Buck Hollow Sporting Goods - click or touch to visit their website Midwest Habitat Company

public land encounters

I've fortunately never had any run ins yet, just have talked to guys in the parking lot and I did run into a friendly fellow a few years ago during late muzz, and had a shed hunter come through on me during late muzz last year, but that still turned out to be a good hunt. I have seen some setups on public that make me scratch my head though!
 
  • Deleted by N/A
Show…
Liv4Rut said:
Two come to mind to me.

the first was I hunting this spot up on a ridge that had a creek below me about 50 yards. It was the first day of the season so a lot of foliage yet. About 9am I see a guy crawl down out of a tree that I did know was there and he went over to the creek and walked out into the middle of it. He then unzipped and started peeing. Midstream I hit him with the loudest grunt call I could muster and he cut it off and crept back to the bank and grabbed his bow. After about a minute, he whipped it back out again and started to go and I hit him with another loud grunt. He cut it off and grabbed his bow again. I was laughing so hard.

The next time I was hunting a willow bottom and brought in a pole saw to trim up a couple branches. An hour later a hiker comes through and when he was almost below me I said something and startled him. He talked a bit and went on his way. About 10 yards later he saw my pole saw I layed by a tree. He looked at it a bit and came back to my tree to ask if it was mine because if it was not he was going to take it. I thought that was funny.
Click to expand...

This is awesome!!!
 
I would say the most interesting encounter I had was a few years ago turkey hunting. Was setup on the edge of a field, which I had figured was quite a ways in and wouldn't see anybody. After a couple hours I see a couple turkeys heading straight towards me. They get to about a hundred yards away and just start running. I knew they couldn't see me so was curious what spooked them. A couple minutes later I see a guy walking towards me. As he gets closer I can't figure out what he is wearing. He has a tripod and stops every so often to take pictures. When he gets to about a hundred yards I can finally tell that he isn't wearing anything but tennis shoes. He continues towards me and sees my decoys and sets his camera up to take a picture. I asked him what the heck he was doing and it scared him. He was shocked anybody was ever out that far. I packed up and headed home.

Another time out bowhunting, came back to my truck to find it all shot up. Shot one tire, the back window and the side of the truck. Hadn't been back to that place until last year when I had no other option.
 
Isn't a hunting story but still public I suppose. Probably 5 years ago me and a buddy were wading up the skunk river doing some small mouth fishing. We start to round the corner and in the middle of the river there sat a naked homeless guy on a log reading a book. The guy calmly gets up, walks over to his little camp, throws on a pair of shorts. He might as well have just stayed naked with the amount of skin the shorts he did put on covered and went back to his log and continued reading. We continued on our way and as we walk past the guy tries to spark up a conversation but I just didnt have it in me to stand there and talk to the guy. We just kept walkin and hit a road further up the river and walked probably 2 miles out of the way to get back to the truck so we didnt have to see that again.
 
johng9662 said:
... When he gets to about a hundred yards I can finally tell that he isn't wearing anything but tennis shoes...
Click to expand...

Well that visual did remind me of a "public moment" from days gone by...:D

Years ago, one of my friends and I would do 2-4 float trips each year down a section of the Wapsi River near Waubeek. We would stop and fish our way downstream to our take out spot and we had many memorable and enjoyable trips and we usually managed to have an adventure or two along the way too.

One warm summer day we rounded a sharp bend in the river and right away we noticed that there was a man standing on a sandbar right next to the river. That wasn't so unusual, except that this guy was buck naked! :eek: He was facing downstream and did not see us slowly drifting up to him and we now were probably within 30 yards of him or so and closing.

Being the mature grownups that we were, we immediately began to snicker, snort and guffaw, which alerted him to our presence...he spun around like a top and saw us and then ran across the sand bar at top speed to where his clothes were on the bank and quickly pulled on his shorts, etc, and then ran back out on the sandbar very close to where we were now passing him by. At this point we became a little nervous since a previously naked man was running towards in a very remote area, etc. :D

But he stopped at the rivers edge and tried to explain to us that his doctor had advised him to get a lot of sunlight, etc, etc. Yeah, yeah, sure thing buddy... :D
 
Wow guys these are hilarious!!!

