I have an etiquette/ethics question RE: backcountry hunting

[Chris in TN]

A couple, actually:

I should know tomorrow what tag(s) my daughter draws, if any. There's one unit we put in for (CO secondary draw) where I have spent some time studying several parts of the unit (it's actually multiple units; if she gets the tag we'll have several options for spots to hunt) and I have a couple questions about things I've came across:

First, after 30 years of the internet there are several outfitters in CO who have left enough clues online (or their hunters have) or they've had their camps up when aerial photos were taken, so that there are places I can put a pin on a map and say 'there will probably be a camp here'.

I realize that for every such camp I have 'found' there will be a dozen more nearby that I don't know about until I show up at the perfect campsite only to find a tent already there. I realize that in a way it's silly to dismiss this particular camp area, because any other place I go, will inevitably have similar camps. But, I know this one exists and is likely still in use. Do I treat it like any other trail and try to just stay away from it, not just for etiquette but also because elk won't likely hang out near it once it's occupied? If I need to get past it because I wear out one hunting spot and want to move to the next, should I skirt it by perhaps 1/2 mile to a mile just out of decency? Or if it's near a trail I just walk right past it?

(Here in the east I've seen people 'hunting' twenty feet off of access roads, and I actually killed a deer on public where I was barely far enough off a highway to be legal - I realize that in those cases the rest of the world can freely ignore a hunter, but I don't have much experience with backcountry etiquette - but I also don't want to hike an extra mile just to avoid a camp).

Second, related question: Let's say she draws a tag and we go investigate a spot in the edge of the unit boundary. There's a nice campsite (best I can tell from aerials, it checks all the right boxes) *just across* the unit boundary into the next unit. We'd have to unload her rifle going and coming, but best I can tell this would be legal, and it has a weird side effect of, if we spook stuff off this site, it might actually push to where we intend to start our hunt, possibly. This particular site is within maybe 1/2 mile of a trail junction and maybe another 1/2 mile from where I think we want to hunt (assuming we find sign there preseason). But I'm sure that a thousand other sites exist.

I realize that while I'm looking at this perfect campsite some other hunter is thinking 'man, that's a perfect hunting spot' (I don't personally think that, but I'm sure someone else who knows more, or less, than me, does). And I've seen posts on this forum where people mention other hunters setting up camp in bedding areas and spooking elk. It seems like if I take the average USFS acreage in Colorado and dismiss all the land within a half mile of a trail and all the land *above* (not at, but really above) the treeline, pretty much everything left is capable of holding elk, so I'm not sure how to avoid this, or if I should even think twice about it.

I get that I am likely to inadvertently interfere with someone else's hunt and I fully expect that at some point some other hunters might interfere with us and I should be ready for that and hope for both sides to be friendly but I know that conflicts will happen. I guess my point in this thread is to be mentally prepared for how to handle them without making it worse.

Also - let's say I get to a campsite and another DIY hunter is there. Do we, for the sake of quality-of-experience, move on past them to another site, or do we recognize that one 2-hunter camp will spook less game than two camps spread apart, and camp next to each other? With my daughter being there I am FAR more likely to move on and find us a quiet/private camp, but I want to at least think through this beforehand and have some sort of framework for thinking through if/when it happens.

 

[realunlucky]

Outfitters are permitted to camp in only a certain spot so that's why you continuely see thier camp there year after year. It has nothing to do with quality hunting and they are likely traveling every morning to surrounding areas.

For me I won't want to camp by someone else as that distracts from my over all experience in the mountains.



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[LongWayAround]

Reach out to the forest service and cpw for the outfitter camps in your area.

If someone is camped right off a trail feel free to just walk past them. No need to skirt around.

I wouldn't want someone camping right next to me, but use reasonable discretion.

You don't need to throw out all of the land within half a mile of any thing.

You can camp in an adjacent unit. Your tag is valid for a certain unit, as long as you're not hunting outside of that you can be wherever you want. There's no law against camping with guns.

 

[Jimmy]

Just do your best. Sometimes the farther you move away from one camp, you're moving CLOSER to another. Just make the best of it

 

[WCB]

Good advice above. Also, depending on the activities of the camp...don't count out hunting near them. When I guided we got shots right from camp at times and had animals move right through the meadow we were in. This was an outfitter camp with 2 large wall tents. 9-10 stock animals the whole 9 yards.

 

[strousek]

Hunt where the animals are, not where the people are not. Even if there are a couple camps near you that doesn't mean that you will be shoulder to shoulder with those guys in the woods.

As a CO native who has seen our hunting and hunter quality drastically decrease in the last 10 years I appreciate your concern. Go hunt and have fun.

 

[TaperPin]

As a practical matter, don’t walk right by someone’s tent or uncle Jimmy may wake up without glasses, still drunk, and think you’re something to shoot at.

Nobody, and I mean nobody wants to pack into the wilderness to have some they don’t know camp right next to them.

You will need backup plans for every area you’ve looked at. I’m not kidding, there may be a tent in the stupidest places. Sometimes they are so badly placed I’ve wondered if they are decoy tents to drive off other hunters. Any given year there may be an orange vest on every ridge and a tent on every creek. It used to be backpackers didn’t go much more than 5 miles in, but serious hunters are lighter, in better shape, and tents are everywhere and anywhere.

I hunt a somewhat well known area with a lot of history - every half dozen years some gun writer or video maker will mention a ridge or creek or trailhead and the next fall will have 10 additional out of state four-horse horse trailers at the trailhead. It takes a few years to get back to normal. Anyone could post on multiple forums a pic of a huge nontypical taken there two decades ago and there’d be 10 Roksliders there opening morning along with 100 other dudes from other forums. It’s ridiculous what hunting has become. Hell, I’m no better, a certain outfitter posts kill shots that are easy to geolocate if you’ve hunted the area so I at least check the ridge for easy pickings if I’m nearby.

As for how others act, the hunting world is full of guys who don’t give two schitts about anyone but themselves and will camp between you and the hunting area, right in the middle of trails, anywhere they want, and will get in your way and even drive game away from you. I’ve had an ass spoon outfitter have his guys regularly ride ridges downwind, essentially driving deer to the main drainage they hunt. I hope his wife left him, kids stopped talking to him, and he developed some rare painful blood cancer - maybe blindness and untreated diabetes for good measure.

 

[Chris in TN]

You will need backup plans for every area you’ve looked at. I’m not kidding, there may be a tent in the stupidest places. Sometimes they are so badly placed I’ve wondered if they are decoy tents to drive off other hunters. Any given year there may be an orange vest on every ridge and a tent on every creek. ................................. I’ve had an ass spoon outfitter have his guys regularly ride ridges downwind, essentially driving deer to the main drainage they hunt. I hope his wife left him, kids stopped talking to him, and he developed some rare painful blood cancer - maybe blindness and untreated diabetes for good measure.

I have backup plans for days, across more acreage than I could possibly cover, and I still have a vague memory of the first time I hunted on BLM as a kid during the migration when we'd see a dozen or more hunters in a day but 100 deer or more. The two weren't mutually exclusive.


About your last comment - a couple years ago when dad and I were trying to book our 2023 hunt, I spoke to an outfitter who told me (over the phone, can't prove it) he rode horses up into the adjacent forest (I know it's roadless, I think it's wilderness, I was looking at GE while he was explaining it but don't remember the designation now) while his hunters were posted to his private boundary, to try and push elk down to his private land, to keep his hunters out hunting all day. Sounded terrible to me and we moved on to the next outfitter, who gave us a fine hunt.