Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting What would you do - stolen stand

or grease the seat and rub the chit on the steps. I'm dyslexic....

My Farm is located in the poorest county in MN with a reservation on each end. The white trash blame the indians for theft and they all steal. We get broken into every other year and we have hardened tire chains and steel pipe gates and that doesn't stop them. The advent of cordless sawzall's has made it easy for thieves. The point is they steal stuff off private land so you better expect to be stolen on public land. The laws say its fair game for anyone to use on public property so lock it up, but don't be surprised if you find it vandalized and hanging by the lock.

On the grouse hunting idea - good odds your dog may be shot for "running deer".

Yea... walking away may seem like a wimpy thing to do, but my county gets in the national news for people shooting at people over land disputes, or the guy that pulled a 65 year old guy out of his stand and killing him. Remember the Chai Vang incident in WI? When I teach firearms safety about property owners rights, I tell the students they need to keep cool and back down when dealing with agitated people holding guns. These deer are not worth dieing for.

AND the real issue - the person doesn't own that public land even if they have hunted it for 8 years. The only "ownership" they had is other hunters respecting their area and going elsewhere. Now a new party is exercising his right to hunt on PUBLIC land and no one owns that spot. Game wardens have to waste time pulling down "posted signs" on state land every year because idiots feel they "own it".

I'm very fortunate that I have private land, but I still have my disputes even 1 mile off the road in any direction. But its usually guests of the land owners that think they "own" the land and the land owners usually have to get together to settle it. I show my guest hunters exactly where the borders are and they get me if there is a dispte or if we have to track a deer across a border. No problems since we started doing that and eventually everyone mellows because these deer are not worth the hassle. The cattle farming is a different story ;-)


So in the end.

The OP doesn't really have a leg to stand on so quit moaning.
Lock up your stuff
Spread out some hair if you have a vendetta.

and BUY YOUR OWN LAND.

What kind of impression do you want to make?

Thieves are so good at lieing that you will not get any satisfaction out of any answer. The person who got their stand will just get angry over nothing they can prove...

It will be one guy whining about a stand being stolen off land that neither person owns the land. The other guy has every right to hunt there and you are just ruining his hunt.

Do you own anything worth stealing? Got land? cabin?

and leave him wondering when you and your buddies will be back.

Or just make the spot very public. GPS coordinates combined with a few pictures of "monster bucks" taken there.

Or you could puss out, let the guy run over you and your women and take your stand. That will show him and his buddies all they need to know about you.

Whining? Maybe you, not me.

I'm not a bully. I'm not an "internet tough guy" trying to impress you or anyone else.

That said, I live by a code. John Wayne said "I'll not be wronged. I'll not be insulted. I'll not be laid a hand on, and I require the same of others." That pretty much sums it up. I'm a nice, fun loving guy. But if I feel I have been wronged, I simply will not put up with it. I may not beat somebody's ass over a treestand, but then again, I just may. That would depend upon how the conversation went and what I took out of it. If I really did feel they stole from me, I guarantee you they would have serious reservations about ever doing so again......

What if the guy is real twitchy like Chai Vang going going flash back on the land owner that asked him to leave?

I use a different method when I find stands set up too close to my cabin (and other lake cabin owners)... I check for any new stands set up just before deer season and I take them down and leave a copy of the state hunting rules in a ziploc bag opened to the page that says they cannot hunt within 500 foot of an occupied structure without the land owners permission on top of it.
No one set up a stand after that.

Yea... I could drive up there during deer season and confront the guy that he is shooting in the middle of 5 houses or cabins and then get in a pissing contest and drag the sheriff and game warden into the fray. Its not worth my time away from hunting or time with my guests. Game wardens and sheriffs get real tired of squabbling owners...

