has this happened to anybody else?

[bristolblue's]

we had this bear on the ground, listening to the dogs walk him below us, according to the garmin they were only eighty yards away, but the brush and trees to thick to see them, they where going slow, like the bear didn't really care, when all of a sudden we heard to gun shots down below us, these stupid assholes where shotting at the freaking bear that my dogs had, from over five hundred yards away. we didn't even know they were there, have you ever had this happen? i would also like to know what you think about this?

[BlacktailStalker]

Tough one, if they didnt know what was going on... its a chance you take.
If they did know, well the replies are obvious.
This is why I wont run cats in deer season if we get an early snow... too many guys in the woods.

[Dale T]

About 10 years ago

While roading my dogs up a dead end road, they struck and headed up the ridge, my Dad and I got out of the truck to listen and thought they were going over the ridge into the next drainage so we went up the road to where we thought we could here them better about 1/4 mile up the road there was a guy walking the road, I stopped just to let him know what we had going on and he told me that he was still hunting for bear, we then couldn't hear the dogs any more so I told him good luck and went to the end of the road to listen, from there we could hear the dogs bayed up on the top of the ridge, we turned around and went pasted the still hunter to a short side road and called my hunting partner to see if he was making it, I told him what we had going and if he wanted his dogs in on it he had better get there before they got it treed, he was on his way and would be there in about 5 minutes, we could hear my dogs and they were treed when he got there, as he got out of his truck we heard a shot and my dogs shut up, I took off on a run to them not sure if they were shooting the bear or my dogs, when I got to where I thought they should be I ran right into the still hunter, he was heading for his truck, I asked what was going on and he told me that he thought that we had left the area and thought that it would be OK to take the bear, at that point I decided to do the PC thing and not take his head off, but I did take his bear tag for proof of ID and told him to call F&G after getting the bear out (witch was a 80lb sow that had a 20lb cub with her I didn't find that out until later when I found my dogs had it treed and the still hunter fessed up to F&G that a cub was in the tree next to the sows and came down after he shot her).
After calling F&G, filing a report, taking a F&G officer to the site and finding out that the still hunter had left 1/2 the bear in the woods F&G took it to the DA in Nevada county and they refused to file charges due to a lack of jury appeal, at that point I told F&G that if he would have had hounds he would have been in jail already, for some reason he took offence to that and our conversation was over, and I never heard another thing on it.

[walkerdog]

The same thing happened to us 2 times last September during deer season. Opening day we were right on top of the dogs baying the bear and we started hearing gunshots and went running down there. There were some asian guys KICKING my dogs off of this bear!! They said that they never heard any dogs! We took their licence plate, hunting license number and bear tag number and gave it to the game warden to make sure they took it. Very next weekend same freekin thing but the bear was not dead, shot in the back and pissed off, dogs weren't leashed and my friend was walking to it with his 4 year old and heard the shot right on the other side of the hill. He had to shoot it again to put it down, the guy that shot it out of the tree (same family as the first time) walked up the hill and dissapeared while he was getting his a$$ chewing! Same thing called the game warden and he said there wasn't anything he could do. My wife started checking into it and in California we have an anti hunter harrasment law, which they told us this was not why the law was written. So I asked him if my dogs are an extention of me (which they are when they cross onto private property) then they had interfered with my hunt. He went back to his boss and called me later and said that if we could call him when it happens then he could give him an ticket under anti hunter harrassment. One time will piss you right off, 2 weekends in a row will really piss you off!!!

[walkerdog]

I have also had this kind of issues with other houndsmen. My friend and I walked into bear tree, took about 40 minutes and looked at the bear for a while. Forgot the camera, so just admiring him. Then all these dogs come running into the tree. Mine were already leashed up my friend was going to shoot it. I don't have leashes for all these dogs so we are waiting for someone to come in. So there are 12-15 dogs all over the tree growling at each other snapping at each other, chaotic mess. Within an hour people start pouring into this tree at least 10 yelling at us this is their bear they caught it. I am explainig I've been standing here for an hour and a half and when I got here my 3 dogs were the only ones here. Whatever I am not going to deal with all of this, so I am watching this little girl shoot the bear and someone starts running around unleashing all these dogs including mine! Theres 1 dog that imediatly jumps on another dog and a viscious dog fights breaks out. I grabbed ahold of my dogs and we just got the hell out of there.

[Dale T]

Here in California there was a civil case from back in the late 50's that my father in law's father won against a guy that got to the tree before him and his client, shot the bear and claimed it, the judge ruled that because his dogs had treed the bear that they would have had to bite the bear which meant they drew first blood and that that meant the bear belonged to the houndsmen, I tried to talk to the DA here about this case but because it was civil it would not hole up in a criminal case.

Sorry about being a little off topic Bristolblue's

[bency]

Find the biggest Fing stick around and smack the snot out of them...then pick up and leave quick.

[kordog]

its against the law here in maine

[houndnem]

sounds like the law don't want to deal with it much? sounds like it's time to start dishin out some a$$ whoopins!!! Every time we have to do that it ruins the whole experiance and you still feel bad, but somethins gotta be done with these a$$ Holes. It would be different if it were an accident and they appologized and got their dogs the hell out of there. but it seems like these people just think they own the world.