TOTALLY on hunter safety... but other "1/2 hour AFTER" states statistics on hunter safety, prodded PA to change their times a few years back.

So I guess my point is there are times when it's still "LEGAL" but it is highly dangerous and unethical to loose a shaft!

And still, we read every now and then where somone was shot in their stand or coming or going in but it was DEAD Dark! How's that possible that someone thought it was a deer?

Thought likely never entered into it...  :(

[bawana bowman]

Maybe I shouldn't put it this way, but I think it's all in how the enforcement fellows happen to feel on any particular day.
Had some friends receive tickets for shooting before legal time while duck hunting. I was with them but was using a longbow so he couldn't give me a ticket without actually seeing me shoot. Along with my buddies 11 others also got ticketed.
One person shot early and all others immediately began shooting also.
Everyone figured it was at or past start time. The first shot came from our west side, well who do you think was hunting and in the only group to our left? The officer which wrote all the tickets! And he made a point of letting everyone know the first shot was 1 minute early!
Had another officer with him (also hunting) which stopped him from confiscating weapons from everyone.
Only 5 of those ticketed decided to show up at court to fight it. After hearing testimony from all the judge threw it out due to to much hearsay.
Guess all the others should have showed up in court.
The way I see it if you don't actually shoot or have the capability of shooting, (weapon of any type ready to shoot) then your not hunting. Your just looking! Which isn't illegal at any time. (This is in reference to going to or from a stand, or waiting for light after moving in early to not spook the critters.)

[Encino Man]

There are those who will risk getting close enough to a lion to kill it with a spear. Sometimes that means you won't go hungry the next day. Sometimes that means the lion won't go hungry. Pick your poison. Get close enough to skirt ragged edge of the law and you may get by with it. Then again you may not. Jails are full of those who interpret the laws in their own special way.

[Don Stokes]

It's easy to say "just don't break the law", but in the real world things aren't that simple. I have killed a deer illegally, when the deer was seriously wounded, gut shot, by poachers. I could not retrieve the deer from across a river, so it was wasted. I would do it again, to stop the suffering. Illegal? Yes. Immoral? Not in my world.

I also exceed the speed limit regularly, mostly to keep from getting run over. I'll do that again, too, for safety's sake. Take me in, I'm guilty.

[Ragnarok Forge]

Legal and illegal are close lines as stated in posts here.  I pulled over to kill a wounded deer ( hit by a car ) one night on the way back from hunting.  I got my tire iron out the whack it with so I wasn't "hunting".  A Washington State Patrolman was passing by and promptly stopped and drew down on me and wanted to know what I was up to.  Once he figured out what was going on he shot the deer to put it out of it's misery.  A less reasonable office could have accused me of illegal harvesting and ticketed me.  I had no intention of keeping the deer.  I just didn't want to leave it kicking alongside the road to die a long death.  Sometimes you have to make a judgement call on doing what it needed versus the letter of the law.  

For those who blindly follow the law, I suggest a good long read of the constitution and the bill of rights.  Those are the only laws that matter to the core of who we are as a people.

I am a law keeper myself, but I am not going to stop my hunt 30 minutes before end of shooting light.  My state doesn't expect me to either.  It expects me to unload whatever weapon I am using at end of shooting light and then walk out with it unloaded.

[ChuckC]

In Wisconsin, I can be in the tree after shooting time, for a reasonable amount of time, but if I have an arrow nocked I can be ticketed.  This is according to the game warden that was waiting for me at my truck.  

If I am correct. .  and I believe I am, you cannot hunt varmints at night with a bow here . .  because of that.

The Bill of Rights is not the only law of the land.  Certain laws. .  like murder I believe, are state laws, not Federal.
ChuckC

[Mike Vines]

Ragnarok Forge, in that instance it probably would have been OK to slowdown, and not stop.  LOL