Trespassing occurs far more often than many landowners realize. Unauthorized access can range from picking up valuable shed antlers to bagging that monster buck that you’ve been protecting for years. Often, you must work all week to hunt on the weekends, while poachers sneak onto your property mid-week. This post by Brian Towe on the QDMA website speaks squarely to the problem and how you can help solve it.
Hunters pursue their prey by identifying predictable patterns. We try to locate a buck’s core area through sightings, trail-camera photos, or sign like rubs and scrapes. Similarly, trespassers use many of the same techniques. While I wouldn’t categorize a trespasser as a hunter, trespassers do possess a predatory mentality. Their prey just happens to be you.
Avoiding patterns will not prevent the casual trespasser. It will, however, ward off the chronic problems, which ultimately can be the most damaging to a QDM program. It is the chronic trespassers who routinely disturb deer activity and who are most likely to kill a deer while on your hunting land. More than a decade of wildlife law enforcement experience taught me that most hunters become aware of a trespassing issue only after a deer has been poached.
I have spoken to numerous trespassers who admitted they studied certain patterns to aid their “success.” That’s how I learned four ways you can avoid being patterned by trespassers.
