You are absolutely right. I have never crossed a line to kill a deer. I never would, I have no desire. But 20 yrs ago, there were probably 1/4 of the turkey hunters in GA as there are now. No one cared if you crossed property lines, back then. We all knew who hunted the land around each other. We’d share info, talk about tactics, and tell kill stories at the tail gate many times a yr. If I knew my neighbor was hunting I’d stay away. He’d do the same. Sometimes we didn’t know, and we ran into each other so we just hunted together.
For example was a 500 acre cattle farm behind my property. Sometimes there would be a bird gobbling on the backside of the pasture, and I’d go to that bird. On many occasions I jumped the fence, and walked right by the farmer, he’d wave, I’d wave back, and he’d keep on doing what he was doing. He never cared.
Another example, I was walking down a logging rd, and the land owner pulled up, and asked me if I’d had any luck, I told him where I’d been hunting, and lost a bird. He then asked me if I could take his kid who always wanted to go, but he didn’t want to deal with the skeeters. I got his number called him that night, and took his kid the next morning.
Back then we weren’t committing a crime by trespassing. We were enjoying the sport in its true form. The landowners honestly didn’t care. We weren’t destroying their land with atv’s, cutting fences, or leaving garbage behind. We were just killing the heck out of turkeys.
This wasn’t just around my place this was all over the state. I had a neighboring hunter who was a GW, and he roamed as much or more then I did. I talked to him about it one day, and he said, “son right now us turkey hunters don’t have boundaries, but that tides a changing. It’s not going to last much longer. Enjoy it while you can.” Boy he was right. I’ve had neighboring land owners get pissed because I’ve pulled a gobbler off of them, and into my set up on my property.
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