depending on your set up and access route it can be preferable to wait to first light and "hunt" your way to the stand. I have some spots that going in the dark and bumping deer ends the hunt. If I can glass the area and slip in undetected I have far more success. Just saying it's not always about "sleeping in". I prefer to be in the stand as light rises and will walk a couple miles to access a stand I could get to in a few hundred yards if I just went straight thru the bush. That is the preference but sometimes waiting is better for morning hunts.

I hunt public land up here but i guess ours is more vast and we all pay attention to acitivity in the various areas. The real problem with your scenario would be the placement of a stand within 50 yds of yours! (or vice versa if he was there first). Man around here if you are within a few hundred yards of someone elses area they have established to hunt, your looking for trouble. Pre-season scouting and putting up stands usually identifies who is where and these things get ironed out before the hunt even begins.

I had another hunter who is in my area call me to tell me a buck I was hunting was on his trail cam at a stand location 400 yds from mine on the other side of a large beaver meadow. He was not able to hunt it anymore due to work committments and so he called me to move over if I wanted. By knowing who is who we worked out spots and usually end up working together instead of against each other.

We always joke that if the other guy shoots a good buck we will be jealous, p!ssed off etc. but also happy for the other guy as well. The other thing is we ALL make sure that people know we hunt in the area when they show up or talk about hunting there. As much as we can't stop them becuase it's public there is 5 guys down this area of land who have all worked together to not step on each other toes. People get told it's crowded enough and go find another area (respectfully of course).