Shoot big game from the road/vehicle in wyoming?

[Chuksnipr]

I've had many in depth discussions with both legislators and law enforcement (Game Wardens) regarding interpretation, the letter of the law and the SPIRIT of the law, or the intention behind it.
In PA, the verbiage in the law states it is illegal to alight from a vehicle and shoot at a animal until you have gone 25' from the traveled portion of the roadway. While many interpret that to mean you cannot shoot from the road or within 25' of it, that is not the case. It is intended to prevent road hunting. There is a huge difference between walking/stalking still hunting or putting on a drive while walking on the road or the shoulder as opposed to driving around, seeing a deer standing in the middle of a field and jumping out of the car throwing the gun up and shooting. Not only unsafe but unethical as well. Not fair chase.

I am assuming that 25' is suppose to be 75' because the minimum distance is 25 yards not feet.

 

[Chuksnipr]

The law

 

[Varmint Hunter]

The law

Even the PA wildlife guys, that I've encountered while hunting groundhogs, don't seem to agree on the meaning of this section. It specifically requires a hunter to "alight from a vehicle" to possibly be in violation of the code.
I hunted groundhogs on a large farm where I set up a table 10-15' from the road and shoot directly away from the road. I occasionally shoot WITH the landowner. I was stopped by Game Commission Officers who claimed that I was in violation of the code. When I explained that I did not alight from a vehicle and that my SUV was parked some distance away and that I had been there for several hours it didn't seem to matter. As a courtesy to the officers, I just packed up and moved to another farm. However, further discussion with the Game Commission revealed that the section ONLY applies to road hunting which starts with alighting from a vehicle. They said that my activity was, in fact, perfectly legal but thanked me for avoiding the issue altogether.
There are far too many sections of the fish and game laws that are subject to interpretation. Add to that the fact that some regulations change every year. It doesn't make it very easy to stay in strict compliance with the law even when you are committed to doing so.

 

[yobuck]

That is simply not true. Minimum distance is 25 yards from the road and you have to be at least 20 feet above
the roadway to shoot across a roadway.

Read the law more thourally, after alighting from a vehicle, means if you have been driving along the road, you must be 25 yds.
Otherwise you can legally be walking on the road and shoot.

 

[wyguide]

Cannot use any part of a vehicle as a shooting rest in Wyoming private or not, and cannot shoot from or across a county road. You can however step off the road several feet and shoot on that side of the road, not across it.

 

[WYO300RUM]

Cannot use any part of a vehicle as a shooting rest in Wyoming private or not, and cannot shoot from or across a county road. You can however step off the road several feet and shoot on that side of the road, not across it.

What I was told by Warden's.

 

[WapitiBob]

They got lucky and changed their vid to private before law enforcement got to them.

 

[WahooYahoo]

Cannot use any part of a vehicle as a shooting rest in Wyoming private or not, and cannot shoot from or across a county road. You can however step off the road several (30) feet and shoot on that side of the road, not across it.

Yes, This ^^^^^

 

[Ol' Red]

Six years ago we were sitting off the road leaning across a pickup, glassing for antelope. Game warden stopped to check licenses. A nice buck walked out of a arroyo. It was my son's first goat hunt, so we wanted him to get first shot of the day. The sage was too tall for my son to use his bi-pod, so the warden said "just rest it on the hood." He said shooting across the hood was not shooting from the vehicle. I have found no legal definition to separate across a vehicle or from a vehicle. I glass from vehicles often and set up a stalk from there, which could be 1.5 miles away. So it has never come up since that time.

 

[yobuck]

Six years ago we were sitting off the road leaning across a pickup, glassing for antelope. Game warden stopped to check licenses. A nice buck walked out of a arroyo. It was my son's first goat hunt, so we wanted him to get first shot of the day. The sage was too tall for my son to use his bi-pod, so the warden said "just rest it on the hood." He said shooting across the hood was not shooting from the vehicle. I have found no legal definition to separate across a vehicle or from a vehicle. I glass from vehicles often and set up a stalk from there, which could be 1.5 miles away. So it has never come up since that time.

Like every thing else, there are Wardens, and there are Wardens.
Above all else they are just people, and like all other people they have their own set of biases and opinions.
There is no doubt about the fact that some have biased opinions on long range hunting and all associated with it.
And if they can at least make you uncomfortable and disrupt your day thats a plus as far as they are concerned.

 

[Ol' Red]

Like every thing else, there are Wardens, and there are Wardens.
Above all else they are just people, and like all other people they have their own set of biases and opinions.
There is no doubt about the fact that some have biased opinions on long range hunting and all associated with it.
And if they can at least make you uncomfortable and disrupt your day thats a plus as far as they are concerned.

I have not met a game warden that was hard to deal with since I moved to Wyoming. In fact I met a few game wardens from Alaska that were easy to get along with, when I lived there. The ones I dealt with in Washington state seemed to assume you were poaching all the time. Maybe they did not like military. I was still a G.I. dog back then.

 

[WYO300RUM]

Six years ago we were sitting off the road leaning across a pickup, glassing for antelope. Game warden stopped to check licenses. A nice buck walked out of a arroyo. It was my son's first goat hunt, so we wanted him to get first shot of the day. The sage was too tall for my son to use his bi-pod, so the warden said "just rest it on the hood." He said shooting across the hood was not shooting from the vehicle. I have found no legal definition to separate across a vehicle or from a vehicle. I glass from vehicles often and set up a stalk from there, which could be 1.5 miles away. So it has never come up since that time.

Amen brother. Non residents reading too much in to it. Never told 30 ft. etc.. two tracks. Lol. Over the hood is fine . I'm bored with this thread already.

 

[itchytriggerfinger]

I am assuming that 25' is suppose to be 75' because the minimum distance is 25 yards not feet.

Yes, you are correct, I mistyped feet when it should of been yards. Should of been recognized I reposted the paragraph of title 34 that clearly says yards. My bad…

 

[itchytriggerfinger]

I am assuming that 25' is suppose to be 75' because the minimum distance is 25 yards not feet.

As Yobuck and Varmint hunter have also posted, the point I was trying to make was that the 25 yard distance prohibition refers to being in a moving vehicle driving down the road, seeing game, jumping out and shooting at it.That is unfair advantage using a motorized vehichle to locate game. Has nothing to do with being within 25 yards of the road when there is no vehicle present and you are on foot.
Also,
nowhere does it state you must be 20' above the road you are shooting across. It states you must be high enough to preclude any danger to the users of the highway.
Not like I'd wanna be within 20' but my guess is there is no figured published as each scenario is different.