Your thoughts?

[skee0025]

I'm just looking to get the opinions of a few other people on a situation that happened to multiple times opening weekend. I was hunting small parcels of public land, both an acre or 2 wide and 10 to 15 acres in length. These areas where obviously being hunted by more than a few people as they could clearly seen on stand and could their cars were parked in the provided parking areas. At about 2 pm each day, a party showed up and decided to do a drive through the areas, ruining the areas as prime time approached. Would you do this to others?

[BuckSutherland]

Highly unethical if you ask me. Spoil someone else's hunt to try and get a deer for yourself??? That makes me hate these deer drive losers even more. Unfortunately this is what you are gonna get on public land.

[Jeff13]

I hunt public most of the time and on public your just going to have to deal with things like this. In my opinion it's pretty rude, some people don't have common curtesy or lack common sense.

[smsmith]

Would you do this to others?

Nope, but I don't hunt public land anymore either. Largely because of the type of person you described

[Bureaucrat]

Flip the coin. If you saw someone in a sliver of woods on stand, would you walk right through and blow it for them?

Decent and reasonable people would say no. Personally, I would not go walking right by another person on stand. I wouldn't want anyone to do that to me. Just because it's public land, doesn't mean people can't be respectable of others' space for an afternoon.

I inadvertently walked near a guy in a stand while on public land this year. I had gotten my climber off my back and was about to take it apart to set up when I finally saw him through the brush. He was waving at me. I waved back in a friendly gesture and grabbed my stand and moved further away to respect that guy's space.

You're right to feel it was a disrespectful move on their part.

[PurpleFloyd]

I hunt public most of the time and on public your just going to have to deal with things like this. In my opinion it's pretty rude, some people don't have common curtesy or lack common sense.

Yeah, it's like being out in the boat without anyone around and you catch a fish then suddenly you could walk 1/4 mile back to shore just by stepping boat to boat. Some people just were not taught right.

[TomHuynh]

Just lack of respect and maybe no lack of hittin the sauce. Or else all of them are color blind and couldn't see the orange. Yeah right! Idiots. Sorry that happened. Its happened to me also and its so frustrating.

[Siwulat]

I had this same thing happen to me on opening day. I had a guy walk through my entire field of view at about 20 yards. He was so close I thought he was going to talk to me! There was absolutely no way he didn't see me as we locked eyes for a good bit. Between that and his buddies yelling at him from across the river, my hunt was ruined. I moved to another small parcel just down the road and saw the same group all in a van about half an hour later. I'm pretty sure they hit every parcel around.

They have every right to the land as I do, I just ask for a bit of space when you see someone else in the area.

Really makes you question others motives.

[CANOPY SAM]

Would I do this? Of course not.

Not only is it disrespectful, but it's dangerous as well.

What do you suppose is going to happen if by chance someone does kick up a nice buck? There's going to be bullets flying every which way with no thought to where everyone is in the woods.

Dumb. Disrespectful and dumb.

[Juneau4]

Personally I like it when I'm on a stand and other people are walking and moving the deer. The only time I may not care for it if it was an hour or less before sunset. Many a time I've had a hunter walk through and 15 min. or less a deer has followed behind.

[nofishfisherman]

If I even see a car in the area I usually won't enter the woods.

We hunt a large area of public land but this year when we showed up opening morning we discovered they started logging it the week or two before opener. That left a lot of hunters displaced and looking for new spots.

My buddy and I had set up to do a walk around a small lake near the clear cut. He started around the south side of the lake and I started on the north and we worked our way toward each other. On the far west side of the lake we ran into a guy in a climber in an area we didn't expect to see anyone as it was a long ways from any trails. We both saw him separately and both of our reactions were the same... as soon as we got a glimpse of orange we turned right around and headed back the way we came in. Probably could have squeezed by him by walking closer to the lake and with all of the hills it probably wouldn't have impacted him much but we weren't going to do anything to jeopardize his hunt.

Later we ran into another guy while walking to check out an old spot we hunted last year. The guy had moved into our previous spot and initially we only saw his stand. A few minutes later we heard him pulling up on his ATV right as we walked past the small buck he had shot earlier that morning. We chatted for a minute and compared notes and found out where his group was set up. We helped him load the deer on his ATV and parted ways by telling him we'll be sure to stay out of his way. He almost seemed surprised to run into guys willing to help him load his deer and that were going to make sure to stay out of his way.

[Wanderer]

I agree with others. Don't do organized drives on public land when others are there standing already. Drives on opening weekend are about out of the question regardless, unless done on private property.

When I hunt a piece of public ground I try to make a point of meeting any other hunters using it so we can chat about who is where, how many, and preferences in hunting styles and hours kept. It just puts everyone more at ease and might uncover possibilities of working together.

I agree having confidence in your spot after others have walked through is tough at times but have learned deer can show up at just about any time. I have taken a buck while he was standing in the tracks of another hunter that passed me just a few minutes prior. It it's a good spot, I stay put.

[O.T.C.]

My first ? skee would be have you ever hunted these public spots b4 ? These guys likely push publics and then go hunker down on private land for the evening hunts, AM hunts, maybe, maybe not. These guys likely have driven these out b4 and maybe said have never seen anybody hardly post these small publics b4, lets drive em and maybe this guy (you) won't have a good experience and won't be back next year. Unfortunately I know guys with killer land that drive publics out all the time even leaving 2-3 vehicles on the approach to "guard it" so to speak especially their favorite one or one they had luck in a time or 2. Deer hunting today involves much scheming against other hunters as much as you spend time scheming about the deer. Sounds like you need a few friends to drive em b4 they show up after lunch.

[bloc004]

I was on some public land around Prescott last year, in my stand, and watched as 13 guys piled into the woods 75 yds from me and drove the entire woods in front of me. Kicked a couple does out to me, but I couldn't believe my eyes. I guess some people just don't care about the cars already there.

[surewood]

Happened to me last year. 8:30am opening weekend Sunday. I know the people so I wasn't surprised they did a drive during prime time. Very disrespectful, but there isn't anything anyone can do about it. That's why I'm usually where nobody else wants to go.