The other night I was talking to a younger brother about this upcoming hunting season. His hunts take him along the Nevada, and Oregon State lines and the alarm bells went off. I remember the post by Rogue Ram and his sad experience hunting on the Oregon-Nevada line and his treatment in the Nevada Courts.
I discussed Rogue Ram’s situation with hunting partner whose father was cited by the Oregon State Police for hunting over the line. I recall being a smoke chaser at a Southern Oregon Guard Station back in the early sixties. Because of the location we worked we crossed back and forth between the States on a daily bases. As new logging roads were punched in that twisted in and out of each State it was challenging to determine which State I was standing in at times. I was pretty well education in map reading, finding “K” tags, and road signs. But good State boundary signing was lacking. Recently my hunting partner made a day trip up along the State boundary. When he crossed from one State into the other on a County road he found that neither State nor County had posted the boundary.
Younger brother says that in his scouting he has found few signs that indicate the State boundary. He did have a fresh Forest Service map and had a good general ideal where he was.
He felt that the court would take into consideration the lack of signing. I told him not to be foolish, and he did not want to be in the position of trying to get his rifle back from a court. Most likely a court that existed on court fees that came on top of any fines.
He got the point.
How to:
I plan on giving my brother a Garmin 76C which is load with Topo U.S. 2008 and City Navigator. While the boundaries show up on Topo U.S. 2008 I want the boundary to jump out at my brother. I believe that I can do that with my existing software.
Garmin Map Source software comes with a Routing tool. In the past I have had one or two routes on the unit. I deleted the major route I had on the unit a couple years ago. The point is that I have not taken advantage of it. With Topo U.S. 2008 loaded on my desktop I used the Routing Tool over the State boundary. On the computer screen it showed as a bright purple line. I then transferred it to my 530HCx unit. I did this using the 10-miles scale and it maybe off in a couple locations. But this is not a survey grade gps unit. For those who do not know there is an allowable margin of error in USGS maps.
I like the way the Route along the State line is displayed in bright purple on my screen. Is the bright purple line a legal argument in court? I rather doubt most judges would accept such an argument. But the bright line is part of my early warning system.
When my brother receives the unit it will have two Routes, one titled Ore, and the other NV.
As I recall the 76C takes up to 50 routes, and my new 530HCx will take 30 routes. I am considering generating a couple other routes. One being around the boundary of a State Wildlife Refuge with Proximity waypoints where the road goes into and out of the Refuge. To abide by the rules when crossing the refuge, I have my rifle in a case with the bolt removed and my ammunition in a box in the camper shell.
The cost of the loss of a rifle, going to court, loss time, and the anxiety of dealing with the system is more then what I want to incur.
