To be fair to the landowner, I know plenty of situations where hunters "crowd" someone's private land--and in many of those cases where the deer comes out and gets shot virtually guarantees the deer will run a few feet and be in private land from there on out. In other words, people purposely crowd private land where they only way to keep it legal is if the deer dropped right in its tracks.

Not sure if that's what's happening in this case, but if so I would side with the landowner. A lot of hunters want a free ride, as it were. They want the benefits of hunting a nice private piece of property by hunting right on the border of private land. While technically that's legal, don't hunt anywhere where there isn't a reasonable expectation that the shot deer will STAY on PUBLIC LAND.

By your own admittance, you're hunting a "border area" between public and private land. And my guess is you're doing so on purpose because you think the hunting on that guy's private land is pretty good.

Well, tough luck then, I say. Why should that person who pays taxes on that land year around reward you for essentially shooting a buck on his land? Yeah, yeah, I get it: you were on public land--but you had to know there was almost a certainty the deer would run onto private land if shot, right?

And no surprise, this landowner has had this problem a few times before. Why? Because many hunters want a freebie, as pointed out above.

If it's a private-vs-private dispute (you were on private land and it ran onto someone else's private land), the guy's response is a little shortsighted. I'd want to remain in good with my neighbors--and someday I may need to ask that same favor.

But as someone pointed out, the best way to deal with this is BEFORE season. I'm sure you're response was the typical response that guy gets all the time: not a word of hello or anything until you needed something. Not the smart way to do things.