I have hunted public land all my life and have so many stories about stuff like this it isn't even funny...........Here are a couple of my favorites.

I'm in my treestand on state land and a guy walks up at 4:30 pm to sit in a make shift ground blind made from sticks and limbs (I could also see from my elevated position that a bucket of red apples was inside). I whistle at him and he looks up surprised and says "You know I made this ground blind".........I laughed and said "Yea.......it's a nice one......those must be your apples then too" (baiting is illegal here).

I was in PA for opening of rifle and I got in the woods at PITCH black about 2 hours before light. Over the next 2 hours I saw about 50 flashlights go by and when day broke there was a guy sitting on a ridge about 60 yards behind me.........I wasn't too pleased so I went up to him and said "There are over 100,000 arces in this state land so it's pretty stupid for us to be sitting on top of each other don't ya think?"..........he was a little older and his reply was "Tell me about it".......to which he motioned with his head and I looked over to see ANOTHER guy sitting about 20 yards from him. That day was a frenzy.........I kept walking until I found peace and quiet and I ended up seeing 27 deer that day.

Just this past year I had a guy come up to me and ask me if I was sitting in his stand............a very odd question considering I was in my Summit climber. I just laughed and said "What kind of stand did you have??" He says he didn't know but he thought it was right where I was sitting. I told him there was a crappy half ladder stand about 80 yards down the trail but I didn't think anyone hunted out of it..............he came back about 10 minutes later all smiles and said that was his stand and he was just happy no one stole it..........WOW.

Two years ago I also had a guy walk by with a bucket and so I waved at him to let him know I was there to which he responded and kept walking............only to sit down about 40 yards in front of me.........I hit my grunt tube so he would look and put my arms up as if to ask WTF?........he quickly moved on because I honestly think he didn't realize he was so close. He bopped around at least 3 more times before heading out early.

I have had a parade of tree huggers walk right by on a hike.........kids on ATV's........small game hunters.......dogs.......farmers.....friends and foes all show up at the bottom of my tree from time to time.


Perhaps my LEAST favorite of all hunt destroyers is when a pheasant hunter lets his dog roam through the woods. That is just plain ignorant and the fact that it's another hunter being so rude makes it worse.

Public land........expect anything.

Private land is another story and I would react TOTALLY differently to intrusions there.