fun2grow

im growing outdoors in a nature preserve by my house and i have a few big ones but i go to the site too often and i think im beating a trail from walking back and forth and last time i went i noticed some orange plastic on a tree as if to mark the trail that i never noticed before and also i put some beer under my plants to keep slugs away and when i went there it had been moved. do you think it could be cops and what would happen if i got casught with 3 four footers

fun2grow

well the plant is hidden in an area where as it is only easily accessable from one trail becasue everything else around it is too thick to travel through. i know that the orange flag just popped up, cause im sure it wasnt there before. my plants are so nice and there is no way i can stay away forever cause i put so much time into them. why would they move two small cups of beer in the first place? i think they might be triing to stake me out cause i live in a small town where this would make a great story becasue ive never heard of anyone getting caught around here. also i took down the orange flag. was this a mistake? and have any idea on how i could set something up to let me know if anyone goes to my site(keep in mind there is only one entrance in so there is no escaping the trap) any suggestions appreciated

Panama

Moved to Security.

Panama

You should never use the same path twice when visiting your outdoor grow site. It's just common sense to approach from different ways to avoid beating a path down that anyone can follow to the fruits of your labor.

I doubt that it was the police that moved your slug bait, because the police would've just destroyed them. The police won't waste time and money trying to catch someone for growing 3 plants. Now, if you had 300 plants they'd place the site under surveilance and wait to nab you on the trail you're wearing down. My best bet is it was some unscrupulous stoner that is waiting for you to nurse your babies to maturity and then plans on absconding with the buds himself.

Ganja Warrior

Depending on the type of nature preserve, (government [state or fed] owned and ran, private intensively managed, or just an area that has been designated as a nature preserve), you could be in trouble. Owner/operators of "nature preserves" take their areas seriously, and they may be interested in "doing something" about your plants. Orange flagging is used by any number of people in the outdoors, such as surveyors, real estate people, hikers, etc. Look to see if there is any other flagging in the area. Typically, flagging is tied within view of the next piece and designate a boundry or trail. If there is only one piece of flagging and it marks your trail, stay away!

If things in your grow site have been noticably moved it is either cops with little experience in the woods or as Panama suggests, compitition waiting for you to do the hard work and then steal your crop.

Either way, you've been compromised and you should stay out of the area and chalk it up to experience.

Joker1.5

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, helvetica, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
Originally posted by Ganja Warrior:

If things in your grow site have been noticably moved it is either cops with little experience in the woods
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Most "COPS" have no real experience in the woods. Maybe some are hunters but that's about it. Cops have not spent any long periods living in the woods. With all the radios and gear and smelly bug spray they wear you can hear and smell them a mile off anyway. Cops always take the easy trail. With all the crap they carry they have no choice. My property borders State Woodland. I watched Cops walking an area last Sept. that was busted by Hunters the year before. What a joke! First the motercade to the site. Slam all the car doors, piss on a tree, have a smoke and spread the maps on the car hood. Then the assault was on. Clumsy, noisy and often lost without radios the first wave was into the thick stuff. They walked close by two very nice small 6' plus patches. It was kind of funny to see them walk out of the thicket all sweaty and ripped up by thorns knowing that they were 50-100 feet from some very nice weed. They came up empty and went home early. The heat and thorns took a toll on the State boys. One of them was nice enough to stop by and ask me if I had seen any strangers parked up on the road this summer. Hmmmmmmmm, gee officer no one ever goes up there. All those thorns and swamp and such. Why would anyone go up there unless they was huntin?

You could see that the horse the State Troopers brought was not used to being off a trail and the rider was forced to keep it on the dirt road. Maybe the horse was for traffic control on a seasonal use road. Some of them sure could use some fitness activity. They been sittin in them cars toooo long. They had two bloodhound dogs with them and still missed it.

