Public land...
 

a mile back in the woods of walking.. No 4wheelers or anything allowed back there.. No one back there last year. This year havent seen a soul and we have it marked with tape letting others know that there are hunters hunting the area( thats what hunters in the area do). Finished first day of muzzle loader and get my sd card from my camera over looking a scrape. Get home looking through my pics I see an old guy with bolt cutters and a camo backpack and camo shirt n jeans walking around.. steps in my scrape and continues walking by. Thankfully he never even noticed my camera that was only 5 ft away from him. So now I have human scent in a scrape ( it hasnt been touched since he stepped in it after lookin at pictures after the day he was there). Ya just cant get away from other hunters I guess.. Sorry for the rant.. We just been working that area for a few years without interruption and have some quality bucks on camera from passing them up when they were younger. :mad::bash:

"no one back there last year". What state are you in? I am a logger, and i find hunters way back in the boondocks, where you never thought they would be. People hanging around doesn't have to stop you from harvesting deer though. Heck guys harvest urban deer, and some big one's. Keep doing what you do, keep hunting, you'll see deer!

That's hunting on public ground. However, a guy in camo with bolt cutters doesn't sound like a hunter, but rather a common thief!

Yea but my stand was still there and camera or he may be really really blind. I hunt in florida on a WMA. Ill find out when rifle season starts on opening day. Im usually in my tree 45 mins to an hour before light. Couple of years ago in a different area some guy parked on the dirt road next to our truck and walked 100 yards in and layed a 5 ft ladder with a piece of wood on top against a tree. My father n law watched him and when daylight came was literally staring at my father n laws stand lol.. some hunters ya kno

You do understand what PUBLIC land means don't you?

Of course i do. Do you kno wat ranting means?

Someone will eventually find your area. Finding new/ better locations to hunt is what the more dedicated do-so another hunter encountering your spot is no surprise. I was GPS'ing an area w/a friend. From where the vehicle was parked to a fire trail was 3 miles. That part of the property jutted out into the surrounding waters to form a point, as we called it. The point was another 1.5 miles ahead. My friend wanted to make for a quicker way to get to that point and away from other hunters. He bought a canoe w/trolling motor to reach that area. Didn't take long for him to find out others had the same idea as him and were employing that method to get to that spot. Sooner or later, that will happen. They just don't say public is a gift to every one without reason. It may suck but that's just the way it is.

In the Michigan dictionary public land is defined as save your money and shop for your very own hunting property for fire arm deer hunting.

I was about 20 decided I would hunt some state land down the road from the family farm. Walk way back in there to a nice hill over looking a deep valley with Mature oak trees. Got where I wanted to be about 5:00 AM legal light another 2 hours away. By day lite I can see other hunters at least 25 of them some as close as 35 & 40 yrds away. I low crawled out of that area and went back to the farm.

Public land can be OK in some places to bow hunt, small game hunt but during Michigan's fire arm deer season opening day and the first week end just not a healthy place to be.

:D Al

Of course I do. I just don't see where you have much of a leg to stand on with this on. You should be thankful everything you left on the WMA wasn't taken. You wouldn't leave your fishing gear laying around at a public boat ramp and expect it to stay there very long would you? How is this any different?

I hunt public too. The last thing I would ever do is mark any areas that I'm hunting to draw attention to from others, particularly other hunters. That includes brite eyes or tape marking the way to my stand. You are just inviting the very issues your ranting about.

The best you can do to keep your hunting spots to yourself on public land is to carry any evidence that you are even using the area in and out with you every trip.

I don't what state your hunting in but in TN there are laws prohibiting laying claim to an area and leaving personal gear on public property for any length of time.

When you hunt public land you have to expect other people to show up. He has as much right to be there as you do. It happens. Either learn to deal with it or find private land to hunt.

Many years ago when I was stationed in CA I scouted most the summer for a good blacktail by Mendocino County. I found a waterhole more than 5 miles from the trailhead that had a lot of sign around it and after sitting and glassing it from over 400 yards away I found 3 or 4 really good bucks using it. It seemed to be the only water around. So I was ready to spend a lot of time there to get one of the bucks.

The day before the season opened I packed in a dry camp and set up about 400 yards away on an overlook so I could keep a spotting scope set on the waterhole and waited for opening morning. I didn't see anything that morning and about noon a lot of people showed up and pitched camp next to the waterhole. When I went down there I found out it was a Boy Scout troop from San Fran and they were doing a one week campout. So, all that scouting went out the door. They had as much right to be there as I did and I had no moral or legal reason to ask them to break camp. I simply went elsewhere.

I ended up taking a little fork horn in a rough canyon for the year but never got one of the good bucks.