Had my first face-to-face encounter with 2 trespassers recently.
My general rule during hunting season is: never argue with hunters. This rule emerged from a common sense approach to managing the land. I’m never armed when I walk the property and I have no idea as to the state of mind of the hunters who are on my land. (Have they been drinking? Arguing with anyone? Do they have something to prove?)
Mostly I’m not opposed to hunting. Just do it on your own land or on land where you’ve got a permit to shoot: elk, caribou, mule deer, and whatnot.
I seriously doubt you'd be thrilled if I showed up at your house, uninvited, and started poking around in your backyard. Now picture me driving into your driveway, emerging from my car with a gun, and then I start poking around your backyard looking to kill something. Trust me: you’re hackles would be up at that point.
It was a Saturday and I’d been in town running errands (hardware store, the library, grocery store, etc) and I was in a good mood when I passed this one stretch of my land where there used to be a gate and an overgrown skid road but owing to a recent thinning by the state, the old skid trail is as clean as a whistle. I noted two large pickup trucks parked. It served to reason that the hunters were somewhere nearby, hunting. And that’s when it happened. A little blast of adrenaline. Snap. And I was done with hunters on my land. I raced to the house and grabbed a hammer, nails, a no trespassing sign, and an orange safety vest.
I rushed back to gate. A small anount of anger coursed through my veins but I vowed to hang the sign and get the heck out of there. The plan was to pin the No Trespassing sign on the tree right near the trucks so that when the hunters returned they couldn’t miss it. (And in the future anyone with any bright ideas wouldn’t be able to miss the sign either.)
As I approached the trucks, gulp, the hunters were seated on a felled tree, shooting the sh*t. (No bullets required to shoot the sh*t.) Their rifles rested at their sides.
“Be cool,” I told myself and knew that I couldn’t turn back. They'd seen me and I'd seen them. I was definitely going to be saying something but I wasn't going to "have words with them." There was a bit of a nip in the air but I din't feel it. At all. I was warm all over and there was a buzz in my body (sort of like a runners high). I know that I have a temper. Just hang the sign and head home, I reminded myself. Say as little as possible.
The two dudes, somewhere in their mid-50s, approached me. Their orange hats and vests contrasted against their camo and the scenery.
“Whatcha doin’?” one of them inquired.
(It was kind of obvious: the hammer, nails, and sign were unmistakable.)
“Hanging a sign,” I said and noticed my blood pressure go through the roof.
I pounded the first nail into the tree. It broke. I hadn’t realized it was a maple tree and the adrenaline was f*cking up my coordination.
“We came in over on [redacted],” the talkative one says.
As if his entry onto my land two miles from where we stood meant had anything to do with anything.
I replied, “There’s 175 acres between here and there. And you’re on private property.”
He asked, “Who owns the property?”
“I do,” I replied.
His eyes go big with surprise. “Oh.”
At this point I broke another nail and pounded the hammer against my thumb. (Holy sh*t that hurts!). Inside I did my best to control my temper. And the only response I had to anything he said, was to remind him that he was on private property. He made one other inanane comment. I avoided eye contact. I knew that if I turned my attention from the task at hand I could blow up. I got two nails into the sign, another one was all bent up and I could tell they were thinking I should never do any carperntry.
As I turned and walked away I made eye contact with each of them -- once. And they wore the most bewildered expressions.
As far as I was concerned they’d been put on notice and as adults they could chose to remain on my land, in violation of state law, or they could get the H*ll off my land and go poach somewhere else.
As I got back into the car and drove home the pain in my thumb screamed. And I noticed that my hands were shaking. But I’d kept my promise to myself and hadn’t argued with them.
The next day I put the gate back up and this past weekend I noticed there weren’t any trucks parked on my land. For the first time in years I didn’t hear the report of rifles being fired and didn’t fear a stray bullet entering the living room and killing me. They really do hunt that close to the house.
Who knew a No Trespassing sign, at $1.49, could bring such peace of mind?
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