Sandhills hunt

[Deertick]

You\'re a manipulative guy, Lou.

(And any rancher who ever saw a fence I built or a tractor I \"repaired\" would let me on just for providing the comedy.)

But, you\'re right. Offering to be a human being often helps. I think the people of the Sandhills, and Nebraska in general, are still \"open\" to this idea of human contact. I had to flag one guy down on our trip to run to town for us to get some supplies for a quick engine repair of our own. The guy was real nice ... made the 40 mile trip and wouldn\'t accept any payment!

Maybe I\'ve underestimated my fellow man.

 

[Jaquomo]

It\'s amazing how some country folks respond to a gesture of help, respect, or kindness. Especially so where I hunt east of Denver where they\'re used to jerks from the city trespassing, leaving gates open, driving through planted fields, and expecting access to be granted just because somebody drew a tag.

I once came upon an older woman struggling to open a gate in a windstorm. I jumped out and opened it for her, helped her back in the truck, and closed it behind her. That simple act led to permission to hunt big muleys on two sections until she died. I didn\'t do this to try to get permission, only to help her out.

Here\'s another one from this week - This summer a rancher friend bought a big chunk of land on the river bottom where he wasn\'t going to allow hunting. He wanted to keep it as a \"sanctuary\" because of so much crazy outfitter and local hunting in the area. I respect that, and didn\'t even ask about hunting myself. Last week he asked me about what sort of signs to use to post it. He lives far from a town and doesn\'t have a computer or internet. I offered to search for him, found some appropriate signs, and ordered a dozen. Yesterday I updated him and offered to come out early next week and help him put them up. His response:

\"By God, that\'s the best offer I\'ve had all week! I sure hope you can, and you can ride one of my four-wheelers so you don\'t have to drag yours out here! I\'m thinking you might want to hunt there next year, and these signs will keep all them other a-holes out and maybe let a couple of them big old bucks survive to be there for you.\" This is a grouchy old guy who has very few friends and doesn\'t let ANYBODY hunt.

I now have permission on another 14,000 acres, and didn\'t even ask for permission.............

 

[AaronJohnson]

Agree with Lou. One of the places I currently hunt in Kansas we have just because of helping out. We started off staying with the farmer who my uncle played college football with in the late 70\'s. In years past, we have been staying with them in their basement and hunting two farms we had only \"asked\" permission to hunt on about 5 miles from their farmhouse. My uncle\'s friend actually outfits \"unguided\" hunts for archery and rifle hunters on his property so we never breached the subject with him other than turkey hunting (which is phenomenal by the way!)

This summer, my uncle (who is also a school teacher and is off all summer) goes out and helps his fried we stay with during summer wheat harvest. How it started was this year when one of their hired hands was injured in a car accident. He drove 6 hours from Oklahoma and ran the combine for a week and a half. They offered him pay but he declined because they always host us when we are in town. This year (the year I didn\'t draw my tag) they started letting him hunt some of their farms. He ended up killing a 175\" whitetail the first full week of November this year on one of those farms.

Needless to say I\'ll be out there for wheat harvest this summer for several days as well.

You can still get permission by door knocking in the right area but trading for work often ends up in REALLY good areas and the landowners are far more grateful and loyal to the hunters because of it.