Private Landowners: Do you post your land?

[EdK]

Whoa there's lots of forums and I've no idea if this one is best suited for the question but I have to ask it. I did a few searches and didn't seem to find any discussion on this...

Of the GB forum members that own any amount of huntable land: do you post it "No Trespassing" to hunters, etc?

I'd like to think I could share with other hunters but I'm wondering about whether it's come time to be a bit more selective than opening up to the entire world. Everything from disrespectful hunters, beer cans on the ground, etc. has me pretty much disgusted with the whole scene. What's more is that I get to pay $5-6000 property taxes (land only) so these folks can have their "recreation" :roll:

Please let me know what you think  :-)

[NONYA]

we post bolth of our ranchs,around ere you just have to paint the top of your gate posts orange,our places get hunted hard enough just from family,we dont need any more preasure on the animals.

[jhm]

Yes and enforce it vary firmly, I have gotten tired of the slob hunters so if I dont know you or you havent been invited to be here dont be here, sounds selfish dont it but after loosing cattle that have bn shot or lost days hunting fixing fences that were cut to gain access for their vehicles, gates left open and cattle out where they shouldnt be, yes its selfish of me.    JIM

[Buckskin]

Yes we post and enforce very strictly.  Getting fed up with trespassers, who are sneaking.  We used to just kick them off, but as of this year we are calling the sheriff.

[Land_Owner]

Yes I fence.  Yes I post.  Yes I enforce.  My area is not very big, sparcely populated, very well situated, and I attend regularly (like church).  

Historic trespassers include: Father & 10 y.o. son knowingly trespassing; 16 y.o. who wanted to "shoot it out" with me; unknown tree stand and groung blind builders; gate chain locked by stranger's hardware; locked gate run through; and a bare footer, go figure - tracks throughout and female from the look of them, sorry I missed that day.

[NONYA]

couple years back we had a couple idiots who parked right in front of our gate and then cut the fence next to it to get thier 4 wheeler through,hope they had extra gas for the wheeler,cuz the truck wasnt going very far on 4 flat tires... :eek:

[Land_Owner]

The State improved the shoulders along the highway bordering my land.  Every driveway was to receive a new aluminized steel culvert (pricy).  On a Sunday, with my son and nephew, just after arriving, locking the gate, and parking where my truck can not bee seen from the gate (usual spot), I noticed a truck with trailer back into the driveway.  I watched them load the ready-to-be-installed State culvert for my driveway onto their trailer.

When I approached, they were real cool with their response saying they worked for the Contractor and were placing different lingth culverts on other driveways for Monday's installation.  One of the fellows questioned me about hunting the land and remarked about my 30-30 in-hand, even reaching over the locked gate and taking the barrel into his hand.  Dumb move with barrel pointed at his rib cage, locked and loaded.  He let go, but I toed the late model Chevy Suburban license plate into the driveway sand as they pulled out with the culvert in tow.  

A phone call to the contractor on the job Monday morning and a quick exchange of information got the sheriff onto their track and the rest as they say is history.  Stolen property still on the trailer in their yard.  Being in the right place at the right time is sweet.  Contractor was pleased.  Gave me back my concrete apron to replace the one that I had paid for myself instead of the asphalt one the State has contracted for.

[Lawdog]

Whoa there's lots of forums and I've no idea if this one is best suited for the question but I have to ask it. I did a few searches and didn't seem to find any discussion on this...

Of the GB forum members that own any amount of huntable land: do you post it "No Trespassing" to hunters, etc?

I'd like to think I could share with other hunters but I'm wondering about whether it's come time to be a bit more selective than opening up to the entire world. Everything from disrespectful hunters, beer cans on the ground, etc. has me pretty much disgusted with the whole scene. What's more is that I get to pay $5-6000 property taxes (land only) so these folks can have their "recreation" :roll:

Please let me know what you think  :-)

Fence, post and ENFORCE religiously.  If you don’t it doesn’t take long for the word to get around and you’ll end up spending a fortune replacing fence/gates/etc.  Every year it gets worse.  Lawdog
 

[rickyp]

Fence, post and ENFORCE religiously. If you don’t it doesn’t take long for the word to get around and you’ll end up spending a fortune replacing fence/gates/etc. Every year it gets worse. Lawdog

The trouble with all the A-- H--- hunters that damage the stuff around a frame is it makes it harder on people like me. It is very hard to find a farm that will let someone hunt for free around me. when I find a farm I do as the land owner ask me, I pick up trash if i find it, help when he/ she ask. The more people that trespass makes it even harder for the land owner to trust me

[Dusty Miller]

These are the same bozos who shoot into a bush because they hear a noise.  Let's face it, not all gun owners are the kind of people we want to associate with.

