Steve Graf wrote: Problem is, most times being lost isn’t innocent.

As a landowner myself, I have found several “lost” people with guns and dogs on my property. They have also happened to have a deer with them. I guess dragging a dead deer helps them find their way home.

I have found several “lost” people during turkey season sitting within 50 yards of my house. I guess sitting on the ground with a diaphram call in their mouth helps them find their way home.

I wish our system was different and that all land was free and open. But it isn’t. I really envy the public land situation out west and hope it can be maintained. But back here in the east, there is very little public land by comparison.

I bought my humble little farm so I could raise my own food and hunt deer in peace. Since I pay the property tax and maintain the land, I expect others that want to use it to have the decency to ask.

And so the bottom line is that the few innocent folks that truly get lost and just want to get back to their truck suffer for the majority of slob hunters that force landowners to have a bad attitude towards trespassers.

In NC they changed the law that the land had to be posted because dog hunters would say “Dogs can’t read signs” and then proceed to poach deer. Now no sign is needed. If you are caught with a gun on the land of another, you are guilty of poaching.

I don’t see anything wrong with GPS’s. They don’t make the hunt any easier. They don’t make the hike any easier. They have their advantages and their limitations, just like everything else.

As a Trad Brother who lives/hunts in the wonderful states of NY and NJ – and who has experienced each thing you said, more than once (I particularly appreciate the walks in in the pre-dawn darkness to find some slob sitting at the base of my tree stand cause it was too dark to climb….) I couldn’t agree with you more Steve.