Vendetta and Quiksilver gave excellent replies. If you can't live with those solutions then YOU are the problem, not the landowners.
i do agree with some of you guys say...but however i cant figure out why my wife and my dad and a couple of my friends agree with what i have said...
there is no right and wrong...you asked for our opinions...if they differ, well...you should expect that You can't "what if" it either. Because "what if's" are never accurate. What if the roles were reversed? Well, what if he was out in the woods and you fell from your stand right onto a broad head, piercing your phone and injuring you to the point you can't walk and needed life saving treatment right away? You'd be glad he was there. But that "what if" is too broad and unlikely, right? So is saying "what if the roles were reversed". The roles aren't reversed. You have two options. You can "take your ball and go home" making yourself look ridiculous not only to the new guy but to the landowner as well... OR you can stick to it, be thankful you have THIRTY ACRES to hunt on in the first place, and get over it...possibly making a new friend in the process. I'll leave with a "what if" What if the guy who owned the land got pissed off that you took down your tree stands and kicked you off his property? edit to add: Now - you should talk with this guy, especially during the off season, and get him to HELP you get things setup (feed, maintain, etc) and if he doesn't do it, then hell yeah, he's a **** head. But for the time being, if it were me, i'd be extending the olive branch...after all, he might be one of the many unfortunate souls that is only allowed public land access, and these 30 acres maybe the holy land to him.
It sucks, you shouldn't have to hang stands for him. Agreed. But by jerking them down before he gets here, you are the one who looks like a pompous ass, not them. Just suck it up, set up out there with him somewhere on that 30 acres, and get along. I was in the EXACT SAME POSITION last year. I saw clearly that I was outranked by the others allowed to hunt there. I planted food plots, hung stands, ran trail cams, only hunted when I had a perfect wind, (which paid off with an opening day monster)...but I was extremely lucky to have punched my buck tag when I did. The following weekend, the buddies of the landowner show up, smoking cigarettes, pull INTO my food plot with their truck, and pull out a walmart double stand, assemble it once there, and then hang it in the tree RIGHT next to my stand, over top of my trail cam, and when they see the cam they turn it around to face the tree (it was mounted on a swivel mount)....I was mad, but what could I do, one was the landowners best friend and the other guy was the father in law. They came in mid season, placed a huge barrel feeder for corn IN MY FOODPLOT, and came in with blue jeans and red sweatshirts every available gun season smoking cigs and looking for deer. I got maybe 40 pics of deer over the next 3 months, activity was blown out of the area. What did I do? Planned to pack up shop and take my ball elsewhere to play. I'm not paying the guy anything, what right do I have to ask for exclusive rights? I instead decided my only option at continued success in here was to have sole access or find other places. From the landowner being a lawn care client, I knew he was hard up for cash at times. I had been paying him $200 a year to leave my boat in his barn for storage, so I approached him and kindly explained my frustrations with the effort I put in for others to trample on my results, and offered him $300/year for sole access. He was more than happy, and even said that will include boat storage. So for the next two years, a simple $100 bill has bought me sole rights to this little gem of a place to hunt. My point is basically that without the deed in your name or offering the landowner some amount of money for help with property taxes and helping him upkeep his land....you have ZERO right to get pissy when he utilizes it however he sees fit. He has known his friend FAR longer than you married into the family I'm willing to bet, so why sever ties with a buddy to continue to let you hunt there alone for free? Owning land is expensive!
I hear what your saying and had the same thing happen to me. I was bull that another guy got permission to hunt the private land i was on so I avoided him and ignored him for the first couple weeks of hunting. I finally swallowed my pride and talked to him and he was a good guy and invited me to hunt on a bunch ot other private properties. So basically what im saying is nothing good is going to come out of this pissed off and you never know what could happen if you give the guy a chance. What do you think?
