Deer Season, Hunters, and Thieves

WEBSTER COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – We’re right in the middle of deer season, which means hunters aren’t the only ones on the hunt.

Law enforcement say thieves are too.

Deer season means hunters are stocking up and storing gear at their camps.

Law enforcement say the extra equipment is attracting thieves to the property, especially during the week when no one is there.

Webster County Sheriff’s Investigator Landon Griffin says their office often sees a spike in thefts when deer season rolls around.

“Our deer hunters come in and they’re liable not to be here from, you know, six months out of the year, and then all of a sudden, they come here for deer hunting and they’ll have, you know, something taken off their porch, or something along those lines.”

Or something on wheels.

“We have our four-wheeler spikes. Some of them leave their four-wheelers here. Some of them leave them in sheds.”

Griffin says Webster County has a number of homes and hunting camps where people don’t live full-time.

“Just an example, we have a group that lives in Louisiana. They come up here deer hunting, so I mean, they don’t come up here regularly and check their stuff and then they come up here and they may find something missing, you know, sometimes they don’t, but sometimes they do. ”

That can complicate theft investigations.

“A lot of them, they don’t know their broken into and we have trouble sometimes because we don’t know what was in the house. We don’t know what’s missing, so we’re having to find the people, contact them, and let them know what happened and then wait on them to get here to find out if something is missing out of the house or not.”

That’s why the investigator says it’s important for hunters to keep everything locked up and accounted for at all times.

Deputies also try to keep an eye out while the hunters are away.

“You know your houses that are not occupied, deputies try to pay close attention to those and you just have to go by your memory and look and see what’s on the porch and the next time you go by and see if that same stuff is there. If it’s not, then you got a problem, and then we get a phone call and then we go.”

Griffin also suggests hunters to put locks on their equipment and to set up cameras on the property.