For those that hunt public land…

A picture, a thousand words

That's the truth on opening rifle here

I can leave the flak vest and helmet home this year. Deer and elk hunts are both on private ranches.

Ol' Red said:

I can leave the flak vest and helmet home this year. Deer and elk hunts are both on private ranches.

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It gets pretty crazy all around us here too.

So true. I live in WV, not far from Ohio, so one year I decided to try some public ground. Bow season was great and I thought I'd try gun hunting. I went in early about a mile carrying a tree stand. Got settled in and come daylight it sounded like WW3. Must have had a group of 50 guys come through. Sounded like they killed everything. Bullets tumbling through trees! I hunted an hour and left never to return.

Gundog74 said:

So true. I live in WV, not far from Ohio, so one year I decided to try some public ground. Bow season was great and I thought I'd try gun hunting. I went in early about a mile carrying a tree stand. Got settled in and come daylight it sounded like WW3. Must have had a group of 50 guys come through. Sounded like they killed everything. Bullets tumbling through trees! I hunted an hour and left never to return.

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I've seen this kind of thing here in Saskatchewan as well. You get these idiots "pushing bush" as they call it, which for some isn't just about walking around and getting the deer to run away past another hunter whose waiting for them (which is fine), but you get people going in and firing their rifles in the trees at random hoping to scare the critters out of hiding. It is stupid, it is dangerous, it is illegal, and it doesn't even work all that well.

Gundog74 said:

So true. I live in WV, not far from Ohio, so one year I decided to try some public ground. Bow season was great and I thought I'd try gun hunting.

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I had the exact same experience in Ohio. Archery was incredible so decided to return to gun hunt. Never again!

Calvin45 said:

I've seen this kind of thing here in Saskatchewan as well. You get these idiots "pushing bush" as they call it, which for some isn't just about walking around and getting the deer to run away past another hunter whose waiting for them (which is fine), but you get people going in and firing their rifles in the trees at random hoping to scare the critters out of hiding. It is stupid, it is dangerous, it is illegal, and it doesn't even work all that well.

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When I was much younger deer drive's were what everyone did and if you knew the area well it was somewhat successful. The pushers always tried to make some racket but to randomly shoot would be a good way to at least never get invited again and possibly get a good whooping.
I actually enjoyed the comrade of doing deer drives compared to the solidarity of the deer hunting of today.

birddog 68 said:

When I was much younger deer drive's were what everyone did and if you knew the area well it was somewhat successful. The pushers always tried to make some racket but to randomly shoot would be a good way to at least never get invited again and possibly get a good whooping.
I actually enjoyed the comrade of doing deer drives compared to the solidarity of the deer hunting of today.

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Yep. It was a family day in the woods. Grandparents, at least 4 uncles, all the cousins. And several friends. Usually did it on "doe day"

I miss those times.

Behind one of my clubs in PA there is a large track to public gamelands. One day I decided to scout the area out for a whitetail hunt. There is a single winding access road to the top of the mountain which serves the cell tower. On opening morning, I drive to the top about 90 minutes before daylight and then walk to the area I intended to hunt. As I sit on a large boulder and relax waiting for the sun to rise, I see a constant stream of headlights that are making their way up the access road.

Just before light, I see 2 guys walking in my direction. One of the guys walks right up to me and tells me that I'm hunting in "his spot". Rather than have an argument with the guy at sunrise, I just move to another location. I call my buddy on the phone and tell him that I'm thinking of only hunting for an hour or so and leaving. On my way off the mountain top all I can see is orange dots all over the place. It literally looked like a pumpkin patch. There had to be a hunter every 50 yds in every direction. I checked back later that day just to see how they did. One guy shot 1 doe out of the 200 hundred guys that probably pushed every deer off that mountain long before the sun came up. Needless to say, I never went back.