Hunter Etiquette

[MatCat]

Just going to rant here a little bit.  Had my first ever bad experience with other hunters this last week.  Please let me know if I was out of line with what happened.  My family and I hunt the Missouri Breaks every year for a week and have been doing it as long as I have been old enough to hunt.  We have a particular area that doesn't have quite as much hunting pressure and we usually only see 2 or 3 other groups of hunters the whole week we are there.  We've camped in the same spot forever, but this year someone was in that spot.  I understand public land, first come first serve, but you still feel like it's "your spot".  I was irritated, but what can you do.  We decided to move about 2 miles from there and just let them have the coulee to themselves.  Apparently they had been there for the whole week before we got there and run all the elk out.  We started hunting and getting into some where we were at, but low and behold the guys who were in "our spot" decided they wanted to be where we were.  They started hunting that area every day we were there.  We never approached or tried to get in there way, we even tried to stay away from where they were hunting if we knew where exactly they were.  The third morning they were coming by our camp and we stopped them and asked where they were going, with the idea that we could just go a different direction and stay out of their hair and just avoid them if possible.  Immediately they got defensive and said it was none of our business where they were going and that it was public land.  We said we know that, but we were going to hunt below our camp and just wanted to make sure they weren't going there or walking through there on the way to wherever they were going to hunt.  They just kept saying they could go wherever they wanted and didn't have to tell us anything, because it's public land, and yes they were going to walk right through where we were going to try and hunt.  Unfortunatly my father lost his cool eventually and told them that if they wanted to screw up our hunt, that he would make it his mission to do the same.  He didn't, but he still probably shoudn't have said that.  They came back later in the day and continued to berate us for "harassing" them about where they were hunting and if we didnt' leave them alone they were going to call the authorities.  Just to let you know, all of this happened in OUR camp.  We told them we would be happy to trade spots and go back to where we usually hunt if they wanted to hunt where we were, but apparently that wasn't good enough and they felt they needed the whole 200 square miles to be in whenever they wanted no matter who was there.  Three times they came back just to argue while we were sitting in camp.  Then they said we weren't real hunters anyway because we were sitting in camp instead of out looking for elk when it was 90 degrees in the middle of the day.  They told us if we were just there to be camping that we should go to the lake or something.  Last I checked, elk don't like to move in the heat of the day, especially when it's 90!  Needless to say they continued tramping up and down coulees every day of the week all day long pushing every animal in the county out.  I know it's public land and they have a right to be there, but isn't it common courtesy to give your fellow hunters a little room, and if you know they are hunting an area to let them be.  Please let me know if I'm wrong in thinking this.  Oh yeah, they were from Wisconsin too.

[stka]

Welcome to the site. Unfortunately there are people like that everywhere. I agree with trying to put some space between your groups but unfortunately there's not much you can really do. Really a shame to have someone like that harassing you when your out trying to enjoy the outdoors.

[bogmanjr]

Just plain sux, only take's a few to give the masses a bad name.

Welcome aboard too.

[MatCat]

Thanks for the welcome, sorry my first post was a negative one.  Will hopefully have a few positive ones as the season progresses.

[bogmanjr]

Thanks for the welcome, sorry my first post was a negative one.  Will hopefully have a few positive ones as the season progresses.

Looking foward to them

[aquaassassin]

Just plain sux, only take's a few to give the masses a bad name.

Welcome aboard too.

Yes it does only take a few to give MASS. a bad name! LOL jk with ya. c'mon it was a lay-up

[bogmanjr]

Yes it does only take a few to give MASS. a bad name! LOL jk with ya. c'mon it was a lay-up

Alright, But Mass. has a lot more than a few.......................

[aquaassassin]

LOL

[Raquettedacker]

OH...........................................................................



  Welcome to the site...............................

[Bullelk34]

There are dips***s everywhere Mat- too bad you ran into them though.. Hopefully they won't be back next year!

[robbi]

I used to hunt the breaks years ago when you could spend a couple of weeks out there without seeing other hunters.  When I quit hunting out there it was like a highway out there with a bulk of out of state plates, and we were pretty deep in.  It's a shame it's like that, but the permits for out there are easily accessible for out of state as well as residents and these things are gonna happen.  The money the out of state hunters bring to the state is good and important to the economy, however some of the attitudes aren't as welcome.  I've never had a run in such as yours and it sucks, but with some luck, it was a one time deal and you and your family can get back to normal next year..........

[rambo51]

Hey Matcat we had a similar problem with wisconsins. Theres this mountain that my dad and his buddies hunted for over 30 years and the elk like to move from lower elevations to that specific mountain. And some outa staters camped right in the bottom of it and they couldn't figure out why the elk weren't on the mountain. we told them that it was because of there camp they denied it. And also we told them not to go up there with freakin flashlights because the elk will see you way before you can see them. They also denied that. So we told them if we all cooperate we all can get a shot at a bull, but they didn't want anything to do with us. And to top it all of last year they shot a pretty nice bull an hour before shooting light. we called tip mont and they didn't do anything about it. The funny part about it all is that the next morning they left i shot a 4 point bull. thats the icing on the cake isn't it?