Cops love to brag about how good they are. They know where to look and trip over a patch now and then. Even if they find one patch there's more

If the cops had found your tiny little site they would have ripped up the plants and called the news for posed pics, backslapping all round and a little TV anti drug exposure. Cops love TV reporters more than life so I doubt that they found it. Don't give the Cops too much credit. They like to fool folks with big talk about how good they are. The fear factor is high you know. In reality it's just Cop propaganda. Cops are expert and adept at propaganda grandising themselves. Cops lost the War on Drugs a long time ago just like they lost the war on Alcohol Prohibition. Now the cops are in the fight for the money. All that overtime roaming the woods you know. Gotta bust those drug growing American Citizens and make their lives hell. Hey the County Lawyers and Judges have to pay for those Volvos Cadillacs and 250K houses somehow. They have to justify it somehow. If they had discovered your patch it would have weighed in at 30lbs (estimated harvest #'s) and been worth 100K (for the TV News).

Just remember this, if yo are stopped by the Cops you have no idea whos plants, what plants. You are just out walking the dog, looking for the dog, you dropped a quarter around here somewhere. Anyway if you planted it and were not arrested there is no evidence you planted them. My advice is to only work the garden in the dark. No light no pics. When you harvest, harvest at 4 am. Do not take the crop back to where you stay. Park far enough away so your car attracts no attention to the grow spot. Never transport weed with a car, use a bike or walk. Cops never sit on a patch watching it too long. The cops fear (Grower Fear Factor) is the grower will sneak back and harvest and they will miss out on all the backslapping and beer drinking that occurs after a bust. If I think I am being watched I let my dogs loose. If anyone is around I'll know soon enough.


[This message has been edited by Joker1.5 (edited July 06, 2000).]

Ganja Warrior

[quote]Originally posted by Joker1.5:
[b] Most "COPS" have no real experience in the woods. Maybe some are hunters but that's about it. Cops have not spent any long periods living in the woods. With all the radios and gear and smelly bug spray they wear you can hear and smell them a mile off anyway. Cops always take the easy trail. With all the crap they carry they have no choice.[b][quote]

Joker, you obviously have never met real woods cops. The average "beat cop" is just as you describe. I don't take those kind in the woods with me for recon or surveilance opns. They are good on eradication day, because they divert the media away from me.
I have never appeared on tv or in the other forms of media, I let the local cops get all the glory. I am never mentioned, and my agency rarely gets mentioned. I stay in the woods for extended periods of time, and once I successfully insert into a site I stay in place until I get what I'm after or until the amount of time I have allocated for that operation is expired.

I haven't hunted since the service, I guess I got a different perspective on sport killing from Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam spent hundreds of thousands of dollars teaching me to run small unit covert ops, and I can say I've never been compromised in the woods when with the the cops I have trained, or who have similar backgrounds.

My very first "covert" op in my present position, I went in with guys I didn't know, who had the kinds of personal traits you describe. We were compromised without even knowing it until the grower began firing a .308 Cal rifle into the area in which we were "hidden."

Since that day, I do not go into the woods with anyone I have not trained or observed in action. I even plan and conduct dummy ops to watch the other cops in the woods. If they don't cut the mustard, I thank them politely, tell them what a success the day was and never go out with them on any "sneek and peek."

Working at nite is a good idea if all you are facing are the patrol car cops. Low Lux CCD cameras and NVGs are issued items to many of the "herb police" here in California. My motto has always been, "the nite is your friend."

[This message has been edited by Ganja Warrior (edited July 07, 2000).]

Joker1.5

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, helvetica, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ganja Warrior:
[b]

my agency rarely gets mentioned. I stay in the woods for extended periods of time, and once I successfully insert into a site I stay in place until I get what I'm after or until the amount of time I have allocated for that operation is expired.

[This message has been edited by Ganja Warrior (edited July 07, 2000).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, helvetica, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ganja Warrior:
Uncle Sam spent hundreds of thousands of dollars teaching me to run small unit covert ops<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What total BS. All Cops are LIARS. Even the wannabes are LIARS.

