Hunter says he found a stranger’s tree stand on his property — and then discovered the guy had cut the fence to get there

A hunter in r/Hunting said he found a tree stand sitting about 20 feet inside his property line, and from the way he described it, this was not some old stand that had been forgotten back there for years. He said it looked new. That alone was enough to get his attention, but the closer he looked, the worse it got. According to the post, the guy had cut the fence to get onto their side. That changed the whole thing from an irritating surprise in the woods to a straight trespassing problem with damage already done.

He did not sound torn about being angry either. In the post, he said he was about ready to take the stand down and keep it for himself. The comments came back fast, and most of them were not exactly sympathetic to the person who hung the stand. One guy told him to take pictures of everything first, especially the cut fence and the exact location of the stand, then call a game warden. Another said about the same thing and added that after documenting it, he could “enjoy the stand.” The mood of the thread was pretty clear. People were not treating this like some harmless mistake where a neighbor lost track of the line in the dark. Between the fresh stand and the damaged fence, it sounded like somebody knew exactly what he was doing and figured he would get away with it.

What gives the story some bite is how familiar it probably felt to a lot of landowners. It was not only that somebody crossed the line. It was that he made himself at home after doing it. He did not step over by accident, realize it, and back out. He cut the fence, walked in, and hung a stand like the place was his to use. That is the kind of thing that turns a normal morning in the woods into a problem you start documenting.