WTF is up with some hunters

[Shedhunteraz]

Had something similar happen to me. Found 2 good bulls on the same ridge 2nd day of the hunt. Was not willing to take the 1000 yard shot and spent the rest of the day looking for a safe passage off the cliffs to get closer. Found a semi-safe route but bulls were bedded in the thick brush. 2nd daya Parade of polaris rangers (3-4 with 2-3 guys in each one) showed up, started lobbing hail marys and missing by 5 at the biggest bull. The other bull was lower on the ridge. I was hoping they would not see him, but when you have 6-7 guys and one tag holder all glassing there was no such luck. They shot at him too and missed. 30 minutes into the morning hunt all bulls spooked off the mountain.

Sounds like you were in 23. Not going to get into it but a "guide camp" and its cronies literally ran my wife off the road. They were extremely lucky i was packing a bull out a few miles away.

[Snapshot]

The world is full of buttheads. The numbers of which,are exponentially higher in popular units, easy to get to, or close to population centers.

[azshtr]

You passed them on a dead end road, they passed you on the trail. No harm no foul.

More than one way to go from that trail head. I could have sipped coffee with one hand and walked faster than they were driving. Should I just stay behind them? I guess I look at it as "what would I do"? Me... I'd back track and go the other way. Which is what I did. Then I posted a rant.

 

Have you ever literally walked in front of the binocs of a person glassing?

[AZDirtyTaco]

You passed them on a dead end road, they passed you on the trail. No harm no foul.

Great point!

[DesertBull]

 

 

Had something similar happen to me. Found 2 good bulls on the same ridge 2nd day of the hunt. Was not willing to take the 1000 yard shot and spent the rest of the day looking for a safe passage off the cliffs to get closer. Found a semi-safe route but bulls were bedded in the thick brush. 2nd daya Parade of polaris rangers (3-4 with 2-3 guys in each one) showed up, started lobbing hail marys and missing by 5 at the biggest bull. The other bull was lower on the ridge. I was hoping they would not see him, but when you have 6-7 guys and one tag holder all glassing there was no such luck. They shot at him too and missed. 30 minutes into the morning hunt all bulls spooked off the mountain.

Sounds like you were in 23. Not going to get into it but a "guide camp" and its cronies literally ran my wife off the road. They were extremely lucky i was packing a bull out a few miles away.

Exactly

[Delw]

Rant: Headed down a long rough road to the parking area I was going hunting in. 1 Hour rough drive on quad. Passed a grandma speed polaris UTV about half way. Made it to the parking area, now an hour hike up and down hills to reach the good stuff... near the base of where it gets steep. I'm glassing what I can see before pushing on. Pushing on means only 1 good way to go. It's steep right, it's steep left. However go straight and it gets better then you can really see good country. 30 minutes of glassing I hear 2 guys coming up behind behind me. Yep... polaris guys. Small chat for a minute and they say well good luck... and walk directly in front of where I'm glassing and into the area I'm working into. Is it just me was that an a-hole move?

sounds like you were on the same trail they were and they just wanted to go farther. I see no problem with it.

 

people bitch about the stupiest things anymore.

[pwrguy]

I have been in both positions many times. To have the expectation that because you are there first you somehow own a certain square mileage of a mountain or canyon is absurd. Public land is just that ...public. If I walk 30 minutes or more up to a place and find someone there I am not turning around and going to another spot (sorry big browns). If you do this you just pretty much burned a morning. I usually try to talk to them and if they are friendly try to work something out giving them the preference for being there ahead of me. If they are unfriendly I move away and hunt wherever I want without consulting them.

[GJMauro12]

I would say I have your story beat. I just got back from the rifle hunt and on the afternoon hunts we would sit a blind in a meadow with a 400 yard shot to the right and a 250 yard shot to the left.

 

4 nights we had the same two guys come in 2 hours after us and sit as close as 90 yards to our right one night.

[Rag Horn]

FWIW

I was deer hunting last year. Driving early in the morning I was going slow up and down this steep rocky road when a Jeep showed up behind me. I had several opportunities to pull over and let them pass but I was a jerk and kept driving the speed I wanted. They had their brights on and KC light bar on high I knew darn good and well they wanted to pass me. In my mind they were just being idiot jerks that wanted to run me off the road. Unyielding I persisted because dang it this is public land and I was here first. I just knew they wanted to get to the same glassing spot I wanted at the end of the road. I wasnt going to give up my spot to some jerk in a Jeep. If these jackasses in a Jeep wanted to get to my spot they shoulda got out of bed earlier. I built these Jeep drivers into these idiot careless road warriors. Well we get to where I want to be and force them to go somewhere else. Well after a half a day of glassing and no deer I drove back down the road to a different spot. When I got to where I was going I looked in the back of my truck and saw that the bed of my truck was empty. Somewhere my tailgate dropped and my chainsaw ice chest and hunting gear fell out. Well I turned my truck around and went looking for my stuff when look who comes down the road. The jackass Jeep drivers. Well turns out they were really nice people who upon seeing all my crap scattered down the road stopped and collected it all and were bringing it back to my camp because they knew it must belong to me. Because they had seen my truck at the campsite and followed me in that morning. Hundreds of dollars of gear all collected returned to me. Plus they shot a deer in the area they moved to and I saw nothing. Anyway there was a lesson of karma with a side dish of humble pie with that experience. People can be jerks, we can be jerks, and even when we think they are the jerks sometimes we are the jerks.

