Yesterday morning I headed out to hunt a bowl I had scouted out in the summer time. I got to the gate about an hour before legal shooting time. I waited at the gate for another 30 minutes listening to the radio with the heater on and headed down the road around about a half hour before legal shooting time. Before I left the car I noticed a portapotty just inside the gate. I thought this was really strange, but there were active logging signs on the gate and no signs were posted telling hunters to stay out. I had never seen it before, but I thought maybe the toilet was for the loggers.
I really took my time walking down the road being as quiet as possible since I had 30 minutes to walk about 1/2 mile. I arrived at my spur road right at legal shooting time, but it was still too dark to hunt so I waited at the top of the spur until there was sufficient light. When I was waiting at the top of the spur a big diesel truck drove by at what seemed like about 40mph. I thought it was weird that the loggers would be working on Sunday, but whatever and kept focused on my hunt.
As soon as there was sufficient light to glass the clearcut I started slowly started working my way down the spur until I reached the end where I could see the bottom and tree line. I had just enough time to glass the bottom twice when a guy in a yellow vest up on the main road yelled loudly down to me "HEY you know this is a pheasant release site right?" I paused for a moment and thought to myself well he has already scared off the deer so I will yell back... "What does that mean, am I not allowed to hunt here?" He did not reply so I tried again and again no reply. Then I saw him swinging his arms around and then continued down to my spur and started walking toward me. So I picked up my stuff and started walking toward him. When I got up to him I noticed he was releasing birds and that is why he was swinging his arms around.
I asked him if this area was off limits to deer hunting since it was a pheasant release site. He said no, but there would be about 40 hunters with dogs blasting through there in about 45 minutes. I told him well S%&T I wish I would have continued glassing down there but I thought you were coming over to reprimand me or something. He replied with "oh well we have scared all of the deer off by now anyways. If you were going to see them you would have seen them by now."
I got a total of about 15 minutes of glassing in before he screamed across the clearcut.
LESSON LEARNED: Do not hunt in a pheasant release site!!!!!
Wasted Morning!!!
