OhioBowhunter

same as mouth caller! i wouldve opened a can off whoop butt! and probably called the authorities.

its good that everyone is ok! but i wouldve dirtied my drawers

curtispa14

Could have been a big score buck that you patterned all archery season with no kill shot. Only to have him under your stand before first legal light He walks away about 50 yrds and BOOM! I know how you feel and wish all hunters were ethical. The bright side besides no one getting hurt is that your son learned a valuable lesson about why you should follow the rules. all be it at the cost of his first bird. I would call this father and let him know your concerns in private. And hope that he would understand! If not then bring it up with the club. If they keep him you don't want to be a part of that club anyway!!

Bible_Man

As Curtis said, I would seek out calm, private restitution first. A private appeal with nerves controlled can be so effective, however this is rarely used...myself included. IF that does not work, I would let him know calmly that you are going to talk it over with some of the other club members to see what they think of the situation. Before I'd do that though, I would be ABSOLUTELY sure that no progress was going to be made just between the two of you. Give him the opportunity to go about making it right. Many people will if you simply let them rather than trying to one-up them.

If he is unwilling to rectify the situation, I would continue on with notifying the other members of the club, as well as all appropriate authorities. You gave him his chance to do the moral thing here, yet he was unwilling.

A cousin of mine had a similar thing happen to him a couple years ago while deer hunting. He gave the guy a chance to make it right and ended up with a free elk hunt in CO, and written permission to hunt the offender's other private property as long as he owned it. He came through, and went overboard in doing the right thing. Not saying this will happen for you, but you never know.

Gobbling Buck

Well, to give everyone an update, I did speak with him and he was very appologetic. I also brought it up to a couple club officers without naming names (however, the club is not that big, so everyone pretty much knows who it is) anyway, there are going to be some rule changes and anyone breaking the rules is out!! No refunds, no forgiveness, no questions, and the club will call the appropriate authorities. I brought up the point that we wouldn't tolerate a passer by doing the same thing and we are all close enough friends that no one would want to live with the consequence if they shot someone. Thanks for all the replies. I think cooler heads have prevailed in this one._GB

Bible_Man

Glad to hear that.

cuda67

I had something similar happen a few years ago when my buddy and I were duck hunting. We left our house about 4:00 AM to drive to some public land. It was quite a drive to get there. We got set up waiting for sun rise, were calling have birds wanting to land in our spread. All of a sudden some hillbillie comes walking into our spread, splash, splash, splash. He stood there wanting to talk. We finally got rid of him. He went and set up on a mound behind us. We have birds working again and he starts blasting them over our heads. Here we got up early and set up in plenty of time for a good hunt. The hillbillie probably just rolled out of bed and decided to go hunt and make someone elses life miserable. Oh well. That's why we only hunt on private land now.