Just a little reminder as many of us prep for or already in hunting season.
As I spent last weekend up at my girlfriends farm in NY, I was reminded of a couple of things, that sadly, do occur.
1) Wooded areas are not always public property. Especially in an obvious farming area, that land is possibly owned by someone. Always go to landowner and ask permission to hunt their land. Most times, in a farming area, they are more than happy to allow it due to crop damage.
However, not asking permission puts a bad look on all hunters, and can be dangerous. Sometimes landowners allow trappers, which means there may be one or two you don't know about. That is just one of many scenarios that can occur.
2) Spotlighting deer is always frowned upon by landowners. For those of you who don't know, spotlighting is a practice of driving around areas at night with a spotlight, trying to find where the deer are. This can highly irritate landowners, and once again, puts a bad look on all hunters.
3) If you are confronted by anti-hunters, be polite to them. They cannot do anything to you if you are polite. If you firearm is loaded, unload it. Then quietly excuse yourself and walk away. If this is a problem in your are, check your local laws, some states have anti-harassment laws on the books.
4) Be respectful of the land. Clean up all of your trash and try to leave as little of a "footprint" as possible. Trashing areas only leads to public resentment of hunters.
5) When transporting your kill via roads in your vehicle, cover it up. Most people ignore that its hunting season, and don't want to see a bloody carcass while they're driving home.
6) Don't steal other peoples things. If someone else has hung up a trail camera, feeder, etc., leave them there.
If you have any other suggestions, please do post them.
