Advice needed: Wicked crowded woods!

[mprooch]

Caveat: First year hunting in NE Mass. I've had the woods pretty much to myself since opening day and now, it's gone sideways. I'm hunting three different small (30-50 acre) private spots with permission, but there have been a TON of people scouting and a few stands put up in the past 10 days or so. Two spots are posted, so you have to have permission on those, the third despite being private doesn't require permission. Can you all fill me in on etiquette here? I moved from my early season spot since it was close to an adjacent property line and I had a good conversation with the owner that has hunted the corners there for years--seemed the right thing to do and he and I are now pals, texting about scouting, what we've seen during sits, etc. But people keep 'pre-empting' spots with hang on or ladder stands and, in some cases, they don't have permission to do so (I double checked that I'm the only permitted hunter on the two posted spots). I'm not talking adjacent or hugging property lines--these stands are on the plots, hundred yards in or more. The land trust that have me permission provided "please remove this illegal stand" letters I could hang if I found someone hunting there. I'm as worried about people tromping around, walking right down some of the deer trails as much a I am someone actually setting up shop to hunt.

On the one hand, I look at it as a something I can use to my advantage maybe--have these blokes inadvertently push deer towards me. On the other hand, it's a ton of pressure and already I'm not seeing many bucks during the day which I attribute to the pressure and pretty dismal acorn season here. IDK. Any thoughts would be appreciated for this noob.

 

[Exhumis]

What I’ve done in the past if provided such letters is hang a letter on the stand and take a pic for evidence, then provide it to a game warden. Here in VA the penalty for trespassing on private land isn’t much of a deterrent for trespassing if the land isn’t posted but if the parcel IS posted it becomes much more severe and easier for the game wardens to enforce. I had one clown trespass three times so the third time I took his stand down and had the game warden come pick it up and left a note where his stand was, “if you’d like your stand back VDGIF has it, you can pick it up here.” Never had an issue again. YMMV, some folks say go easy, whatever works. I take a more aggressive track because parcels are hard to come by where I live.

 

[HuumanCreed]

I would give them one chance with a note. Then if they ignore it, place a trail cam hidden from human visibility, not to track deer, aim right at the tree stand. My father in law does the same things when he found trespasser on his lease too. Old fox write on his trail camera '3 of 4' and drill old car antenna that he got from the junk yards to make them think they are cellular, even if there was only 1 camera looking at the tree stand, it is to make them think there are others in case they find it they might be worries that there are others that will catch them.

 

[Fl Canopy Stalker]

Caveat: First year hunting in NE Mass. I've had the woods pretty much to myself since opening day and now, it's gone sideways. I'm hunting three different small (30-50 acre) private spots with permission, but there have been a TON of people scouting and a few stands put up in the past 10 days or so. Two spots are posted, so you have to have permission on those, the third despite being private doesn't require permission. Can you all fill me in on etiquette here? I moved from my early season spot since it was close to an adjacent property line and I had a good conversation with the owner that has hunted the corners there for years--seemed the right thing to do and he and I are now pals, texting about scouting, what we've seen during sits, etc. But people keep 'pre-empting' spots with hang on or ladder stands and, in some cases, they don't have permission to do so (I double checked that I'm the only permitted hunter on the two posted spots). I'm not talking adjacent or hugging property lines--these stands are on the plots, hundred yards in or more. The land trust that have me permission provided "please remove this illegal stand" letters I could hang if I found someone hunting there. I'm as worried about people tromping around, walking right down some of the deer trails as much a I am someone actually setting up shop to hunt.

On the one hand, I look at it as a something I can use to my advantage maybe--have these blokes inadvertently push deer towards me. On the other hand, it's a ton of pressure and already I'm not seeing many bucks during the day which I attribute to the pressure and pretty dismal acorn season here. IDK. Any thoughts would be appreciated for this noob.

