1 , "r,, - June 20, 2012 OUTDOORS Page 13
Hunting on the The dang,el s ( f decoys
Two bucks stood very still in
a small clearing of the ponderosa
pine forest, actually too still.
The hunter raised his rifle, tak-
ing aim at the larger of the two deer
and squeezed the trigger. At only
50 yards, it should have been an
easy shot but neither deer so much
as flinched. After two more shots,
his partner also fired twice with
the same result. Something wasn't
right with this situation.
Actually several things were
wrong. First off, the hunter shot
from inside his truck and his part-
ner shot while leaning against the
windshield. As the Oregon State
Police vehicle drove up behind
them, the officer introduced both
hunters to the state's decoy opera-
tion. In Oregon, it's illegal to shoot
from a vehicle or a road.
Although there is a lot of hu-
mor involved with many decoy
operations, game officials take the
work very seriously. Their goal is
to apprehend violators before they
illegally take game animals. The
decoys have fooled many would-
be poachers.
Following are some humorous
decoy stories from Oregon fish and
wildlife officers who enforce the
state game laws.
O As a pickup approached the
decoy site, two of the three passen-
gers jumped from the truck.
One began firing at the decoy
from the road, the second used the
pickup bed as a rest and began fir-
ing. In the meantime, the driver
fired shots out his window.
After a volley of shots, they
soon realized that they had been
shooting at a decoy and took off.
In his haste to leave, the driver left
one of his buddies standing in the
road. The excited man ran around
in a circle in the center of the road
two times, then tried to escape into
the timber, running into the arms of
the troopers.
O On another operation, a
truck came by with two guys inside
and two standing in the back with
bows.
When the two in the back saw
the decoy, they started pounding
on the top of the cab and pointed
back. The truck backed up, then the
driver slammed the brakes and one
guy toppled over backward, hitting
his head on the tailgate, just about
knocking him out. The other guy
got about three shots off, hitting
the decoy once.
Heating the noise of the arrow
hitting the decoy, one of them said, .
"That's a decoy, let's get out of
here!" Officers got the entire scene
on video.
O Another time a driver fired
a round from his vehicle at a deer
decoy, hitting it and then realizing
it was not the real thing. He then
grabbed the butt of his rifle and
threw it out the window and sped
off.
The man admitted to not hav-
ing a deer tag and attempting to fill
his wife's tag. He also admitted to
being a convicted felon. He tossed
the rifle because he obliterated the
serial number. Besides the game
violation and two felony charges,
he was also cited for open contain-
er and possession of marijuana.
O The driver of a pickup
slammed on the brakes and the pas-
senger jumped out before it even
came to a stop. Like a one-man
SWAT team on the scene of a bank
OUTDOORS
Scott Sta00ats
i
robbery, the man ran to the side of
the road with gun raised, intent on
getting off a shot at the large bull
elk standing only 75 yards away.
Seconds later, the driver was
also out with fiis rifle. A pickup in
front of them and one behind them
skidded to a halt, with horns blow-
ing and passengers yelling "Don't
shoot, don't shoot, it's a decoy."
The two men jumped back in
their rig and all three trucks sped
off. I sat in a blind with one trooper
and watched the scene unfold be-
fore us.
When another trooper caught
up with the hunters down the road,
they had an interesting story to tell.
The hunters in-the other two trucks
saw the decoy earlier but decided
not to tell their buddies in the third
truck; they wanted to see what
their reaction would be when they
saw it, but never expected them
to come running out of their truck
with rifles at the ready.
The passenger told the officer
that he never got out of the truck
with a rifle in his hands. The troop-
er down the road radioed this infor-
mation back and the trooper I was
with simply rewound the video to
confirm that he did indeed leave
the truck with his rifle. It turned
out the man didn't have a tag for
that unit and was cited for having'
no big game tag.
O A fly fisherman was return-
ing from a high Cascade lake late
at night during archery season and
came across the decoy set up along
the road. With the "deer" in the
headlights, he got out in his chest
waders and put the sneak on the
decoy.
He got within 30 yards, pulled
back the bow and noticed that
something didn't look right. An
earlier violator hit the decoy with
an arrow and left it slightly off kil-
ter, so he didn't shoot. He was cited
for hunting at night and using the
aid of a light.
O On my first deer decoy op-
eration I sat in a blind with one of-
ricer only a few feet off of a U.S.
Forest Service gravel road. No
sooner were two buck deer decoys
set up about 40 yards off the road
when the action began.
A truck came by, skidded to a
halt, and the driver stuck his rifle
out the window and fired three
shots while the passenger got out,
leaned against the truck and shot
twice. This information was re-
layed to the two officers in the
chase vehicle waiting a short dis-
tance away who were shortly on
the scene writing citations.
A total of 10 vehicles drove
by the decoys that morning. Three
went by without seeing the de-
coys, two slowed and looked, and
11 shots were fired from the other
five vehicles for a total of eight ci-
tations. One of the hunters didn't
have a tag and one driver didn't
even have a driver's license.
O During the second bull sea-
son a few years ago a trooper re-
ported a hunter shooting twice at
an elk decoy.
When the man realized it
wasn't a real animal he took off.
A Forest Service law enforcement
officer was waiting down the road
but when the man saw, this, he
turned around and sped back past
the aSP troopers who were waiting
there with their lights on. A chase
ensued for several miles at speeds
up to 80 mph until the man finally
gave up. He was cited for eluding
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officers, along with shooting from
a vehicle, reckless driving, DUI
and having an open container in
his vehicle. He ended up in jail and
won't be hunting for a while.
Scott Staats is a full-time outdoor
writer who lives in Prineville. Con-
tact him by e-mail at news@sweet-
homenews.com. Please put "For
Scott Staats" on the subject line.
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