Today at work, I ended up with an unexpected open afternoon. Cold snap last night, bad weather coming tomorrow, first week of November, and Alex was out of school! I headed home at lunch and loaded my new (off Craigslist) 2 seater ladder stand in the truck to take Alex out for a hunt, his second with me this year. Earlier in the season, I had hunted a new property and found a promising area that I was saving for this new stand. However, when we got there, I was disappointed to find another stand in the same area. Ok, we can find a different spot on the property.
However, I also found a pile of apples and a corn feeder. While I am completely supportive of baiting, I limit my baiting to legal areas only. This bait pile is illegal. I’ll let the landowner know (because I know he didn’t put the pile out), but it gave me the chance to discuss with Alex the legal and ethical aspects of hunting.
It was disappointing that I won’t be hunting there anymore, but it was an excellent teaching opportunity for my young hunter wannabe.
I’m sure he will explain it to his sisters when we get home since they were both disappointed that they didn’t get to hunt this year.
Thank you for teaching the right way to hunt. We have had hunters shoot way too close to our house, and very clearly trespassing. Had a person sitting in our tree stand, on our property who lectured Sam that “tree stands weren’t allowed on state property”. Sam pointed out the SEVEN “No trespassing” and “Private property” signs which were in sight of where they were standing. We just hung a “No trespassing” sign on the tree stand a few days ago. We’ll see what happens.
Amy – tell Sam to call the Game Warden if someone is on your property.
I “echo” the first sentence in Amy’s post!
Where we live is not in hunting territory, but we do have wild critters on neighborhood property, such as raccoons, foxes, bats, and owls. I have seen all of these “in person” at various times, other than the owls, and we can hear them. It is weird to hear the owls “talk” to each other. There was even a deer in the yard across the street during “full daylight” the other day. By the time my husband told me about it, it had left.
All this is in our subdivision, where houses are pretty close together, but which has a dense wooded area in back yards. A short block away, there is a busy street.