Read some of these posts and google a little deeper to understand why its not worth the confrontation. The tv article is about a guy who shot a cabin after the two landowners resolved the issue.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_20156244/minnesota-hunter-who-pulled-down-deer-stand-convicted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHXNuyKXmBM

I lease out some of my hunting land to people that get frustrated with public land hunting and reading these kind of posts make it easier to sell the lease. Having said that, the first time I have a issue with a lease and a land owner neighbor - NO ONE IS HUNTING MY LAND BUT ME. Getting the taxes paid for by someone else isn't worth the hassle.

taking a big dump on the seat sounds like the best idea so far.
make sure to smear it in, so it is not easily removed.
either that or remove the bottom section of the ladder,and bend it around the tree.

We had a stand issue one time on a spot we hunted up by Backus. It was county owned land, so everyone had access to it. We had found a dilapidated old stand that was all busted up. Looked like a good spot so we put a new stand there. Took deer out of there two years in a row. We'd bumped into one of the locals who was pizzed that we were hunting in there. Gave us some crap about where we had parked-claimed it was a private road and we had no right to be there. Not wanting to start a pizzing match, we came in on another road he apparently wasn't aware of. No big deal, as it was about the same walk in to where we were hunting anyways. We go out to check the stand the morning before the season opened, and low and behold it was gone. This was a sturdy permanent stand. Every board, every nail, they even cut the trees down. Of course, 10 yards over sits a brandy new stand built with sheetrock screws and new wood. We bumped into the local on the way out of of the woods, and once again he chewed into us for supposedly parking on private property. Wasn't even our cars, as we were parked a quarter mile away on most definitely a public road. Of course the conversation came back to the tree stand. He informed us that "the DNR had cut that stand down". Yeah right. Deer season's too shorty for pizzing matches, so we just let it go. We came back that evening right at dark, made sure he wasn't around and did a little "work" around his stand. You'd be surprised how much of a mess you can make out of someone's hunting spot with a couple bottles of cheap perfume, and two dozen of those scented auto air freshener thingies. We know how he walked into the stand, and hung them all on the back sides of the tree in a semi-circle around his stand. Funny-we never heard a shot from that stand all week. Did I mention my buddy found his wheeler and took a big ol' nasty dump right on his seat? Hey when a man's gotta go...........

GG - that's kind of radical.

My home county is actively tearing the "cabins" on stilts because of all these situations.

I ALWAYS hang a very inconspicuous game camera to survey my blind for such occasions.

Getting in an azzhole contest with someone when you're trying to have fun, isn't a way to have fun..

That being said, leaving some of your sweaty undershirts around the area will give him some quiet time in his stand.

be in that stand very early opening morning.

Hang another stand in it's place and hide a trail camera or 2 nearby with clear views of the stand. Chances are he will steal this stand as well and when he does you will have photographic proof. Simply call the DNR or State police, Theft charges are filed and your problem is solved.

Chickenshit tactics/sabotage do nothing but prolong things IMO. Then he'll just seek out your stand and f**k with it yet again. Or, maybe he isn't the one who stole your stand and now you have screwed with an innocent person.

That is why I say a man to man, face to face, talk is in order. Chances are you will have a better impression of what happened, and what may happen in the future. Problem may even get resolved right on the spot.

JMO....

I'd celebrate another election win for Al Franken. I'm assuming you're a democrat with chickensheit plans to get back at someone.

You sure you ain't a chick?

Face pic's are good, but you really need license plates for the sherif to find the people and do anything. They use that to break down the people's story.

This is advice from the sheriff after processing a farm break in when scrap iron theives hit. Put your name on your stands so they can bust them when they investigate.

Oh.. When I go to look for stands set up around my property or to check if my neighbors are baiting again... I where my turkey camo and face masks and walk in from the non-obvious direction because I assume there are cameras...

We found where someone tried to start a pot farm on our hunting land while checking so beware...

Have you gone back and re-read the origional post? Their crew had a hunter on the stand when the new person came in claiming their "spot" had been taken.
This new person had no qualms about removing stands after a confrontation with one member already so do you really think another confrontation will result in him peacfully leaving? Its most likely going to be fists or gunfire and the sheriff will be standing saying no one owns anything on public property!

Low chance of resolution here no matter how much a of a John Wayne wannabe you are.

Wasn't said member a woman?

Sorry, I missed the part in the OP's post where they witnessed who took the stand.