Hunter Harassment Stories!

[Shack]

I figure instead of plopping this in another thread, I would start my own. I was going to put it in the Perm stand thread.

My first encounter with hunter harassment!

I had come across some old timers on some city land in Elk River when I was growing up; I think I was 13 or 14 years old. I was told by a neighbor about a section of city land that was open to all for hunting and no one really hunts it any more.

So I gave my opening day and weekend to our next door farmers land, that I had permission to hunt, but I had not gotten a deer. The next weekend I tried that city land. I road my bike down there with my gun and gun case. Parked on one side of the forest woods and walked in. Right away I had scared some does up. I felt good. Headed in a little further and came on the back side of the gravel pit for the city. Here on top of the gravel pit valley ledge, sat a couple of hunters in blaze orange, on the back of the pickup tail gate and rifles leaned up against the trucks (even then this was only shot gun and slug area). I came out right by were they had been standing and was close enough to say hi. So I went over by them. Right away I noticed beer in their hands. Back then I just noticed this and that’s all at that time.

Sure enough after I said hi, they say "what are you doing". I said "hunting for deer". They first started to say it was their land, but I quickly informed them it was a city gravel pit we were standing in and this was city property (I had my father double check the week earlier and informed them of this). Then they asked who my father was, I can not remember if I had told them or not. They then proceeded to warn me about how they shoot by sound and not by site and it was not a good idea to be cutting threw here when they are around. They went on and on and I started to walk away. One of the two guys was doing most of all the talking and they laughed as they were saying this. But I could tell it was not a fun laugh. The one guy did the laughing and the other guy did the talking. I road home and told my father about this and him or my mother called the cops and they said they would go down their.

Well, after and hour or so, the cops stopped by my parents house and informed us they said it was just a misunderstanding and at that time there was no beer to be found. They ended up being a couple of local big wigs in our small town. They got off with just a warning. I never hunted their again. The kicker of this, after a couple of years I found out more who they where and they where large land owners in the area. They did not even have a reason to be hunting this area. But I was probably the first hunter to have had come across their paths since the 1970's and they did not like it.

They also ended up being the grouchy old guys that would run us out of there in our later teens when we would party back there or call the cops on us. They acted like they owned that land. Now the city made it a park and they are digging it all up for gravel. Plus you have not even been able to shoot a gun in that area for 10 or 12 years now.

That was my first and only hunter harassment story I have!

[ZOOM]

I don't care how it comes out, there is nothing worse than hunter on hunter harassment. It's just plane old stupidity when one hunter thinks its right to drive off another hunter. There is plenty to go around. We're only hurting our selves.

[harvey lee]

I must be pretty lucky with over 35 years of hunting in and I have never once ran into a situation like these. I have hunted public and private land in 5 states and have never had an issue.

[Sandmannd]

Had some on my first outing ever today. Mine was with a CO however. Too long to post here so here's a link to my post. Harassment fro CO

[swedishpimple]

We ran into a little harassment from a C.O. this weekend. One member from our party shot a fawn and came in early. The C.O. pulled into our place and checked him. He then pulled down the road and parked about 150 yards from a tower stand of ours. He was parked there from 5:00- 5:30....prime hunting time for field hunting. At about 5:15 3 deer came out of the woods or CRP and crossed between our hunter and the C.O. parked on the edge of out field presenting no safe shot.

The C.O. is new....he will learn...the hunter he parked infont of happens to be a retired C.O. If a "Regular Joe" parked like that...they could be fined for hunter harassment. It was most likely not his intent, but as a C.O. you should know to leave the guys alone "on-stand".