[Cliff R]

Lunatics or fanatics, take your pick. They pretty much stayed to themselves, seldom if ever seen out during the daytime. They would go to great lengths to protect their property, and to keep any deer from leaving it, or hunters on adjacent properties to harvest any deer. They seemed to be obsessed with deer hunting and had a zero tolerance for trespassers.

If you even came close to one of their properties (they had cameras everywhere) it wouldn't be minutes before they would show up. Some of those encounters led to guns being drawn and shots fired. They heavily posted and/or fenced in everything they owned.

I had a bad encounter with them about 20 years ago, just a few months after I moved here. I was given permission to deer hunt a piece of property not too far from here. I did NOT realize that it bordered the back end of one of their properties coming off another road, I used a climber and went up about 50 yards from the property line, BAD mistake on my part. About 10am the morning I first hunted it a guy with a rifle cam tromping thru the woods down the fence line that separated the properties. He hopped the fence and walked right toward me like he knew exactly where I was. He stopped about 25 yards away, I waved at him to make damn sure he actually saw me. He stopped, made no gestures at all, turned around went back up the hill, hopped back over the fence and disappeared from my view. About 2 minutes later I heard a couple of people talking, then all hell broke loose. They started firing rifles. I didn't have any bullets whiz by me but the shooting continued for at least 10 minutes and dozens and dozens of rounds were fired. They were so close it sounded like they were standing beside me with each round. Of course I didn't stick around any longer than it took me to get the climber to the ground and run down the hill in the opposite direction to my vehicle.

No harm done, and it's not illegal to fire guns on your property, but for sure I NEVER hunted that piece of property again.

A few days later I was telling my next door neighbor the story and he laughed at me for being so STUPID! Then he commensed to fill me in on all the things those two did to anyone that even dared to hunt any property close to theirs. Seems like I got off lucky after hearing all the stories.........