Frustrated Hunter

I had never hunted public land before but I let a couple of buddies from work talk me into hunting trip to Zaleski State Forest in Vinton County Ohio for whitetail shotgun season.  We did our homework before hand, studied the maps, scouted and had a few places mapped out that looked to be pretty good stand locations.  Opening morning, we got out early and headed to our first pick.  As the sun began to rise, slowly but surely the woods came to life and into focus.  Typically this is my favorite part of the hunt.  Anticipation builds as light leads to visibility.  Deer shaped figures seem to pop out of the woods all around you and every crunch or twig snap is a new possible state record.  Only this time, instead of deer shaped figures I started seeing orange vests.  And instead of hearing light crunches and twig snaps I heard lazy hunters that over slept dragging their feet as they made their way to what they considered their first pick as well.  Frustrated, we waited it out and continued hunting only to have the same hunters’ drag their feet past us again as they headed out of the woods after a quick two hour hunt.  The rest of our trip went pretty much the same way.  Each location brought its own frustrations with other hunters with the highlight of the trip being a hunter who walked down a deer trail toward my stand at 8:30am.  He looked up and waived at me and then walked out about 150 yards in front of my stand and sat down next to a tree.  I guess he thought I had a pretty good spot. 

I vowed then to never hunt public land in Ohio again.  I am not saying that good deer cannot be killed or that there are not a lot of deer on public land.  One of the guys on that trip went back two years later and killed a 199 ¾  inch deer in one of the same places we had hunted before.  But stories like that, while great to hear, are rare and personally for me not worth the frustration.  Not only that, the sheer number of hunters I saw out there and the inexperience that accompanied many of them brought some serious safety concerns to mind.  It is definitely not a place that I would feel comfortable taking my kids to hunt.

As a solution to that problem, as well as the problem I was having finding good private land, my wife Joanna and I created Southern Ohio Sportsmen hunting club.  We now have thousands of acres of land to choose from and the best part is, when I hunt I know that I am the only person that has permission to be on that piece of property.  I now have a safe place to take my friends and family to enjoy the outdoors and it is great. 

That opportunity is available for you as well.  Go to www.huntprivatelandohio.com and apply to be considered for membership with the Southern Ohio Sportsmen.