concerned at night?

sniperman

hi all,any of you concerned about leaving the car/van alone at night when going for a shot?lad i know came back to his car after a few hours lamping,side window smashed,some cds,a coat,and spare pair wellies gone,and the worst part was it was parked beside 4 houses in well lit area,kinda fcuks up the night,and makes one think where to park next time,i have a 3 year old car,would hate to have that happen,but what can one do:mad:

Auldloon

I'm currently living abroad in a city with high petty crime. Standard practice here is leave absolutely nothing in your vehicle and leave the glove compartment open to show its empty. Its a bit of a pain but so far it's worked for me.

Vulture 1

I usually park in the landowners place so I ve never had a problem.

Maybe a trail cam they are easy to set and at least you would have some evidence for the guards.

Other than that don't leave anything of value in the car maybe invest in a car alarm.

Eddie B

If they came across my auld yoke, they'd nearly leave a few Bob outa pity!

Cass

These feckers can be in and gone in seconds. So even if someone seen it happen they'll be gone before they can pick up a phone to ring the Gardaí.

It's one of two things:

1. They took a chance on a random car
2. They knew who parked there

A mate of mine had this about 8 months ago. There is a specific spot him and a few others park in the whole time they go out for a shot. It's not illuminated like your spot, but it's known that if a car is there the lads that own it are in the fields. This allows anyone to break in without being caught.

Where i shoot the land is so isolated that you'd have a hard time finding the land let alone the car and as said above i usually drive it into the land owners yard or down a lane and park it out of sight.

I never use the same spot over and over and i make sure to leave nothing on the seats or in view. Another small tip is to remove anything that would identify you as a shooter/hunter. Some lads have stickers on the car. Remove them. Some leave boots, gun slips, etc sitting on the seats.

Now you won't stop someone getting in if they want. All you can do is try to reduce the risk that they can find the car and make it an unappealing to break into it (not worth their time). You are most likely not targeted because you're a gun owner, its more a case of opportunity but take precautions.

It's not just when hunting. I take the same precautions when i come back from the range. I use one of four different routes to the range and another to come home. I vary them at random, and am always alert for cars that may be behind me right to the house. There are people out there that will target you as a possible firearm owner simply because you exit a range.

sniperman

some good advice there cass.will take it on board.

allan450

im well respected and english bull siting in the front helps.

Del2005

allan450 wrote: »

im well respected and english bull siting in the front helps.

Can your English Bull put out fires?

Unfortunately we've a particular scourge of people who travel around the mountains and rural areas with bad intentions, have a look at the amount of trouble people have with cars at common hiking start points, who have no respect for anything bar their own and have zero issues with breaking into a vehicle which is obviously empty of valuables, by leaving the glove box and any other storage open, just for fun and then set fire to it as there was nothing in it.

J.R.

Friend of mine came back one evening from lamping, in Kerry, to find his 4 tyres slashed.

Some hassle to try to get it home.

He was lucky it was a fairly popular car - a Ford Focus - so he was able to ring friends who knew of others who had a Focus to bring the spare wheel down to his car.

Cost him a few hundred €uros to sort out replacement tyres.

John_Rambo

Not a hunter, but I surf all over Ireland so the cars a sitting target as the thieves know exactly were you are, they can see you're a kilometre offshore and you can't see them. A lot of surfers leave their vans/cars/jeeps unlocked with nothing of value in the vehicle.

Popular surf spots are targeted, so we bring our phones, keys, wallets to the beach and bury them in the sand with a nondescript marker (broken branch, rock, seashell..) marking the spot. Could be an idea of hunters? You're probably good backwoods men, so that shouldn't be a problem!

There's waterproof bags you can get online on various watersports websites. They're 100% effective, you could hide them in a bog with phone/keys etc..

Slashing tyres?? That's just bad.

Cass

I'm not concerned with anyone taking anything as i leave nothing in my car. Valuables have no place being on you when you're out hunting but car keys, wallet, etc are kept on my person (most shooting gear has multiple pockets) in a zipped pocket.

The damage to my car would piss me off. All you can do is report it and move on. Prevention is better than cure, but sometimes not everyone has that luxury.

Grizzly 45

Buy a dual camera dashcam. Set it up so it covers both the windscreen and the rear of the vechicle.Prefably one with out lots of recording on warning lights. Be surprised how small these have become in recent years.You might be lucky and get a nice shot of the perps breaking in.

Cass

I was only thinking about that the other day, but do they not need to have the car driving, or at least the ignition on? Some cars when you remove the key kill power to the cigarette lighter/power plug.

Grizzly 45

Some apprently have internal batteries that will keep it powered for a few hours..Wouldnt be the hardest job for an auto electrican to provide a direct feed of 12v to it either.If that was too much,you can get so called "lapel cams" ,which are like the micro cams police use to record incidents on the street when dealing with the public up close& personal.They will run 8 hours without a charge.One facing forward and one facing back would do a good coverage of any car.

Cass

Mine has internal batteries that feed/charge from the cigarette plug when driving but can run on their own without the power. Thing is when they're on the screen is on.

I suppose you could get an auto sparks to wire it up.

goz83

Its easily enough to wire it to an always on feed. I had my gps tracker wired to the continuous feed, so I was never worried about it going dead. You don't have to dig deep to find a live feed. Often enough, the feed going into the glove compartment is a live one.