Intrusion during prime time
Quick question for the experts here...
One of my areas is on MFL land (public access, privately owned). I was sitting on the stand last night when the owner happened to come through with one of his kids, checking on his gun season stands. They drove through the property, and got out of the truck several times to look things over. At one point, they had walked to within 100 yards of my tree. When they noticed that I was hunting, they quickly acknowledged my presence and quietly backed out of there. Prior to that, however, they were talking loudly and generally thrashing about.
This was less than an hour before dark, the time when the deer really start moving about on this property.
My question is, if you're in this situation, do you consider the hunt 'busted' for the evening, or is it worthwhile to sit it out and see if anything is still moving? I sat until dark anyway, but didn't see anything...I figured that if anything, they might have pushed some deer about towards me if I was lucky. Just wondering what others do if they're in this situation. Since I hunt public access land fairly frequently, I occasionally have people busting through my area, and I never know with certainty if it's worth staying on that spot, or moving somewhere else (if time permits...last night it was too close to dark to move).