myself and a couple other guys had quite a few stolen the last 2 years. the thief finally messed up and left a pic or 2 of himself. anyway,, he got recognized by another local....cause the thief was a old time local from a well known local family who had hunted the area for years (like 50+ years). the warden was called (not by me),,,,and the warden did nothing. not sure why. he did call a few of us who had our cams stolen or vandelized and took our statements. my cam was in a stealth box,, so he, well, i am not going to say what he did cause could be on these forum there are lurkers finding new ideas. i do think that sometimes out west, on public lands, the motive is not stealing per se but a lot of people who have been hunting in an area come to think of it as "their own" and as it gets harder and harder to get a tag and they see all the "city folk" out in there area putting up cams,, they get pissed and want to pursuade these interlopers to leave. obviously, a lot of formerly good spots, secret spots, only known to someone who had to hike or horseback his way there many years ago,,,have been found and the oldtimers get sad as they watch the beer belly city hunter dude blaze a new sxs track into it with the stereo blasting on his 40K sxs,,, throw up one of his $200 cams of which he has hundreds cause price is no object for city beer belly dude,,,and then he proceeds to put cams like absolutely on every waterhole,,,,then,, if he gets something good,,, tells his best city buddy in confidence,, who tells his best city buddy,, and then next year,,, there are 20 sxs's blazing new trails and next year there are 20 cams decorating the trees or fenceposts around the waterholes
then let's not forget the guides, who sadly have a reputation around here for wiping cards or stealing cams and blocking roads and spooking deer on purpose during someone else's stalk,,, cause they have to get paid to find the extra big one for their super rich client. god forbid that a DYI guy who finally got a tag after 5-8 years find an extra good buck should be allowed to actually hunt the buck,,, not when the 10 different guide services all have 10 different rich out of state dudes who want that same buck.
what is the general consensus on this forum about guides in general,,, good for sport or not? and cams? good for the sport or not? and sxs's, good for the sport or not? just wondering what others think.