Jump to content

Bad afternoon yesterday

Doc

By Doc,
in Bow Hunting

 Share

Recommended Posts

Doc Experienced

Doc

Posted
Posted

Well, I have had a pretty good run of luck hunting on state land over the years, but yesterday was a bit different. In the past I have encountered all kinds of interference .... bikers hikers, small game hunters, but I have learned where I had to go to avoid those kinds of problems.

 

Well this year, the apples have drawn the deer down into the valley bottom, and the hilltop where I can go to get away from interference is quite empty of deer. So my scouting this year has turned up a bumper crop of apples and the trails are just crazy down in the thickets of the valley bottom. So I located a few of my old stands in the area and was hoping to score there this year. I got all hunkered in and started waiting when I heard some voices not far away. That wasn't a complete surprise because over there is main access trail. I figured that shouldn't be a problem because it was still early in the afternoon. So pretty soon a gun shot goes off. My gosh it seemed like it was right next to me. And then all hell broke loose. Shot after shot. So I packed up (no real point to trying to hunt there) and went out to see what the hell was going on. So there I see two people all set up in a mowed clearing for target practice. Well, that's not nice but is one of the things you have to occasionally put up with when dealing with state land.

 

What did bother me was the set-up. These guys had a box with a few plastic bottles on top located in front of a very thick stretch of brush. This area is the valley bottom and is dead flat where all this was going on, so there is nothing that could be considered a backstop other than the thicket that you cant see more than a few feet into. The fact is that it was just such a thicket that I was standing in for my afternoon hunt. The good news is that I was in an area that was about 45 degrees from their line of fire. The bad news is that I have several places that I hunt that are very close to their line of fire and I could have been sitting in one of them. The other bad news is that there is an access route that has been mowed by the state that goes in kind of a semicircle around this patch of brush that is frequently used by hunters and hikers when heading up the hill.

 

I guess I now have to consider this whole valley bottom area to be unsafe for hunting and am now forced to walk away from the area with all the sign and food attractions. That's is indeed unfortunate and probably doesn't bode well for what I expected to be a good bowhunting year. But the real bothersome thing is the way some people approach gun safety when picking out a place to shoot their guns. Had they gone another few hundred yards, they could have been shooting into the hill or the sides of one of the many ravines coming down the hill. Instead, they chose to ignore one of the fundamental rules of gun safety and picked an un-backstopped area, and shooting into an area that had no visibility to anything farther in than a dozen feet or so. The whole thing was a bit scary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Doc Experienced

Doc

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I suppose the odds are pretty slim that I would be in exactly the spot where their bullets were winding up. But it sure is un-nerving when you hear this going on and you have no idea exactly where they are shooting. The other thing is that this guy had his kid with him. He commented that in a short time he would be taking him out on the youth gun hunt. I was just thinking that this was one of the fathers that is acting as a hunting mentor? That's a bit scary too. The prime safety rule that the kid had just learned in his recent hunter safety training course of being sure of what is in the line of fire and beyond, was being shot down by his own father.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Caveman Contributor

Caveman

Posted
Posted

No target shooting allowed on state properties,I would call the DEC and let them know what happened.

 

Not true.  State forests (if that's what we're dealing with) allow target shooting on the conditions that your target is not something that will be left behind (glass bottles and clay pigeons) and you're not intentionally damaging state property (tacking your target to a living tree).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
growalot Newbie

growalot

Posted
Posted

Regardless Doc saw these guys practicing unsafe shooting procedures on state land...Calling the DEC and describing the activity and it's location is the only course of action to be taken, period...the life possibly saved could be someones kid...mom.. dad ..brother or sister...ect...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...