As you well know I do most of my hunting on Public Properties. Now let me pose this question: Do people have a right to Public Property?
Let me explain, I got up this morning at 6 am and hit the ramp by 6:15. When I arrived at the boat launch I noticed another truck there with a trailer. I thought my day was over, so I looked down the shoreline and listened. Nothing, so I hoped he had motored up the lake. I dropped in and made my way down to "my" spot.
I've been hunting this body of water for 11 years and with my setup there's only 3 spots for me to hunt. Each differ spot has a differ wind direction for it, the SW spot was where I was heading. This is the same spot I had hunted the last 2 days. The closer I get I start straining to see if someone is down there. I get within 50 yrds and I see a red light. Instant sadness came like a wave over me, I continued down to say hi.
I asked if that was his blind (I knew it wasn't) he said no, but it's been down there forever and the wind was right and the place was close. I agreed then I asked him if he had hunted down here before, and how long he might stay. He answered a handful of times, (I've never seen this rig before and I hunt there all the time), and that he was only hunting for a couple hours. After talking to him I wished him good luck, and headed back to the ramp to pack up my boat and head home.
OK so here's my issues: do I have the right to be upset that he was in "my" spot.
He's only going to hunting for a couple hours, I would've spent 7 or 8.
From his setup he's not very serious, he only had a spread of about 16 dekes. Shoot, just for duck season I put out 6 doz. On top of that this was my last day off, and probably the better of the three days.
Now I know what your going to say- why didn't you hunt with him?
There's 2 reasons:
1. I didn't know him, I hunt with friends and I don't like being forced into meeting someone just for a hunting spot.
2. If I had hunted with him and he had a good time, whether I did or didn't, he might be at "my" spot more often.
I know I shouldn't feel this way but I feel wronged by someone I've never met. He was there first and I respect that. So now to ensure I get my SW spot I'm going to have to be there just a little earlier.
I realize I had other lakes to go to with a SW wind but they were all an hour drive away and I only had 30 min to shooting light. So instead of hauling butt and busting out a huge spread. I opted to head for home and go sight in my 22 mag and 222.
Just about any other type of hunting when you bump into someone else you can just move down the road aways and try again. Duck hunting is kinda like that, but there's only so much shoreline and most of it can't be set up on.
It still bothers me that I didn't get to hunt today am I in the wrong?
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