Let's here it...your best hunting spot altercation

[Spartazoo]

I know everyone in here has had an altercation or two lets here 'em.

Last year we late hunted a field that we were in and set up in by 4:30 am. Guess what, here comes a clan of a-holes. They pulled up at about 5:30 saw our flashlights (we had full permission from the landowner) This jackoff comes running (and I mean running) out to our spread shoves his finger in my friends face (slamming it into his nose) and looses his cool because he has friends coming and now what was he going to do. Ends up setting up just down from us in the same field. Fast forward...daybreak comes and so do the geese. Well guess what our new friends end up doing....yep you guessed it, sky busting because they were set to come in on us....Ahhhh goose hunting, what fun! :mad:

That is one of many!

[William H Bonney]

O GAAWD!!!,,, we oughta hear some DOOZY"S in this thread. LMAO!! I believe theres too many for me to remember,,,, I'll start with Sag. Bay,,, we got shot at for being in someone else's spot, I swear the locals there, think they own the whole bay. I don't think theres ever been a time when I've gone duck hunting and "some one" HASN"T bitched about something another hunter or group of hunters has done. Its either "where" they set up,,, skybusting,, calling too much,,, etc... I deer , waterfowl, small game, upland hunt,,, and by FAR,, waterfowlers are the "GROUCHIEST" bunch out there. :rolleyes:

[song_dog_slammer]

MY long time hunting partner and I were forced to use the back-up boat and motor one day while hunting in Sebewaing. Our back-up rig has limited range so we wake up early on Tuesday break camp and head for the launch. We motor to a near by blind (in public water) and begin the decoy pitch. When here comes "no nothin' and his two bit side kick do-little" and these guys proceed to tell us this was theirs blah, blah,blah.

Keeping our cool we told him it was our intention to hunt here for a short time then leave for the draw. To no avail this dude starts rippin' down the blind while we're in it. His buddy is pleading with him on the side of common sense. We even offerd to hunt together. So this numb nut destroys his own blind because we were there first.

There wasn't any gun play but a few tense moments, now I'm no small guy good thing I have a long fuse and thick skin!

Now an arguement can be made that we should have known better than to try his blind but public water is indeed public and we all know the rules. I learnd my lesson not to use anyone else's blind and numb nuts learned its not easy to destroy a large water soaked blind when it contains 450# of angry duck hunters.

[GVSUKUSH]

My uncle and cousin were hunting Wigwam bay on the opener, and beat everyone out to there spot, including two jackasses who were sprinting to beat them out (uncle took a shortcut out).

Anyway, it was a foggy morning so my uncle made sure to shine anyone who came near with his million candle power spotlight, including the jackasses.

Well, the shooting was good because the ducks were flying low below the fog. One of the jackasses shot towards my uncle and hit him in the back of the head, neck and back. Didn't break skin, because of clothing and the fact that it was steel.

The exchange went something like this-
Uncle "HEY! you shot me over here!
Jackass "Sorry, we were here first!"
Cousin "So you decided to shoot us?!?!"

We still talk about this untill this day.

Another uncle story, he was grouse hunting on Drummound Island when a bow hunter got pissed and started swearing at him and telling him that he should put an arrow into my uncle. My uncle calmly said as he walked away and kept hunting, "You're bringing a knife to a gun fight aren't ya buddy?" :lol:

I could write a book........

[Branta]

too many to list them all.

some highlights?
buddy next to me caught a "Stray" pellet in the face from a guy that didn't like us being in "his" spot. funny. it was the blind I grassed up and had our names in it. the good news was that it just welted him and hit the cheek bone. (he actually had to calm ME down! I was nose to nose with this Yahoo after I made a bee line to kick some tail!
Bad news for this guy and little did he know that I was employed by the DNR at the time, so after scott assured me "he'd live" I placed a phone call and had some company join us from Law. (and this guy was a local DU committee member)

[Brian S]

Wow, I guess it pays to be anti-social ;). I do my best to avoid everyone while hunting, even if it means hunting in a less desirable spot.

But when I do hunt the busy spots, I've yet to have a heated encounter with anyone. I've had people motor through my decoys 5 minutes before shooting time and set up within 40 yards of me but things remained civil and everyone was courteous.

Guess I've just been lucky.

[daddyduck]

I had these guys spend the night in my blind on sag. bay one goose opener back in the 80's , had to wake them up :yikes: . They were not leaving, so we set up about 100 yards away on a point and it worked out great because the geese came to our set up and not theres it was sweet, shot our limit and you bet i took my time picking up the decoys :evil:

[Big Frank 25]

You too Brian? ;)
I've had the Macomb County Sheriff tool thru the decoys. Actually cut one off! I've had hunters shoot from the buffer zone in the managed area. I've also had groups set up just down wind of us. Nothing serious! :lol:

Better to remember the good hunts than to dwell on the bad. :yikes:

[stacemo]

(and this guy was a local DU committee member)
I know DU chair people I wouldn't hunt with. Nothing bad about DU. Just about anyone can join though.

