Had some guys set up a “camp”, pretty sure it was just a couple tents for decoys to keep people away, right on the flat on the backside of a ridge I like to elk hunt. They had also driven ATVs hundreds of yards off the marked trail illegally to haul everything in to their “camp”. Shot a bull 150 yards from their tents while they were away.
Hunted a place one year where someone had flown in and set up tents beside the airstrip well before season. Luckily my pilot had been flying over and nobody had been there for weeks. We landed anyway and set up camp right beside their tents. Killed a moose 2 days later. Flew out and hadn’t seen anyone even fly over the whole time.
Last year when we got to the meadow we always put our base camp in in CO there was a 30’ Gooseneck full of gear parked in “our” spot. Oh well, just set camp across the forest service road and went about business as normal. The only thing that kinda pissed us off about the whole deal was that the owners of the trailer and all the camping gear never really set up camp and only spent one night there all season, they went to town and stayed in a motel the rest of the time. Probably hiding from their wives or something.
It’s public, I just try to follow the rules and be reasonably courteous when I bump into someone.
