My hunting buddy and I had a bad situation about 3 years ago when we had a deer lease. We ended on bad terms with the landowner and never really got the matter settled. Here are some of the things that happened.

The farmer that owned the land had cows and said he would keep them penned up. He didn't. We also discovered shell casings of a calibur that we were not shooting in the rifle stands. We found that the blackout material we put at the back of the stands was torn off a couple of them as well. We discovered that the farmer was letting his grandson hunt out of our stands and would let him shoot whatever was in the field. (porcupine, possum, turkey, whatever) My buddy and I had the same boots and the farmer once made a comment that there wasn't anywhere on his land where you couldn't find my footprints. (I guess he didn't know we had the same boots) We had a situation once were we had to drive a truck into the feeder to get it refilled and we put some ruts in the mud along the edge of the field. The farmer didn't like that and told the land agent (the person that set up the contract) that we had rutted up his field real bad. I was once sitting in my rifle stand at about 4pm waiting for sunset and I heard a truck along the road. Then I see the old man walking along the dirt path that is only about 15 yards from my feeder and after he disappears behind the trees, I hear him start up his diesel pickup so he can drive out. Wonder why I didn't see any deer that evening. In the end, we were supposed to have the land for a full calender year so we could hunt hogs in the spring. Right after deer season, the farmer complained about us so much that we were told to get our stands and feeders by the end of the month or he could confiscate them! The farmer complained that we were on his land too much!

I don't know how you guys feel about it but this was our take on the situation:

1. Since we paid $1500 apiece to be there, we figured that meant we could hunt every single day if we wanted to. We were paying for it.
2. We were under the impression that nobody was allowed to hunt that land but the people that were paying for the priveledge. (we found out the farmer, his son and grandson were all hunting there as well and using our stands)
3. The farmer didn't keep his cows penned up like he said he would. They were grazing in some of our best game trails.
4. While we did put about a 20' rut at the edge of one of his fields, we were very apologetic about it and only did it once when we had no choice but to drive. Every kill we got, we dragged over 200 yards to the end of the field so we didnt' have to drive on it.
5. He had no respect for our hunts, even when he saw our truck parked on the edge of the land.


So what do you guys think? Was it ok for him to hunt there too? Think he was justified? Think we diserved some some money back?