A question of Lease Etiquette , or even Ethics?

[snake284-1]

I have been on this lease since a couple days before season started and was under the impression that if we had an area (Blind, Feeder, ETC. set up for our hunting) that we don't go hunting someone else's deer while they aren't there. I've been on hunting leases for 35 years and that's the ethics we always applied.

I have yet to meet everyone on the lease, but I met one Thursday. I went out and was driving to my blind and feeder area, and there hanging out of my blind is a woman. I backed off immediately because I didn't know all the circumstances. I went around to the front gate of my area and set a chair on the fringes and sat in my camo with my face covered hood. I saw one buck but he wasn't big enough for a legal fork horn, but wasn't small enough for a spike.

So I'm sitting there by the side of this road and here come the offending parties. I was polite and didn't raise any stink. But here, three days later, I have put it all together in my head and I'm POed. This woman and her friend were trespassing in my opinion, on my part of the lease. And to make matters worse, she shot at my dominant buck that I had seen once and it ran off. Well the last two days I have seen a lot of buzzards flying about 200 yards out in the thick brush from my feeder. I ran into a former lease member today at Wallyworld and mentioned it to him. He said she would drive by his blind going like an 18 wheeler when he was in it.

I haven't had a chance to talk with the guy that heads up the lease, but I'm thinking that this is BS to the max!!! Also, I had noticed the scarecity of deer around there the last 7 days. I think they are shooting a lot in my area. I paid a lot of money to be on this lease and now I can see going the whole season quite possibly empty handed.

[Buffco]

You could shoot into the ground near them to scare them off.

[PFD]

You could shoot into the ground near them to scare them off.

[SirGeorgeKillian]

You could shoot into the ground near them to scare them off.

Nobody would hear the 270....

[Zee]

Nobody would hear the 270....

Besides, who in their right mind would feel threatened by a .270 Winchester?

[Buford]

You could shoot into the ground near them to scare them off.

You need to get an OK from the deputy sheriff first.

[Fisheadgib]

I've been on several leases over the years and they've always had some ground rules that everyone was supposed to abide by. There's a good bit of etiquette and common courtesy involved also. At my current lease we have a club and some written rules. We also have around fourty some food plots and eighty some club stands on close to 3000 acres and several members also make their own small food plots and all the members have several of their own personal stands throughout the property. We have a board in the main house with a large map of the property and little hooks all over it. Every member has a little tag that they hang on the board to let the other's know where they'll be so they can give them some space and so that if someone is late getting in after dark, we have an idea as to where to look because they could be hurt or may need help finding an animal that they shot. Anyone's personal stands are off limits without permission. When you hang your tag on a hook, that area is yours and the other members have to respect that. I have seen clubs that won't allow a member to sit in the same stand twice in a row so as not to monopolize a good area and give all the members a chance at all the area's on the lease. In Alabama, we can't hunt over feed so all the feeders come out before the season starts so we don't have the same issues that you might. Everyone on our lease respects everyone elses area's. You might be seeing why there was an opening on the lease that you joined. It sounds like there isn't much communication between your members. Our club is almost like an extended family as most of us talk to each other every day at the camp and most of us eat our meals together at the camp.

[timc]

Any lease should have a set of lease rules given to every hunter, every year no matter how long they have been on the lease. With us the rules are simple.
Leave all gates as you found them, if it was closed or open when you got to it, leave it that way.
Hunting in someone else's blind, this is ok but he who built it has first choice of using it.
Pick up all your trash and if you see some you didn't put there pick it up anyway, it's just polite.
Do not drive or walk through an area that has a hunter in it, not healthy!
Last but not least, if you see a pig, shoot it even if you don't want it, the coyotes have to eat too!

That is pretty much our rules.

[bullsi1911]

That violates the ethics of not messing with someone else's stuff. It's just common ethics and knowledge that if it's not yours, you leave it the heck alone.

And yes, the son of one of my lease members took his daughter hunting in my blind, at my feeder, without my knowledge. I only found out about it because there were empty .243 casings in my blind. It got me very angry- I have no problem with him using it, just ask first!

[cpj]

Sounds like BS to me. I would have a talk with whoever heads up the lease. Its bad enough having to pay to hunt, let alone having someone in the spot YOU paid for.

[Jayhawker]

Why not just go get into your blind, introduce yourself as the owner and ask her what the hell she's doing in your blind?

[SirGeorgeKillian]

Or pull a WMG and leave your gatoraide bottles full of urine in there. Surely one sip of that will keep someone from coming back!

[orchidman]

I have been on this lease since a couple days before season started and was under the impression .......................

Contact the owners and get a copy of the rules that govern this property. If there are no rules, then suggest to the owner that a set of guidelines will help with the administering of the hunting. I am sure that between the members here we could draft up a set of guidlines which you could have ready to hand to him.

If however there are no guidelines and no enthusiasm to introduce them then obviously you have a choice to make.............Stay and play using the current standards of behaviour, or , take a walk and look elswhere.

One thing to bear in mind is this however...... There are certain 'etiquettes' involved in hunting. They are the result of hundreds of years of hunters interacting and choosing common ethics. If the rest of the leaseholders dont follow those ethics, I dont know whether I would want to hunt and interact with them.

Its a short step from not obeying hunting ethics to not following simple safety rules.......


Just my 2 cents worth Mike........will take a bank cheque for the amount

[bullsi1911]

Is it a box blind?

http://www.masterlock.com/

Time to lock it and paint a note next to the lock: "This is not your blind. Leave my stuff alone."

[5280 shooter II]

[QUOTE=snake284-1;172663 I went out and was driving to my blind and feeder area, and there hanging out of my blind is a woman. I backed off immediately because I didn't know all the circumstances. [/QUOTE]

Granted.....but you could have inquired...."is this your blind....No!? Then why is God's good graces are you sitting in it!? It ain't a porta-potty!"