We started going to this opening day spot for the geese. Back then we could duck hunt too but it was mostly for the geese. We learned how good the spot was by pulling a guy's truck out of the mud. He said come here tomorrow and you will get geese. We did and we did. So for the next few years we started building a blind there. We would sleep in blind to get it opening day. One year, same as always, more hunters per sq ft than there really should be, we got our blind and a station on the island. Our spot was clean where no one could possibly shoot over our decoys. However, the point in front was full of weed creeps (people without dekes), the rest of the island (about 30 ft across15 ft wide) had five groups of guys +/-. There were at least 3 stick blinds between us and the weed creeps. 2 were very close together, decoy spreads almost touching. A flock of geese would come. First the weed creeps would shoot. Then the stick blinds. Finally us and the island if there was anything left and we all got our share. That is why this is really bizarre; everybody was getting geese. One lone goose comes over the line, avoids the weed creeps and glides right in to the stick blind #1's decoys. Pow one shot they dusted it. This was the guy we pulled out of the mud. As the goose was falling stick blind #2 shoots and hits the already dead goose. Both go out to claim the bird or what was left of it. #2 guy is about 5'8" and gets there first gun in hand. #1 guy is about 6'5'" no gun. They meet. Have words and all of a sudden #1 picks #2 up by the collar. #2 drops the goose and shoves his gun barrel into #1's belly. Sounds bad, right? It gets worse. Those two stick blinds have more people in them. All guns go up and point at the two guys. What did they think they were going to do?

Fortunately no one was hurt. Someone came out and talked some sense in to those guys.

Still want to hunt that public marsh opening day? I think goose fever was at it's highest pitch during those times. It probably isn't so bad now. I wouldn't know. I don't go back except to look.

Hope I am not repeating this story... It is really stuck in my mind.

[TSS Caddis]

Stace brings up a memory. Hunted a particular spot on the bay opening day. Cloudy day so still pretty dark at shooting light. 5 minutes past shooting time here comes a flock of about 50 geese 20yds up. Dusted one which glided about 120yds to another group who dusted it about 1' off the water. Figured that since it was a glider it was their bird. On leaving the guys yell over to us to come and get our goose. Great bunch of guys!

I guess I don't really like to here "my spot" type stories.

I've never really had issues, some guys will push in on you, but that's the name of the game on public land. I've never had anyone claim I was in their spot.

Closest thing I have ever come to pissing someone off was on a big time flight bird day we decoyed a few hundred birds that day, everything from Wigeon to Cans flocks of 10-30 at a time. We were picking out our birds about 2' off the decoys. Well as they were circling us, each flock would go over another group giving them the impression they were getting worked. No one else in the marsh was getting any shooting, but everyone was able to see what we had going on. When a buddy of ours that was down farther left, he ran into the group at the launch who bitched up a storm on how we were hosing them by shooting birds that were working them! He replied "they were shooting them 2' off the water, what did you want them to do? Let them land!" Good thing these guys thought they were getting worked, otherwise they would have been shooting our birds as they passed over them at 40'!

[Big Frank 25]

40 feet? :confused:

[Spartazoo]

40 feet is shootable in my book :)

[TSS Caddis]

40' is only 13 or so yards. How close would you want them!

[duckcommander101]

a couple years back I took my dad and sons (11 and 12 at the time) out to hunt the draw at the local managed area.
We drew a decent spot and set up close to the middle of our zone.
A group of guys were in the zone next to us and hugging the line between the two.
They start yapping real loud and laughing and all that (not really a big deal, but I like to be able to hear birds that may come from behind where I can't see them) after a bit they get into some adult oriented talk extremely loud.
My impulse was to wade over and mention I had two youngsters with me and so I did, they were real cool while I was talking to them.
A little while later (like ten minutes) they start at it again only louder so as to make sure it could be heard.
Rather than get into it with four guys I opted to head out for the day.
I made mention of this at the DNR post when we turned in out pernits and the next week one of the guys came and apologized (apparently they were read the riot act upon their return).
So it was bad to start, but ended up allright I guess.

[just ducky]

Too many stories to mention, but the worst was the one I've told about Harsen's Island. Cold day in November...skim ice in the crop fields. Group next door skybusting everything within sight, wounding many that sailed off. We assumed because of the ice and the difficulty walking, they never even attempted a retrieve on several "sailers". One finally came down in our unit on the ice, flopping around trying to fly....we finally couldn't take it and dusted it off..a hen mallard. When we headed out at the end of the hunt, we meet right up with these guys on the dike. My bud starts to explain to them that they really needed to attempt a retrieve even though it's tough, and he handed them their hen that we finished off. The one guy said "we've already got our hens", at which point my bud says something to the affect "you sure do...they're laying all over the marsh!" The "discussion" escalated until one of their guys...about 6'-5" and big, says to my bud, about 6'-4" and almost as big, that we should mind our own business or he'll "zipper us". We got ahead of them, beat them back to the check station, told the DNR about it and which unit they were in, but the guys there blew us off. It was shortly after that that we stopped going to Harsen's. Lot's more to that story, but you get the gist of it.

[michiduck]

last year my buddies and i hunted a river that we had done real well on the previous year after the freeze up. the river is about 20 yards wide and has tall oak ridges on both sides so the ducks drop in kinda like flooded timber.

saw a good number of ducks buzzing a few minutes before shooting time... a couple minutes after shooting time a nice drake dropped and i took...one shot one kill and my buddys chessy Sadie got to make her first retrieve and did it like a champ!

a few minutes after that I noticed a canoe floating down our way... but nothing we can do about it, its public land just get past us and be on your way... well they get to about 20 yards outside our decoys and sure enough here comes another mallard dropping in on us hovering past at 15 yards...we let the bird go because the other guys were so close...the bird skirts the decoys and these 2 fuggin morons start blazing as the bird is directley between us and them and they are 40 yards tops from us with steel ripping through the trees right over our heads.... i know they saw us...we were all standing up...and had a spinner flapping away in the decoys... we ducked and yelled at them after the first shot but they continued to shoot finally hit the bird...floated over to the bank got out retireved their bird and continued floating right on by... needless to say they got more than an earful and a vocabulary lesson of words beginning in F and not even an apology or word from them (which i didnt expect anyways)