I hunt on public federal land here in New Jersey. I've hunted the general area for the past 8 years with archery, muzzleloader, and shotgun. Last year a few days after the regular shotgun season ended, I was walking to my stand in pre-dawn darkness for the one day permit either sex hunt. I get to my tree, and my stand is gone. I had it buried in a heavy gauge plastic garbage bag, and had pine branches on top of it. Well for whatever reason I walked to where I gutted a black bear I harvested a week earlier, and there I find my stand, in the bag with the branches on top of them. So I climb my tree, about 7:20am I see a hunter walking towards me, but he doesnt see me at all, he walkes to the spot where I found my treestand, he looks around with a puzzled face, then he sees me. Walks over and says to me "THATS MY STAND, CLIMB DOWN AND GIVE IT BACK, AND I WONT CALL THE GAME WARDEN!!!" Well Iam laughing to myself, so I climb down, undo my jacket, go into my knappsack and pull out my wallet that has my badge in it. Guys if you could only see hes face reaction I just wanted to laugh!!!! He still claims the stand is his. I order him to show me both his hunting license and and ID which he does. Little does he know, I engraved my name on the metal under the foam padding arm rest. So from there I called the local game wardens with his info, they picked up an hour later, he was arrested for stolen property, and crimes on federal property. Went to court, this guy has a family to take care of so a fine would not do any good in my eyes, so asked the judge and he agreed to ban his NJ license for 5 years. We have enough problems with the anti-gun,,anti-hunters, we need to stick together.