Here's how my hunt went this morning. I got to the woods really early this morning. I was hunting public land and wanted to hunt this area and beat the others. I was hoping that if someone came down that road they would see my truck and turn around and find another spot. Wishful thinking! About 630 I see a jake coming across the field. One of his legs was badly injured and he could barely walk. I don't usaually shoot Jake's ( year old male turkey). But as bad as he was injured I was going to put him down if he came in range. Next thing I see is a Gobbler about a 125 yards behind the jake. I start calling and got both birds attention. The Jake is not moving but the gobbler starts working his way down the field toward me. I have four decoys out. 2 hens a jake and my full strut gobbler. The gobbler spots my decoys and goes into a full strut. He is now about 100 yards out and the injuried bird is about 75. Now I had been calling on and off for about 20 minutes to keep them coming in, when all of a sudden I hear the worst yelp calling I have ever heard and it was coming from the direction I came in. So Im like okay maybe this person did not see the big gray truck in the path so I'll be nice and turn it up a notch and let them know a hunter is already working this pair of birds. I gave out so pretty loud and aggressive calls .I thinking he will take note and move on to another spot. RIGHT! I hear yat yat yat. Now keep in mind my thoughts are on the shooting death of the turkey hunter earlier this week. So I turn my head towards this guy and call again loudly. During all this the gobbler is now about 75 yards out and coming, he has past the injuried bird and closing. The bird is in front of me and the guy calling is to my right. Now he is yatting and trying his best to pull this bird away. I ranged the Gobble at 68 yards and Im worrying this goof ball is going to shot at anytime. At 57 yards I see the hurt bird start hubbling fast as he can towards the woods, which is only about 20 yard away. The Gobbler see's the hurt bird trying to run and he starts getting really nervous , doing that head straight up circle run and putting like crazy. I gave some yelps and he seemed to calm down, but still knew something was not right. To my right YAT YAT YAT. now even closer to my location. The Gobbler looks in that direction and huals freight.....Exit stage right. I am as pissed as I have been in quite some time. I yell down toward this goofball with a few words I may need to pray about tonight. I sit there for about 30 minute just to calm myself down and to make sure this fool did not shoot my way. Around 845 the wind was howling and the misty rain was now increasing. I picked up my things got my decoys up, making sure to cover my full strutter with my orange bag and headed out. I was really hoping not to run into this person. As I was walking out I start seeing boot tracks. When I get to my truck I can see a white pickup parked near my, but no hunter. As Im unlocking my truck I hear two hunters talking. I turn around and two young boys are coming out of the woods from arcoss the road, so I'm thinking maybe this is not the one. I am unloading my gear and gun when one of them says to me" man your decoys really fooled me" I said excuse me, and he repeated. So I asked was that you calling back there, yep without one bit of hesitation. I asked, did you hear me calling back to you to let you know I was working those two birds. His answer.....and my head about exploded when the words came out of his mouth. "Yea, but this is public land so everything is fair game. I said , are you serious. THAT YOUR ANSWER. He honestly did not think I should have been mad.Told me it was his opinion that the turkey would come to the better caller. At this point I figured it was best to get in my truck and leave. By the time I reached the hard surface road my head was about to split. I honestly have not been this mad in years. Sorry to take up so much space, but I had to tell yall about these boys. They were two sailors from out of the area, and out of dtate tags. Wow what a freakin morning.

I had a public land guy shoot a bird just out of my sight at fifty yds after it had come 200 yds to my calling. When i started yelling he said he never heard me calling and just kept creeping in to try to cut off the bird from the knoll he thought the bird was going towards. At least that guy proclaimed innicence. Your guys are ja whole different story. Incredible lack of hunter ethics ---tell me when any of you have seen a tv show featuring deer or turkey hunting give any time to the ethics of how other public (or private for that matter) land hunters should be treated. I have never seen it discussed.

GN , it's not even the fact the bird got spooked off.....ok maybe a little. It was the fact I know he heard my calls, he ever owned up to that. It was just the whole lack of respect, if I had came in there and saw a vehicle Im turning around and looking for anothet spot. Mainly because I dont have a clue where this hunter is and for their safety as well mine. I am still blown away by the whole thing. A guess its one of the life lesson the good lord puts before us.

Vabird, Yea have experienced it a couple times myself and know how you feel. Good respect on your part to turn the other cheek. But yea the lack of respect and ethics have strayed from the sport over the years (my opinion).
But GN is right when the shows and all today have no coverage (but I do not watch much shows or DVD's anymore) or in the past and the number of hunters have increased there was that little something not being pasted down.

And yea, I have even been told hunting on public land one time that if a bird gobbles and I am set up on it the guy said, that I will have his boot tracks on my back. And thats about all I had to say to him.


Earl

You have experienced the very thing that absolutely sets me through the roof!!!Complete disresprect!!! You did the right thing by walking away and not making a scene. However you took it a lot better than I would have. Again, you did the right thing and the thing to remember is that you can't fix stupid and that's exactly what you experienced.

Sorry to hear you had two idiots ruin your hunt, but you bring up a good point. You are the better man for walking away, but I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't let these tools know that morons are not welcome in our sport. I am not trying to be ten foot tall and bulletproof over the Internet and I am not advocating we turn hunting into a UFC fight, but idiots are too frequent in hunting. It is not the majority who act like this, but there are enough that I am sure everyone on this board has had a similar experience. It has ruined the public land at least the WMA's in the eastern part of the state. Sorry for the rant, behavior like that just strikes a nerve with me.

Great point and well stated. That is one of the issues the SAC board is looking at and that is educating new and older hunters in this sport, hunter ethics and respect through education. Be it hunter safety classes for the general public and our school systems.


Earl

Seems service would instil some ethics and character in the young men. I spent some years in your area coming up and had my fair share of run is with the local navy and marine guys, not in the woods, unfortunatley I had alot of the same kind of attitude from them (I probaly had a little share of the blame unlike you). Maybe they will grow up and wise up, I was pretty dumb at that age too.

You did the right thing, guns involved, you never know what can happen. Hope you find a little slice of heaven on that public land somewhere and get you one.

I have said to some in the same situation that I would have moved on if I had found their truck here first and to please show me the same courtesy in the future. Also that this is how experienced turkey hunters hunt around here.