When do you own the area?

Weldor

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z
Down here the new thing is to leave your camper on FS land and rope it off with flagging. That way I'm sure you own it and pay taxes for the 1.3 million acres of your forest. I see it everyday trailers left for months and the USFS just drives by. The best part is they set up right on top of a good Elk herd and wonder why they have tag soup.
 
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The most bizarre one I ever saw was a NR that put up his wall tent in the middle of the only turn around on the road. It was tough for pickups but a nightmare for me with a horse trailer. There was a spot with a picnic table 40 ft from the rd that they chose to ignore. The really wierd part was that the snow showed they didn't hunt there and road hunted out of it.

I hunted 4 miles from there and it is the only access to get a vehicle into. Only time I have seen anyone that stupid/ inconsiderate. There was some satisfaction in that as I was stripping my gelding down to load up, he left a load in front of the tent door.

I've never seen anything like that since.
 
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Ucsdryder

Ucsdryder

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There's some give and take. Sounds like you did nothing wrong. My take on it is don't be a jerk and have some common courtesy. If you setup and block the access, expect people to walk through your camp. That being said, I try to give people wide berth when possible, and would appreciate the same.
To clarify a little, when I came back to camp it was 9pm, dark and I still had my red lamp on. I skirted their camper and trailer and inadvertently walked into their mules. Having been around horses for a long time, I calmly talked to them, told them they were good donkeys and made my way past time. I was cold, wet, tired and not in the mood to make a huge circle around the road so I could give them a wide berth, but then again, I didn’t think it was an issue until I was standing next to a mule that they had staked away from camp.

Leaving my truck and trailer all day every day, I was polite and apologized for walking into their mules. I didn’t need to come back to a flat tire. The next day as I was walking out, Karen’s husband told me it was going to be awfully crowded back there because that’s where they were hunting as he waved his arm in a 180 degree swath. I politely told him I promised they weren’t taking those mules up the mountain I was climbing and he and his wife weren’t hunting the same area I was going. “But you could spook animals around camp”. I told him it was 1.5 hours before shoot time, id run my red light and wouldn’t mess with any animals close to camp. Which is why the bull that bugled every 10-20 seconds for what seemed like 2 hours didn’t die.

That night he came up and asked if I had any luck and told me good luck. Apparently my charming personality won them over.
 
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Ucsdryder

Ucsdryder

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The most bizarre one I ever saw was a NR that put up his wall tent in the middle of the only turn around on the road. It was tough for pickups but a nightmare for me with a horse trailer. There was a spot with a picnic table 40 ft from the rd that they chose to ignore. The really wierd part was that the snow showed they didn't hunt there and road hunted out of it.

I hunted 4 miles from there and it is the only access to get a vehicle into. Only time I have seen anyone that stupid/ inconsiderate. There was some satisfaction in that as I was stripping my gelding down to load up, he left a load in front of the tent door.

I've never seen anything like that since.
Yeah they were in the same spot, the turn around. I had to do a 12 point turn with my truck and trailer.
 
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I just remembered another. In the 80's I was hunting in N W Montana, we had cut 6 miles of road out to access our camp at the end of it. The cow season was only three days long so it was a short term camp. When we showed up the day before season some inconsiderate idiot had pitched his tent across the road to purposely block it from anyone accessing it. We just widened the road next to his tent and rode in. He was gone when we packed out three days later. We never saw a soul during the hunt.

A little reasonable consideration goes a long ways. Most horse people will be hunting far betond the foot soldiers. There just isn't any reason for a hunting season pissing contest.
 
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You folks are triggering some memories. Some of the most violent experiences have not been hunting but armed huckleberry pickers in August. Most have been out of staters with some real possessive problems. Add money to a resource and some really bad attitudes come to the front. The mexican mushroom pickers you find after a fire have always been nice (somewhat trashy) but nice.
 
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I wouldn’t walk off the trail to go through someone’s camp but if the trail goes through the middle of their camp, I will certainly say, “Hi,” as I walk through it.
I kinda figured if someone sets up camp on a trail they expect people to walk through. Seems silly to be surprised when people do, kinda like a boat fishing in a boat lane or channel there's gonna be boats flying by.
Yeah they were in the same spot, the turn around. I had to do a 12 point turn with my truck and trailer.
I dunno if it's inexperience, stupidity, or just plain rude. Maybe just a lack of common sense I guess... I never could understand why people put themselves in that position, gotta be embarrassing to sit in camp blocking a turnaround while people are trying to maneuver it.
 
