[fabsroman]

DaMadman,

The older you get, the more you piss me off. LOL

I used to have two pretty good farms to hunt on. Now, one is being developed and the other has deer hunters on it almost every day of the week. I guess I shouldn't hunt doves or waterfowl on that farm because I am being discourteaus to those deer hunters out there.

Me, I walk into fields prepared to hunt deer or waterfowl, and feel slighted when I see all the hunters orange in stands. I feel like I am intruding on their hunt, but then I think why don't they feel like they are intruding on my hunt?

Yeah, public land sucks, but private land isn't all too great either.

Make the most of what you have and stop crying about it. The farm I used to hunt a lot that is currently having half of it developed has a good story to it. It is close to 200 acres and there are normally 10 to 15 guys that hunt it the opening day of deer firearms season. Mind you, it is in the rifle zone. Well, I got there late one opening day and everybody was already out in their stands. So, to be a nice guy I just went out back of the house to see if anything would come my way, knowing that the chances were pretty slim. I sat myself down at the base of a tree, clothed in blaze orange coveralls. For over 3 hours I struggled not to fall asleep. Then, out of nowhere a nice 6 point came within 100 yards. He came down off the mountain where everybody had been hunting and I was wondering how he got through. After shooting him, I found out that one of the new guys got out of his stand at that time and started heading down, forcing this deer out of its bedding area and down the mountain. Yeah, everybody was pissed at me for being lucky, but guess what, I went out even though the conditions weren't in my favor, I stayed put longer than the new guy, and I got a deer.

The first time I went deer hunting, I killed my first deer within 20 minutes of being on the stand. The next deer took me three years to get and many, many days in stands cold out of my mind because I didn't have the nice clothes to keep me warm.

It took me about 3 years of dove hunting to kill my first dove and another 3 years of pheasant hunting to kill my first pheasant.

If this lady wants to her son to be successful at hunting, I suggest that she do some type of hunting where the child will see some action. Big game hunting is a tough one to start any child out on. She should take him squirrel hunting, dove hunting, rabbit hunting, or whatever. Some type of hunting that will have him shooting and bagging game.

Would you take your child on a bighorn hunt as his/her first hunt? How about a bear hunt? Start small.

I don't blame the other hunters. They made plans to go hunting and then they get there and there are a bunch of other hunters in the woods. It doesn't feel too good to be out there duck hunting and hearing high powered rifles going off. I know because I was there. I was hunting a creek for ducks at that Washington County farm that is being developed. I saw a nice spiked buck come out and then I started to hear the rifle fire. I couldn't figure out where they were at at first because they were in front part of the farm, far away from me when I cam into the farm. Now, they had moved to the top of a hill in back of the farm and they were shooting my way. Mind you, I had no blaze orange on because I was waterfowling and they had no blaze orange on because they are morons. Once I figured out where they were shooting from and that they were going to start shooting at the doe that was with the buck, I jumped up and started waving my arms.

Yeah, I have life so easy because I have a couple of spots of "private" land to hunt on. On three different occassions, I have run into other goose hunters on those same farms before sunrise. We were both heading to set up decoys in the dark. I had taken off work, my dad had taken off work, and so had other guys in my party, as I am sure they had in the other party. So, who should leave. NOBODY. We should all hunt together.

If you cannot deal with quail, waterfowl, or dove hunters, etc. because you are deer hunting, I suggest you deer hunt deep in the woods where those animals are not located. Then again, you might run into grouse hunters.

Hunting is a crap shoot. Get out, enjoy the day, and be happy that there is still some land left to hunt on. Trust me, there is more open land around where you live than where I live.