[jhm]

I have owned this place for over 25 yrs, and over that period of time I have met people in various types of business who when you dealt with them seamed vary professional, polite, and respectful of other peoples property, hpwever when granting them permission to hunt they changed into the Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde, they feel that they can do as they please I had a hunter leave a gate open so the cattle could get out of a certain pasture so as not to disturb his hunt, as I told him as I was politely telling him to leave that the deer and cattle have been getting along for quite awhile without his help.  It only takes a few to ruine it for others, but there are alot more of them out there than we want to admit, everyone who is on this board knows someone who falls into this catagory and yet they are still dealt with softly, remember if you dont own it you are tresspassing.    JIM

[EdK]

Thanks for all the replies thus far - it has been supportive and helpful. One thing I did not mention is the size of my place: 50 acres. It's not all that large but plenty rural enough such that hunters abound. I have several neighbors with 50-100 acres and the opposite of my street is undeveloped, Federal flood plain around 4000 acres. There are a lot of hunters over there and they spill across onto our side of the street quite a bit.

What size places do you all have? 10, 100, 1000 acres?

I probably should have conducted a poll in the first place but I'm not that smart.  :roll:

[Land_Owner]

Just 20 acres (and in general, deer hunnting doesn't take 1/100th of that if you are where they want to be :grin: ).

[NONYA]

Our ranch near WolfCreek is 2 sections (1280 acres) and our Ranch near Augusta is 4 sections (2560 acres).I know what you mean about people turning out to be jerks,2 years ago we gave a guy permision to hunt our place because he had drawn a big bull tag and nobody in the family had,so day before the first day we go out to scout some elk and as we go through our bottom gate we find this guy with 4 friends and all thier familys camped in a big group of 5th wheelers,tents campers ect,ect,looked like a damn compound,he comes walkin over to the truck and my dad says i thought I told you that you could hunt but we didnt want a bunch of people in here?He says "Oh hese guys are gonna go hunt in another area across the highway!And everyone else is gonna hang around camp and do some hiking."We didnt know this guy prior to that year,we knew a friend of his and he had introduced us because he had drawn the tag.This guy went WAy beyond taking advantage of a landowners generosity,he had been told yes you can hunt but just you,we dont want a bunch of people in there while we are trying to locate our elk and get our meat in,he says "no problem and thank you very much" so my father made every attempt to stay calm and quietly told this idiot that if they were there in the morning they were tresspassing,that night his buddy (our friend) calls in a panic wanting to apologize for this guys stupidity and went as far as to go up there that evening and help them move thier "elk camp" to some public ground down the canyon a ways,I felt sorry for our friend because he had vouched for this guy and he burned him in a big way.

[Lawdog]

Thanks for all the replies thus far - it has been supportive and helpful. One thing I did not mention is the size of my place: 50 acres. It's not all that large but plenty rural enough such that hunters abound. I have several neighbors with 50-100 acres and the opposite of my street is undeveloped, Federal flood plain around 4000 acres. There are a lot of hunters over there and they spill across onto our side of the street quite a bit.

What size places do you all have? 10, 100, 1000 acres?

I probably should have conducted a poll in the first place but I'm not that smart.  :roll:

1,480+ with another 1,000+ under lease/option.  Lawdog
 

[jhm]

pay taxes on 1269

[skb2706]

My Bro in law and sister farm 12,000 acres....its so far from civilization that few if any people know of it and the few who do don't know that it supports abundant wildlife. No signs, few fences and great neighbors.....best of all few if any 'other hunters'.

[Wynn]

Manage 1600 acres & lease another 3000. I allow a very few people to fish and we host a couple of invitation only dove hunts. No other hunting permitted and we prosecute vigorously if we catch em. Have had heifers stolen, fences cut, signs shot up, fawn deer poached, hen turkey shot and grass fires started. Hog hunters and their dogs are always poaching from the roads but it has slowed down a lot since the sheriff ag crimes unit started watching the area. They started impounding and confiscating trucks, ATV's, firearms and dogs in addition to arrests for armed trespass, DUI, drugs, gun and light at night etc. and word got around fast.

[rickyp]

it is asahme they will not give you the trucks, guns and ATVs taht they take from the trespassers as payment

[jhm]

Ricky you are right !  Some of their trucks are nicer than their homes, at least have better tires on them than their homes (all goodyear Im sure)    JIM

[Lawdog]

it is asahme they will not give you the trucks, guns and ATVs taht they take from the trespassers as payment

Not going to happen.  They can confiscate their weapons, and ATV’s.  They can impound their vehicles and can sell them at auction if the tow/storage bills are not paid.  The landowners are SOL.  We don’t get reimbursed for expenses when having to go to court to testify.  A nice dream though.   :-D   Lawdog
 

[NONYA]

Here in MT the violators will be ordered to pay restitution for any costs incured by the landowner if the get a conviction.

