Agreed, sadly they are out there.
I had a very bad experience with a young and lazy EPO when I called and reported a shotgun hunter in the middle of a 1,000 acre bow hunting area during archery season quite a few years ago. I will never call another one again unless someone’s life is in jeopardy.
Thank you for the clarification. That’s good to know.
Never invite the Fishcop man into your life. Most of them are good guys...but you don't want to deal with the bad ones.
That said, I have in CT when I was new to urban hunting..........with varied results....first time very positive, second time very negative......... after legally shooting a deer on private land and it went onto other non posted private land (of course that doesn't matter in CT all property is assumed posted).
After the negative interaction of where the EPO told me to stop hunting on land I had permission on because I was upsetting the abutting landowner, and not only that the ONE abutting landowner, as I had permission from everyone else in the neighborhood.
I politely told him to Fxck off, he can't tell me where and where not to hunt, as I have the whole goddamn subdivision, and in later hunts, I would just go scoop up the deer instead of calling and wasting my time with an EPO.
And as a general rule, I made that my typical recovery MO on EVERY place that a deer went off private land. If it was obvious, id knock on the landowners door.......and deal with them rather than roll the dice of Fishcop roulette. Took way less time and 100% of the time even if they hated me, they didn't want a rotting carcass on their lawn or property and would let me search.
Many times all I did was gain more access to hunting property that way as well, some people would even invite me in. It wasn't all negative for sure. And it was way better than calling and EPO.
But 99% of the time, run over, and slide it back on my property.....done. Get back in the tree, go shoot another one. My main concern was not wasting a deer, and not leaving a carcass on someones lawn and showing bowhunting in a bad light. Not often, but there were times I had to knock on quite a few doors if I hit a deer bad......that SUCKED. And it made me not shoot unless conditions were 100% perfect, broadside and relaxed deer.