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Ucsdryder

Ucsdryder

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You folks are triggering some memories. Some of the most violent experiences have not been hunting but armed huckleberry pickers in August. Most have been out of staters with some real possessive problems. Add money to a resource and some really bad attitudes come to the front. The mexican mushroom pickers you find after a fire have always been nice (somewhat trashy) but nice.
You want to see crazy? Go to the duck boat launch at 4am. A bunch of crazy duck hunters that are cranky and in a hurry and fighting to get off the ramp as quickly as possible, turning a 2 boat ramp into a 4-5 boat ramp, all with extended surface drive motors hanging 4 feet behind the boat as they try to turn around with everyone else launching…oh yeah and everyone has shotguns… That place is downright scary…and dangerous.
 

Fowl Play

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Oct 1, 2016
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Since you're posing with a turkey in your picture, you'll find this funny.

I regularly have run ins with guys on public land who are quite literally "road hunting". They'll have 3 decoys staked out in the middle of the main loop road around one WMA I hunt. It's not even a two track.... It's literally a manicured/packed road that I imagine is extremely difficult to drive a stake into. I have had some nasty confrontations with people, because I have to get out and ask them to move the decoys. One guy got so mad I stopped and was waving me on. Dude.... I will A either knock over every decoy anyway... OR stake my tire. Neither of which is good.
 
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You want to see crazy? Go to the duck boat launch at 4am. A bunch of crazy duck hunters that are cranky and in a hurry and fighting to get off the ramp as quickly as possible, turning a 2 boat ramp into a 4-5 boat ramp, all with extended surface drive motors hanging 4 feet behind the boat as they try to turn around with everyone else launching…oh yeah and everyone has shotguns… That place is downright scary…and dangerous.
You're not lying, duck hunters are the worst. We changed the way we duck hunt because I got tired of the confrontations. Some crazy mofos with duck derangement syndrome lol.
 

WCB

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Jun 12, 2019
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Walking through someones camp is not a wise or respectful thing to do and neither is leaving a note on a vehicle and neither is thinking you own public land
Public land is just that ...public land....we all own it but dont be a jerk by being disrespectful
Walking through the middle of someones camp is just plain disrespectful and going hunting where you choose on public land doesnt mean the only access to that hunting spot is through their camp site especially if its 100k acres of land
Had guys get pissed at me when I pulled into "their camp" 2hrs before shooting light and shined their tent with my lights. I also parked about 30ft from their tent.

They were literally parked 10 yards from a closed gate on an access point that is a tight bottle neck on top of a ridge. Yeah I can go hunt the same spots without going through there but I'm not parking 150 yards further where the two track meets the main road to then crawl down a canyon or side hill a bitch of way through dead fall etc over two fences because those guys are morons.
 

sasquatch

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Jul 26, 2015
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The whole state apparently. I wish he’d have been there to get hurt feeling when we packed out the bull. Love all them diehards that show up 10 minutes before light and are mad they’ve been beat.

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2muchhp

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Oct 26, 2021
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A couple of years ago I parked my truck on a gated dirt road. Went to do some scouting and walked about a 1/2 mile down the road. There was a pop-up ground blind in the middle of the road, at a T in the road. The guy was there finishing setting up. As I walked by he asked if I was going to be parking there on opening day. I stated no, I would be walking in from the ridge to the North.
He stated " great that makes a pretty good shooting lane".
Wow!
 
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2muchhp

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Oct 26, 2021
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Yeah thats the only shooting there was, right down both two tracks, the rest was too thick.
The thing is there is no sense saying a word, you can't fix that thought process...
 
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Weiser, ID
About 10 years ago I was driving down a crappy dirt road and came across two old timers setting up their hunting camp along side the road. They had the road temporarily blocked with a pickup but I was in no hurry and was patiently waiting for them to move the pickup.

I guess they didn't see me at first but once they did one old boy yells out "Sorry!" and jumps in the pickup, slams it into reverse and proceeds to back it into a huge tree at about 25 mph. Bumper, tailgate and one bedside were completely smoked. The old timer just smiled and waved as I drove by.
 
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