Glad I “ruined” your hunt. Yes you deserve to die and I hope you burn in hell!

DouglasR

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Joined
Jan 9, 2019
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Location
East central, Il
Let me preface this by saying I have no fing idea how to hunt elk.
I’m trying to learn.
Sorry if I “ruin” anyone else’s experience.

Past couple days have been pretty cool.
Hiked into a hters honey hole and spent a couple nights.
Jumped a nice bull, nearly got trampled by muley fawns and got awoken from a midday nap by a sow with a cub trying to get my backpack full of sausage.
So freaking cool! Got to yell my first “hey bear!” ever!
She ran off and her cub shot to a tree. So awesome.

Anyways, I hike down and get to the bottom of the drainage right next to the main trail and decide I’m gonna hike up the hill a little ways, hide behind a bush and see if the bull I jumped a couple days before come out.
I was hiking on the main trail, admittedly throwing out pointless cow calls and looking like I have no idea what I’m doing when suddenly I hear
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?!!!
Get out of here!!! Get! Out! Of! Here! Now!
Under normal circumstances Dougs Chrondre le’McCafe is a calm, collected guy who’s not looking for any trouble.
But when you’re yelling at me to get off our public lands, especially the main trail, you #*^@#* yourself.
So I give him hell back
“Well boss, there’s still like an hour of shooting light left and you’re yelling like an idiot. You want to know what ruing hunts? Yelling.
We go back and forth.
He informs me that’s a landowner at the other end of the trail and he’s been there 5 days.
Cool bro you and your 3 buddies hiked in 3 miles from your house and camped? Cool story bro. Core af.
I tell him to “have a lovely evening sweetheart”
He tells me
“We’re cross gonna cross each other up here. We’ll talk then”
I walked down to the bottom of the ridge he was on. He never comes down.

Get up this morning, pack up camp, start hiking up the main trail past their spots and start playing he Eddie V solo from beat it on that bugling tube.
I was tapping, playing it behind my head, jumping off of amplifiers...
It worked, I called in his buddy.
His buddy was cool af we shot the shit, exchanged phone numbers and told him to call me if they were gonna be back out because I would let them have the area.
Peace and chicken grease bro.

I start climbing up out of the drainage on the main trail and spot his other buddies a couple hundred yards away because it’s 7am, the sun hasn’t even come over the mountain yet and I’ve absolutely ruined their hunt and there’s absolutely no way any more animals would come out in that spot even though all 4 of us have been walking around in there for 5 days.

I drop my pack and walk over to them.
“Y’all the dudes who yelled at me last night?”
“Yeah I was, I was set up on a bear yesterday morning and last night and you ruined both of them!
“this is public land, you’re on a main hiking trail dude. We can to the trailhead and you can see the log of how many people have hiked out here.
We go back and forth. I call him an idiot asshole a few times.
He’s asks if I want to fight.
I thought the Charlie Daniels song “the last thing I wanted was to get in a fight in Jackson Mississippi on a Saturday night, especially when there was three of them and only one of me.
So I call him a $*)Q!#@$ idiot and walk offa few steps

We get back into arguing:
“Can you not understand my frustration that you blew out my bear”

“yes, I understand your frustration, but I don’t understand getting mad and yelling at someone to “get off” OUR public lands. You’re an asshole, completely in the wrong and you’re hunting 200yds from your tent.”

“Peace and love hommies. Keep it low but keep it lit. I’m outa here. call me if you’re coming back out. Party on”

Anyways #*^@#* that guy.
If you see a dumbass flatlander wandering around aimlessly.
Approach him like a human with common sense and courtesy and try to work something out.
I hate super hunters!
This is vacation bro!

F3A74492-2A7C-4976-B2AF-984397BB3ABE.jpeg
 
bet it felt good to type that up and get it out of your head

You are totally right. Yes, there are idiots out there doing things totally wrong and it is frustrating when you come across them. However, rather than get upset about it, the better thing to do is to approach said idiot and have a conversation. Maybe try to help them out. Maybe they are truly an idiot and its pointless. However, maybe they are just like you Mr. @DouglasR and just inexperienced. Exchanging stories and helping might result in like maybe you giving me the exact spot you ran into that bear? I bet that guy never had that cross his mind!
 