I don't have any stories as great as these but I'll share a couple. I was scouting the night before opening day of duck season a few years back and pulled into the parking lot of the local marsh to glass for ducks. I see a boat with a duck blind on it at the far end and a guy moving around (this is a long ways off). So I'm thinking to myself what is this joker up to? I pull up the binoculars and focus in on the guy head on right as he's dropping a deuce over the side of the boat. I almost dropped the binocs, put the truck in gear and went in search of greener pastures!

The other one that comes to mind was probably over 10 years ago in southern Iowa. My father and I were about a 45 minute walk into public ground when we found a pond that ducks were dumping into. It was about 15 minutes after shooting time when we made our way to the edge. No decoys on the pond, we heard no shots anywhere (it was late season) and we were the only vehicle in the p-lot. So we walked out to a likely looking spot with thick brush and tall grass for cover. We set up our decoys and were about to go sit down when a guy stood up the grass and said "I'm here". We're like, "why didn't you stand up and say something before we set up... and why are you not using decoys?" He said he didn't have any and without them the ducks wouldn't come close enough for a shot (DUGH) we were starting to pick up but he was very insistent that he'd like us to stay and hunt with him... so considering the ducks were all over us we agreed, sat down and all three shot our limits in under a half hour! Ended up doing a fair amount of hunting and fishing with the guy over the years and even stayed at his house several times prior to my dad building a cabin in the area.
 
Last edited:
It was 2009 and I was on my first bow hunting trip to Iowa and I was hunting some public land in SE Iowa. It was my second afternoon of hunting and there was about an hour and a half of daylight left when i hear the unmistakeable sounds of a shotgun between me and my truck. As soon as I heard it I knew someone was squirrel hunting, but wasn't worried because I never thought they would come back to where I was. Well about 30 minutes later I begin to hear a kid talking behind me so i look and see a little boy (about 4 years old) and his dad walking my way looking for squirrels. They get to about 60 yards of me and I can see the boy playing and stomping in a waterhole, but no sign of his dad so I begin to look around and see where he went. Well, I finally got a glimpse of something moving and looked behind a tree and there he was with his pants down squatting against a huge oak tree taking a slam right behind me!!!He must have been in pain because it seemed like he stayed there for about 5 minutes taking care of business. After he finishes they keep coming my way and finally see me so I get down and talk with them and he actually showed me some really great places to hunt.
 
I drove by an access on a giant public piece early one November morning and watched a 160 class buck cruising 50 yards in front of 6 trucks. No hunters in sight. :)
 
If you havent taken a dump in the woods then you havent been spending enough time the timber haha! I have a a roll of toilet paper with me every trip to the field. Shed, bow, turkey pack. It never fails.

I was out shed hunting with buddy one day and we decided to split up this huge cedar patch. Pretty thick stuff. Couldnt see more then pry 5 yards or better in either direction. So after a few minutes Im assuming he is clear on the other side of the field and I couldnt take it so I dropped um and a few seconds in I hear AH MAN COME ON!!! HAHA!!! He shoulda been a good hundred yards away and must have decided my side of the patch looked better.
 
Was hunting a small peice of public in Madison county last bow season. Was watching a big doe and fawn work there way toward me when suddenly the doe looks beyond my stand obviously alerated by something. They turned and went about 30 yards deeper into the brush. I then turned and saw a guy making his way toward the base of the tree I had self climbed early in the am. This guy was toting a .22 with a scope and saw the doe and her young beyond my location. I watched as he raised his gun and scoped in on the doe. Then I simply said hey and waived. He waived back and claimed he was squirrel hunting. Before I could climb back down he was long gone. Don't know if he would have shot or not but he was getting a better look that's for sure.
 
Once again not hunting, but it's outdoor related at least. We were floating a river just having a good time one summer when a friend just a little upstream from the rest of us said back to us "check it out!". By the time we got up to where he was on the river we didn't see much besides a few college students drinking beer on a sandbar and one girl in the river. I floated within probably 5 feet of her, and thought it was kind of weird how she just had only her head sticking out of the water, but figured she had just had way too many like all of us and was just hangin' out. We got further down stream and our friend was just going on and on about how he saw her, of course with nothing on besides sunglasses.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom