It is that time of year again. Hunting season. When the manly tradition of heading out into the woods to shoot meat for your freezer arrives. I don’t have a problem with hunting. I owned a gun shop for many years and made a living selling firearms and ammunition. But some hunters lack common sense. Like the one who came in opening day to buy a hunting license and slugs for his 16 gauge. I was all sold out of 16 gauge-ammo already. And he thought it was my fault he couldn’t go hunting. I made a comment about there being 364 other days in a year to purchase ammo, he didn’t think it applied to him.
Being a lifelong farmer, I raised livestock to keep myself in meat all year long, so cleaning game seemed more work than I wished to invest. Being a landowner, I found myself dealing with the hunters who didn’t respect private property. We had over 100 acres of woodland which seemed mighty tempting to many people. It was also home to my beef cow/calf herd and I preferred to keep it that way.
We leased the woodland out to a hunter who paid way more in hunting rights than he could ever harvest in meat. But he enjoyed the sport and we could trust him to not shoot our cattle. But outside of that we had some interesting interactions. Anyone who hunts is required to have permission to enter private property. Without that you become a trespasser. Your hunting license becomes rather worthless once you cross that line.
One autumn day in the late 1980’s we were cutting firewood deep in the property when one of my friends noticed a guy sitting on a stump above us with a shotgun. I walked up to him and asked what he was doing. He told me he knew Campbell, the owner, and had permission to hunt. I, with my father’s sense of humor, asked what Campbell looked like. His answer was rather evasive until I informed him who I was and requested he leave ASAP.
I often times came down to check the cattle and found the gates left open. We eventually hard wired the electric fence in front of the gates to prevent unauthorized access. Every fall while riding through on my daily herd check I would come across a deer stand. My paid hunter only used a ground blind so we knew it was an interloper. For liability reasons we had to dismantle the trespasser’s unit and see if he would show up to claim it. Whoever did it must have had lots of money because they donated a couple stands each year.
One fall I was hauling round bales out of the field and met a pickup coming into the field drive. The driver looked most displeased to see me and waved me out of the way. I looked displeased right back and motioned him to leave. When I returned for another load of bales, I saw that same pickup parked in the corner of my field. I reported it to the sheriff and had him ticketed for trespassing. Another early fall morning while I was plowing, I interrupted a couple hunting pheasants in my cornfield. They were mad I was scaring the birds and I told them to leave immediately.
The funniest story was watching a tree stand being built in my back field one harvest season. I was irritated that no one got permission to do so and it boiled over the night before hunting opener. I took my chainsaw out and cut the saplings off level with the ground. I chained all four trees together and pulled them out of the field. My neighbor told me later that a guy showed up in their barn early the next morning while they were milking their cows. He was mad as could be, and asked them what happened to his deer stand. They couldn’t stop laughing and told him to go ask the property owner. He never did and I assume it was the same guy I had ticketed for trespassing.