Congrats, sounds like you just ran into one of the many public land a$$h@/3s that we have running around! They think they own the place (planet earth) and that YOU are ruining THEIR precious experience. How do they know that you weren’t trailing a big bull? How do they know that you haven’t been watching that bear for months, and you were finally making your final approach and actually they ruined your hunt?? They don’t. But it’s their world and we’re just living in it.
Keep after it, don’t let these guys bother you. Chase elk, mess up, learn. It’s all part of the process
 
My first elk hunt was from an in deep spike camp in my Natty Forest. Hiked a good mile opening morning to a hide. About half an hour passed and I smelled cigarette smoke. He was in front of me about 40 yards standing in the open, gawking at the dark with a glowing pie hole, damn, those things must be addictive. His forest too though & we had a friendly convo at sunup.
 
67, been on public lands since dad carried me to a stream to fish. Hunted and fished our lands since. 20 years as a Park Ranger.
I would not be able to type the words I have in my head for what I have experienced on public lands. I save those words for alone time vents. And I reassure Rio it's not him.
I feel better already.
 
Where I hunt in the Little Belts here in Montana there are a lot of locals from White Sulphur Springs that believe those mountains are theirs and the rest of us need to give them that respect of staying out. I have had a few words on the roads with a couple of those children and always do my best to kill them with kindness. Generally when I haul my 300lb bald headed butt out of the truck they calm down a little especially if I have a smile on my face ;)
 
Last night some random dude ruined my stalk (which I could've very well f'ed up myself) on two really nice mule deer, on private... He drove on a trail that was between me and the two bucks. The bucks f'ed off when he slowed down to check them out.

It is what it is, I didn't get butthurt and went after him like an azzhat.
 
This is why I always try to avoid hunting the openers. Or even the first two weeks. I prefer waiting for the snow and temps to fall. Gets rid of most of the inexperienced AND local trash. I can only remember coming unhinged twice. Once some old guy and two kids were hiding in the trees between my decoys and the river. That idiot was shooting at anything that came over the treetops. Earlier I could here him shooting geese down on the river ... that's closed to hunting. I hollered at him twice to knock it off, then went over and really laid into him. It was a bad day to start with (first anniversary of my wife's tragic death in MVA). "Oh, I can reach em. I have a ten gauge." Then I jumped him about hunting closed water and the two kids' mouths dropped. He picked up and left. I've seen them out there a couple times since and he's asked my advice on setups etc. and I've been helpful.

In Montana last year I was working the cattails on the bird refuge when a 4-door pickup stops about a hundred yards away and a guy and two kids bail out. Hmm. They must have seen the sharpies that hang around that corner. Instead they head straight for the cattails in front of where I'm working my dog. Then the sharpies flush behind them and make a break for the cattails. From where I was standing the birds were at least seventy yards up in the air and no doubt they didn't fly directly overhead. But everyone empties their guns. They are within earshot, they see me, and I can see they HAVE NO DOG. Finding a downed bird in that crap with a couple of good dogs is nearly impossible (Ellie is way above and beyond an ordinary "good" hunting dog). I hollered at them to go someplace else (the refuge is huge and rarely hunted last year due to shortage of steel anmo) and stay out of the cattails if they don't have a dog. Yeah, I was unpleasant. But they marched right out in front of a guy decked out in an orange vest. Not like they couldn't see me. They didn't care. But they did leave quickly. Obviously none of them had a remote clue what they were doing. I consider people like that to be dangerous especially for my dogs. Stay away!
 
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If you haven't had a setup busted by someone else, you haven't hunted public land. Plain and simple. If i come over a hill and see someone, and they put their finger to their lips and give me a low wave , i'll just hunker down cause I know they got something working.

I'll also admit (forgive me father for I have sinned) I've been a part of chasing a bugle on horseback and come over the hill to see a fella on foot sneaking along the treeline cow calling on the same bugle we were chasing. I am ashamed to admit that our party leader in that case, spurred up and got us to rifle range on the bull making said racket. We attempted to get the shooter setup on the bull but he was fiddle farting around when the ground pounder (who was still 1/4 mile from the elk) got po'ed and fired a shot to scare the bull back into the dark timber. I could empathize with the fella on foot, and i didn't blame him for his actions. It was a dick move on the other guy's part. Truth be told, it was the intention of the other guy to BE a dick with no apologies....

It could be argued that at that particular hour of the day, the guy on foot would not have gotten into view or rifle range of the elk within legal shooting light.
 
Assholes are everywhere.

Though, I've had great luck not running into many in the mountains. I hope to keep that streak alive as long as possible.

I liked the "flow of consciousness" style of venting. Hope you find dumber elk and nicer people
 
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