[hunt127588]

My father-in-law and I started posting heavily several years ago on 300 acres after numerous incidents with spot lighting. After posting, one of the poachers got mad and shot a doe while spot lighting and drop the deer right under a posted sign by the road for all to see. He didn't know that he just signed his own arrest warrant b/c we were gonna wait for him now. Two nights later (after we called the game warden), a truck pulled into the field spot lighting. The game warden was waiting and caught 'em red handed. It was a 17 year old boy and his father. They went to court and the father was slapped with a $400 fine while the son was let go. It was later found out that the son did some work for the judge that presided over the case. Talk about small town politics. We'll be there this year ready and waiting for anyone else trying to hunt on our property. It's a shame to spend big money and food plots, deer management, etc. only to have it ruined by someone thoughtless. The sad thing is that had they asked, we could have offered them a place to hunt provided they respected the property.

[Lawdog]

Well, the hunting trespassers/poachers are one thing and they do cause problems.  The trespassers that we, in Northern California, worry about the most are the marijuana growers.  They are the dangerous ones you have to watch for.  They set spring traps, Claymore mines, dead falls, etc. to protect their illegal crops.  They shoot first and don’t bother to ask a question.  On top of all that the state can confiscate your property if they find marijuana growing on your land.  Yes poachers are a year around problem and you really only have to worry about marijuana growers for a few months out of the year, the planting season, they are the most dangerous and the ones you really have to watch for.  Lawdog
 

[NONYA]

they found a small cultivated patch on my greatgrandmothers property on the edge of town,some old mine tailings and coke ovens are all thats on it,they set up some kind of surveliance on it waiting for the druglords to show up,a couple days later 2 middleschool kids that lived down the road showed up on thier bikes to tend thier crop and were arrested on the spot,the case was later dropped because none of the plants had any thc bearing buds on them and wernt technically illegal.In this country i would be far more worried about finding a mobile meth lab on your property,a rancher i know near Cascade found one in a little camper trailer on his property near the river,it was abandoned and looked like they had stayed there quite a while from alll the trash they left,the cops towed it off and brought in some kind of hazmat unit to clean up the site.

[beemanbeme]

After moving here, I thought to be a nice guy but after finding 3 deer that had been shot, the tenderloins removed, and the rest left to rot AND hearing the locals talk about taking "sound shots" (that means to blindly shoot at any noise you hear) and laughing about being kicked off of a guys place and just going around to the other side to hunt, I posted my place.  
I still let folks hunt, but I'm gonna know who they are and talk to them a bit to find out what sort of folks they are before I do.

[760 Nut]

My families ranch is 70,000+ acres. It is a working cattle ranch. We have little trouble with trespassers during hunting season. I do post it on certain sections that  might tempt some folks to jump the fence. For the most part, all the locals in the northern part of the state know who owns it and that someone could come driving up at any minute and that I am always somewhere around during deer season. Locals are no problem, it's the folks from out of state and the "big cities" that we are constantly running off. They just don't seem to give a damn who's land they are on. They act as though that license they purchased gives them the right to hunt wherever they please? When confronted, they always give the standard reply "I have permission to hunt here". Some get really nasty with you. My father in law has had to send several people off with busted noses questioning why they ever lied to the grizzled old cowboy!!!

Jerk off hunters who trespass are one of the main reason folks find it harder and harder to hunt on private land for free. Not to mention the damage to fences and gates they sometimes cause. City folks don't understand how important fences and gates are to ranchers.

[rickyp]

how do you people deal with someone that made and honest mistake and got turned around or flat out didnt know that are one your land. I know it doesnt happen a lot but it does happen from time to time

[760 Nut]

rickyp,

That does happen and you can tell right away. In that case you help them out and try and get them where they were trying to go. I helped a guy like this about 4 years ago and ended up making a good hunting buddy out of the deal. He was just plain lost. Some situations aren't always so bad. :grin:

[NONYA]

One of our ranch's sits at the bottom of a drainage that leads into a wilderness/roadless area,the easiest way out of the area is to go straight down the creek bottom through our place to the highway,couple of years ago we got a call from a guy that had killed an elk up the creek from our place and wanted permision to drag the elk down through our place to get it out,my dad told him sure and even let him drive to the end of our place with his wheeler cutting his drag down to 1/100th of what it could have been.Well ever since that year this guy hunts the area and 2 years ago did the same thing,only this time he didnt bother asking.My uncle ran into him coming out our bottom gate and he told him my father had given him permision again,my uncle says ok,bye and goes on his way.About 2 weeks later my uncle mentions it to my dad and he was PISSED!He went up to our top fence and posted a sign specificly for this guy letting him know he was not welcome on our place and not to bother asking,I hope he saw that sign,Id love to have seen his face if he did!Its people that asume they have a lifetime permision slip after getting access that screw it up for lots of other people,I cant believe the balls some people have when it comes to tresspasing.