a few years back I was hunting my 300 acres in missouri, the first half of bow season and 3 days into rifle season my stand was untouched. then the second weekend into rifle season I went back to my stand to find that someone took all my tree steps out but left the stand, even though its my private property I lock it up because of prior stand thefts I guess my 80 dollar Kryptonite 5/8" steel cable lock was enough of a deterant. lol the lock cost more then my stand.

After being all sorts of pist off I emptied my 30-30 into a tree stump a few feet away, went home grabbed a cup of coffee and had cigarette to calm me down then later went to wal mart and bought some more steps and went back into the woods and installed my new steps. it was now mid afternoon i went back to my house grabbed my 44 mag lever gun figured i go try to push up some deer bedding down. while walking through some brush in between two draws I noticed some hunter orange in the tree line on my property I went to investigate and found a treestand with a hunters orange hat hanging on some tree steps which were mine they had my initials scratched in the green finish , the stand was locked up with some log chain and a forged aluminum american lock company pad lock I stepped back about 20 feet and took a shot at it with my 44 mag, the lock busted apart into 3 pieces and the chain fell to the ground I got my steps back and a new summit treestand. I left a note on the tree with my name and number asking the person to contact me if he wanted his stand back, what i really had in mind was to find out who it was and have him arrested. A few days went by and I never got a call. I went back to the spot to see if he took the note and it was gone.