New Land Purchase

I purchased 16 acres in South Central Tennessee. I scouted the land quickly and found a couple of rubs and scraps along a four wheeler trail. I immediately put up a blind and a climber on the property.

Last weekend I went to the property to hunt and found three dogs on it. I yelled to them but, they never even turned their heads despite the fact that they were only 20 yards away. They slowly walked away after finishing their drink from the creek that runs through the property.

I decided to continue to my hunting spot. A very short while later I heard the dogs chasing a deer through the woods until they there was muzzleloader blast. At which point the dogs settled down. I presume that the dogs were deer hunting dogs and that they were running the deer off of my property to their owner who was illegally hunting private property that is unowned by him but unattended by the owner.

I can't tell you how upset I was by this whole experience. I paid about $70K for this land. I bought the land to get away from public land that is overrun by these kinds of idiots. The ones that have no regard for anyone else. Well, I guess the idiots are everywhere.

My knee-jerk reaction was that I wanted to shoot the dogs and leave them for dead. But, guess what? It's not the dogs fault. It's the owners. I would not hesitate to shoot the dogs if they were a threat to me or my family but for now I will wait to find the owner, possibly capture the dogs and deliver them to the authorities. I wish there was a way to make people live HONORABLY. But, there are so few of people who give any value to honor that the bulk of our society has learned to care about themselves only... not just first, but only.

I would never knowingly step foot on private property to hunt without permission. I would never hunt a deer with a dog (this is my personal opinion) and if I did I would do it on land that I had permission to do it. Since it is against the law to hunt deer with dogs in the state of Tennessee I am sure that the poacher would never bother to ask or to consider whether the deer population could handle this type of hunting.

How do you feel about this practice? Am I wrong to want sole rights to my own land. Should I be alright with someone running deer off of my land for their own use. Not a neighbor, but a thief who puts no value on someone else's property. Not someone who gave me an opportunity to tell them my answer of: No you can't run your dogs on my land.

I called the game warden and his response was this. "Dogs know no bounds." You could shoot the dog if they are hurting your livestock or threatening you or your family. But, unless you catch the dog and deliver it to the authorities nothing can be done. He went on to say that he most likely will not be able to prosecute the hunter because they probably wouldn't be there when they arrived and if they were they can claim that they are hunting rabbits with their dogs. Which is a legal practice. About the only thing they could get them on is trespassing.

I don't want them running their rabbit dogs on my property either. Am I wrong to say, "I WANT TO HUNT MY OWN LAND"? I don't want to share it with people who have not asked my permission. That is the reason that I purchased the land... not to live on but to hunt on.

Send me your thoughts.