I’d leave the note and go from there. It’s funny, I hunted yesterday on a public WMA that requires quotas to hunt. We scouted the off season, set some preset paracord loops deep in the woods. Went out there yesterday afternoon. Our presets were .75 miles into the woods through an overgrown trail that was on on-x. We got there at 1:30 pm walked 150 yards from the road. There were no cars parked anywhere around. While walking out some guy starts whistling and waving his vest at us from his climber. He’s 150 yards deep into the woods and 40 yards off that hidden trail over half a mile from our presets. We waved back and kept walking. He screams hey get the F**k out of here. I kindly responded, we are, we are gonna keep heading half a mile north to our set up. He screams oh you’re an f***ing a***ole. I was confused because a) it’s public land, b) that piece of property he was on is over 1200 acres, the one we were headed to is only 600 acres with no road access so we have to use the trail on the 1200 acres to get to the 600 acres we were going to hunt, c) he was only a couple hundred yards off of the main road and less than 50 yards off of the only access trail for the entire parcel and d) it was 1:30 in the afternoon the second week of gun season. There was no chance of us bumping a deer at that time of the day. Rut is done and most the deer have gone nocturnal on our cameras. I was pretty upset, not that someone else was hunting half a mile away, but that he had the audacity to start yelling and cursing at us for walking down the trail on public land, like he owned the whole 1200 acres.

 

[brandon66]

I’d leave the note and go from there. It’s funny, I hunted yesterday on a public WMA that requires quotas to hunt. We scouted the off season, set some preset paracord loops deep in the woods. Went out there yesterday afternoon. Our presets were .75 miles into the woods through an overgrown trail that was on on-x. We got there at 1:30 pm walked 150 yards from the road. There were no cars parked anywhere around. While walking out some guy starts whistling and waving his vest at us from his climber. He’s 150 yards deep into the woods and 40 yards off that hidden trail over half a mile from our presets. We waved back and kept walking. He screams hey get the F**k out of here. I kindly responded, we are, we are gonna keep heading half a mile north to our set up. He screams oh you’re an f***ing a***ole. I was confused because a) it’s public land, b) that piece of property he was on is over 1200 acres, the one we were headed to is only 600 acres with no road access so we have to use the trail on the 1200 acres to get to the 600 acres we were going to hunt, c) he was only a couple hundred yards off of the main road and less than 50 yards off of the only access trail for the entire parcel and d) it was 1:30 in the afternoon the second week of gun season. There was no chance of us bumping a deer at that time of the day. Rut is done and most the deer have gone nocturnal on our cameras. I was pretty upset, not that someone else was hunting half a mile away, but that he had the audacity to start yelling and cursing at us for walking down the trail on public land, like he owned the whole 1200 acres.

That’s crazy. This is my first year hunting public and this is the type of thing I’m worried about. Hunting a 350 acre piece that has a lake. Always people fishing but only come across 1 other hunter on one of our antlerless gun weekends. He was waiting at sunrise where I normally go in to bow hunt and I was fully prepared to find another spot. He was super friendly and insisted that it was ok. Walked in together and once he found his spot I just kept going further in until I felt we where at a safe distance.

Makes total sense to let somebody know where you are for safety sake but I can’t imagine throwing a fit because someone else is on public land.


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[Fl Canopy Stalker]

That’s crazy. This is my first year hunting public and this is the type of thing I’m worried about. Hunting a 350 acre piece that has a lake. Always people fishing but only come across 1 other hunter on one of our antlerless gun weekends. He was waiting at sunrise where I normally go in to bow hunt and I was fully prepared to find another spot. He was super friendly and insisted that it was ok. Walked in together and once he found his spot I just kept going further in until I felt we where at a safe distance.

Makes total sense to let somebody know where you are for safety sake but I can’t imagine throwing a fit because someone else is on public land.


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Yea we usually see 1 to 3 other people walking out to hunt some areas we hunt on public. Usually everyone asks which direction are you hunting and several hundred acres is big enough for us to all stay a decent distance apart. I have only encountered a couple of d-bags like that guy yesterday but when you do encounter them, it is a souring experience. We usually give a quiet whistle or wave when people walk past us for safety reasons (wouldn’t want any accidental shots being fired) but I have never threw a fit about someone hunting on the same parcel. I have moved a couple hundred yards away when someone set up but didn’t know I was there. But I did that more to make sure my scent wouldn’t get him winded, than because I was upset. It’s public land and it’s limited, we all have to share it.