 

This is not to say the OP or any poster since then are wrong. This was just a hunting lesson when I was definitely wrong. I was wrong for not letting them pass and especially wrong for giving the Jeep drivers bad names before meeting them.

[muledeerarea33?]

Rag horn, you are spot on!! Its not always the other guy whos being a jerk! Sometimes its you/us!! I was looking for a good way to respond to this one and you nailed it!!

[Red Sparky]

You can either be mad or not. Public land is public land and I think people should be polite enough to go someplace else if somebody is at a spot already. Usually if somebody gets to a spot first I will talk to them and then go to a different place. I expect the same in return. That is one problem with the draws. It does limit the number of hunters but on the other hand, if this is one chance in 10 years many might push the boundaries to fill the tag.

 

I have gotten good information from other hunters because I was just hunting for any elk, archery here is ES, and they were sitting water hoping for a big bull to come in. We weren't competing and I was getting into elk. The only reason was we talked and worked things out. I have also given information to other hunters to help them out, it helped me out as well. Then there was the one time muzzle loader hunting.

 

I was sitting a waterhole in the east end of a dead end canyon. The road came in from the west, the direction of the evening wind and the elk dropped into this canyon and down the road from the west. Some idiots came in about 4 PM and were bound and determined to sit the waterhole I was on. Since it was public land and they were being idiots I said I would go hunt some where else. Imagine their surprise when they drove past me after dark and I had a bull down since I put in the time to pattern the elk. I did have to go retrieve my socks, t-shirt, and base layers I hung in the trees so any elk approaching the waterhole would be downwind of them.

 

I did not live up to my mentors advice on that time-- Better only one A-hole than two.

[elkaholic]

Happens all the time - your not alone.

 

deadend rd 3/4 mile long -open desert country except where the rd ends one hill with a trail..

 

!-I'm park at 1/2 mile spot - to not scare anything on hillside trail

 

get to top - only one real good spot to see everything in a big bowl - glass 1/2 hr. here comes guy and kid basically sit right next to me

 

I'm like "really"

 

walking a old really rough jeep trail - in an narrow wash - walked the 3/4 mile in -it ends a 1 mile in -- 4 guys in sideby "ROARING " up behind me- ask me where I'm going - like theres a lot of options.

 

said good luck and basically made me get out of there way cuz they're in a hurry - right at day break - I cant say on here what I wanted to say

[MattMan]

Reminds me of two hunts, a couple years apart. First year we respected the space of some other hunters and watched them wound a 100 buck, at way too far to shoot for their skills (somewhere upwards of 10 shots fired with one wounding contact), with all the bullets they had. Watched them leave, and watched the buck bed. Killed a smaller buck, cut it up, left a Gatorade bottle on his head as a joke for my buddy with the next hunt, and packed it out. Coulda killed the big buck, easily. Assumed said Azzhatz came back, and got his deer. But then helped said buddy kill their trophy on the next hunt, whole front of the deer was smelly and rotten, but he was alive. Read on this forum about a bear eaten carcass and a Gatorade bottle on his head, and how they packed in and ran out of water. Gimme a break, its 1/2 mile at most from roads. They ran out of bullets. Next time we were in there I met said azzhat. When he glassed us up, while we were trying to get our kids their first deer, he and his Scooby-Doo lookin Shaggy buddy walked up to where we were glassing from, proceeded to accuse us of stealing his deer, (Shaggy-Doo looked embarrassed by now), walked right in front of us, appearing to intentionally walk through where we were glassing, and he did the same thing again.... we left.

[Chris]

I was scouting around 2pm, drove quad up to entrance of waterhole. Parked it. Checked to see if there was still water. Guy steps out of his blind (tree brances) and waves. I wave back and leave.

 

 

I think all is good. Who knows, he may think all is good, or he may think.... that idiot drives up to my tank, parks, walks up, and waves.

 

Public land hunting. It's never perfect.

[azshtr]

I looked at the situation from my point of view. I would never walk right in front of someone glassing and hike directly to where he was glassing. But that's just me I guess.