Well, this is surely a dark day for me. This was my third year hunting property that my former landlord owns. I treated the land as my own, because I used to rent a house on this land. I watched it like a hawk and was always running off trespassers. This land holds special meaning for me as this is where my hunting memories began. I got started hunting late in life, at the ripe old age of 22. I couldn't get anyone to teach me to hunt so I am 100% completely self taught. I still vividly remember every detail of all my successful hunts, as well as some painful lessons learned while sitting up a tree. Now I guess you could say that I have a certain nack for hunting. (My dream is to be a professional hunter someday) The first time I attempted to hunt anything was September 16, 2000 opening day of the whitetail bow season. I climbed into my tree at about 3:00am because I was so excited. At 7:00am I slipped an arrow through a respectable 8 point buck. Gun season of that year, I put a slug through a 7 point buck, and a few days later I took a doe. My ex-wife bought me a brand new Thompson Center inline muzzleloader for father's day and I shot a very large doe. In 2001 I slipped an arrow through a respectable 5 point buck. Gun season I shot a doe, and a few days later I knocked down a monster one horned 4 point swamp buck. 2002 I shot a yearling buck to get my earn a buck tag, and after 3 years of struggling I brought down a huge doe with a quartering away heart shot, from my trusty bow. I slipped an arrow through my best buck yet, a very nice 5 point, and I took another doe before the gun deer season. So now that I have covered all 11 deer that I have taken in my 3 years of hunting we get to the bad news. The farmers next door have been trespassing and poaching deer since before the bow season opened. Gun shots all day long. I used to see between 15 and 30 deer a day, sometimes in range sometimes not. Now this year as you can imagine, the deer sightings have gone way down. I had to hunt extra hard to get the 4 deer that I have shot this year. Well the landlord gave permission to her granddaughters husband, brother, and dad to hunt the land. They have not seen any deer and neither have I. She called me up and said that it was my fault that noone was seeing deer, because I shoot too many. I said I think it has more to do with the people next door. She said regardless, I would like for you not to hunt anymore so my granddaughters husband, brother, and dad can shoot some deer. Needless to say I am completely heartbroken. The land is very difficult to hunt, mostly swamp with everchanging swirling winds, with a huge tract of public land next door. But I welcome the challenge and have answered the call for 3 years with 11 deer to show for it. But my biggest question is........ what now?? Without going into detail my financial situation is very poor, and I recently got laid off from my job. So buying, leasing or renting land is out. Public land gets hit hard all through my area, and scouting is not yet one of my strong suits as I mainly hunt by the seat of my pants. Gut instinct and what have you. (Been hunting from the same tree for 3 years, all my deer have been taken from this tree)So where does that leave a devoted hunter?? I made a personal goal for myself that I would try to harvest a buck with a bow and gun every year. Well I have about a month left to get another buck on the ground and here I am with nowhere to hunt. I'm not too social of a person, so no friends or family that I can hunt with or anything like that. I'm really between a rock and a hard place here. I understand full well that the number one problem across the nation for hunters is finding somewhere to hunt. But for me I go to the woods not only to hunt but to talk to the animals and to do an awful lot of praying. (I am Native American. Cherokee and Chippewa.) But this must be done in solitude with no interruptions, so once again public land doesn't help much. Is there somewhere that you can look for private land that people allow hunters? Or what is my best way to go in this? I really don't want to give up on hunting, especially when I just started and I truly savor all my hunting days. Anyways, sorry to have made this so long, but I wanted to express how very important that my hunting is to me and that there is a dire urgency that I find somewhere to hunt. So if you can offer me some suggestions I would truly appreciate it. Mitakuye Oyasin.