a couple years back i hunted in pennsylvania on opening day of the gun season near state college. i scouted the area out only 2 days before the opener. its mostly mountains and some flats and hollows. my buddy got me into hunting there a couple years back and he had warned me that the locals werent too happy with tree stand hunters. i didnt know what he was talking about. it seems they like to put on deer drives and mostly hunt on the ground. when i got to my area a good 2 hours before light i set my climber up and got up into position . about 10 minutes before light i seen several flashlights coming through the area so i pulled out my light and attempted to signal back to them so they new i was there and would give me some space. i cant say for sure if they saw my light but one of the guys set up about 80 yards from me. he shot a buck 15 minutes later in front of me. i figured he would leave but he just dragged the deer over near his blind and kept on hunting. your only allowed one deer but i found out at the local tavern later on that its a unwritten rule that you hunt all week and try to fill everyones tag even tough its against the law .later on his buddies came through the area to pick him up and one of the guys saw me up in the tree and said that if i set up by him he would shoot me out of the tree.some hunters are jerks!

Unfortunately unless their a felon anyone can purchase a hunting license and call themselves a hunter without ever learning proper hunting ethics.[:' (]

Its sad that you cant go anywhere on public land without worrying about some moron with no ethics; people like that only hurt hunters reputation. Last season at a public hunting spot nearby there was two hunters come to " their" foodplot and found another hunter parked there. They went on in and found him and things got pretty crazy until one of the two hunters pulled out a 9mm and the fight was over. They really should have found somewhere else to go for the day. We cant give the antis more fuel for their fire.

Some SOB was to tellme that he would have had himself a dirt nap right then
I would have concidered it a threat on my life and I would have shot the butthead out of self defence.

just wanted to see if i was the only one who experienced an attitude just because i was hunting from a tree stand. the other thing that burned me was that i got up early and got my butt out there and set up way before they did. if the guy would have come over to me and said something about hunting that spot for years or something i would have left. but on the other hand i think if i arrived in an area with someone set up already on public lands i would just move on. another time this happened to me i told the guy that we are not trout fishing and we dont need to be so close together. he was only 40 yards away during the shot gun season in new jersey. just thought i would vent a little!

I am from Central Pensylvania and I hunt on sgl 100 (Sproul State Forest). I have been hunting this area for more than 20 years. I have been harassed by groups of hunters more than once. We have a small camp so we do not put on very many drives during riffle season. So we mostly pot hunt and when one of these groups see you in a stand in the middle of there drive they can get very rude. For one thing I have been there for hours and I have know idea they are going to drive this area. I have had a person point his gun at me and worn me not to come back. This is public land not private land. The other problem I have is if these people see my ladder stands they will rip them down or steal them. When these people put on these drive they think they own the land and you have no rite to be there. There are some group who will be nice to you and talk to you for awhile. This is the reason I mostly Bowhunt here in Pennsylvania. I don`t have to deal with these jerks in bow season. I will say that the new early doe season puts this problem back into Bow season, because these black powder hunters put on drives too.

so there is another who has experienced the stupidity of the pack mentality. when it happened to me i felt sick to my stomach. to be more specific this happened to me in sproul state forrest outside renovo. its a small world. what i think has a lot to do with it is that these hunters who drive only hunt one week out of the year so its so important to get a deer.on one of there drives a guy drove through came up to my exact tree and leaned against it spitting away. he was trying to act as if he didnt see me but i know he looked up at me before he got to my tree. he didnt wave or say a word. im from new jersey and from what i believe there arent enough game wardens or law enforcement out there so they feel invinceable.the locals in town make light of shooting does in the buck season and even heading out grouse hunting with a couple cases of beer with them. its just a bad scene in sproul and the renove area.

They have set people beside me quite a few times. I don`t know why they do this because when I am 20 feet in the air I have shot deer in front of them. It`s not as bad as it used to be because the camp that put on most drives got old. But there are other groups moving in. By the way the first time I had a gun pointed at me I was 16 years old. I was hunting a point and a group put a drive on. They flushed a bear and shot at it. It ran by me and I shot and missed it. The driving group came up to me and harrased me and threatened me. I was pretty scared, but it never stopped me. I have always had a very negative manor toward drives ever since then.

It' s idiots like that who give us all a bad reputation. I have had several opening day hunts ruined by some slob hunters who show up as it' s getting light after I' ve been sitting quietly in a treestand for an hour and a half. Happened to me last opening day of bow season. One of them set up with-in bow range of me and scared the deer before they got to me. I prepared my stand 2 months before the season!

Here in Jersey it states the hunting hours are a half hour before sunrise to a half hour after sunset. I get to my stand at least an hour and a half before sunrise.( I hunt public land) And more than once some guy is roaming around or going to his stand 10 min before sunrise. I guess they must mis- interpret the rules and stay in the parking lot till legal shooting time like when pheasant hunting. As it takes about 20 min. to get back where I hunt. Had them chase more deer away and they never even knew they were there. A few nice bucks feeding their way towards me, man that hurts.