You belong to some super secret sniper service recon patrol. OK you are out of control. You should write fiction. You have been reading too much Tom Clancy. If a grower was smart they would keep the patches small and planted in heavy cover. A cop might get long distance pic, but unless the cops grow wings they have very little evidence. Nigh Vision can't see through tress, and to see a smart grower with night vision cop would have to be very close. That's why smart growers have some mean ass dogs. Big Deal spotting a huge plot is easy. Finding all the small ones is hard.

If you are prior service post when and where. I am ex Army and was involved in some intense training myself. I did 11 years active. 4 at Ft. Stewart, 1 at Ft. Drum, 2 Deployments to the Sinai Peace Keeping Force an 4 years at Ft. Sherman with the 75th. I served during Desert Storm with the 502nd from Ft. Campbell. Keeping 30 guys covert in the desert with little cover was a challenge.

You name some gear but big deal. Name the Agency that trained you.

Who are you trying to intimadate with all this grower beware BS?

If you are what you claim you should know where Ft. Sherman is and what it is about. I was there quite a while and that in itself is an acomplishment I am very proud of. NSA, FBI, CIA all send people there to be trained by the Military, SO keep talking.

[This message has been edited by Joker1.5 (edited July 08, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Joker1.5 (edited July 08, 2000).]

Ganja Warrior

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, helvetica, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joker1.5:


If you are prior service post when and where.

[This message has been edited by Joker1.5 (edited July 08, 2000).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, I've been to the CZ, Joker. I spend 13 years in the military, and served with 3/7th SFG, 2/75th, on active duty, from 1973 to 1981, with 3/12th SFG and 4th Force Recon, 4th MarDiv in the reserves, 1981 to 1986. I left as an E-7, PSG. I've been in law enforcement since the early 1980's and have worked as a local cops and as a "fed."

Heavy cover and small patches limit the "real" cops only in raising the "nuisance factor." Unless we really, really want the grower we usually only eradicate the small patches.

If it's an easy one, such as hand watered, frequently visited, etc., we'll spend the time early in the season and try to make an arrest.

Heavy cover provides better concealment for the camera. Now days we remote the signal and take the growers away from the site, in most cases. In cases where we want to take the growers in their patch, we still hide right on top of them.

Mean dogs are a myth for most outdoor, remote gardens. I have found that growers who are growing in remote locations don't bring dogs because they don't want them barking and alerting anyone that people are in the woods. The growers who do bring their dogs, for the most part, have friendly dogs.

One incident that comes to mind is a tape we have of the dog coming up to the camera man and sniffing the camera lense. You can see the camera man's hand come out and pat the dog's head. The dog then leaves and goes back to the patch without alerting.

The one time I had a dog alert on my team, the grower hollared at the dog for making noise. When we did the search warrant on the grower's house, we posed for a poloroid pic of the team with the dog and left it for the grower.

The only time I have encountered mean dogs is at the growers houses. Unfortunately, we have had to shoot several when we are executing our warrants. Seems like a waste of a good animal.

My team is not a sniper team, and my agency is frequnetly in the news. I just prefer to keep me and my operation out of the news and have been very successful at it. As a federal agent, my job soes not depend on my boss getting elected every four years, so I leave the press to the guys who's boss needs the media attention.

Most of the citizens in my area are not even aware that my agency has the capabilities and resources that it does, and I like it that way. Every season I see my counterparts in local law enforcement get awards and promtions based on operations that I conduct and/or help plan, and it's a good thing.

Finally, I'm trying to scare or bluff anyone. As Poyeye says, "I yam, what I yam!"

Ganja Warrior

OOPS. Can't hit the back key, and then the forward key or it posts twice. I hate it when a bunch of plastic and silicon outsmarts me.

[This message has been edited by Ganja Warrior (edited July 08, 2000).]