Posting Public Land... Ethical question?

[Kevrod3]

I was watching an older episode of On Your Own Adventures with Randy Newburg, and they came up to a fence and someone had put a No Trespassing sign up. They turned around and left which was the right thing to do IMO. However when they were walking back to the truck to change areas they said on the Map there wasn't ANY private land there. Is it was all public land, and since it was a high draw unit, I'm sure it was probably a great place to find a super nice Mulie which he was after. He said it took him 4 points to draw that unit, for a 4th season tag.

A. Have you guys ran into this situation?

B. What did you do?

C. If you haven't had this situation, but run into it, what would you do?

So my questions comes down to, do you trust your GPS, ONX maps, Forrest Service map, etc. or do you heed the signs advice and move on somewhere else?

[saddlesore]

I found it a lot in Northern New Mexico. Typical response from local Leo's was they lived there and had to live with the locals,I didn't. Reporting to BLM or FS was useless.

A lot of land is involved in swaps though and maps might not be current

[Swede]

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I found this and a whole lot more this past September on open Forest Service roads. I took pictures and informed the Forest Service. They said they would deal with it. Like Saddlesore implied, it is frustrating. Why did the F.S. not have those sign down immediately. These signs were on maintained through roads. Their employees drive by them frequently. I saw hunters turn around and leave, because they were not sure they would not be prosecuted for trespass. When I worked for the F.S. I went directly to law enforcement and reported what was happening.

[Elkduds]

An essential part of my scouting is learning exactly where private land boundaries are, ideally w boots or tires on the ground. If in doubt, before season I confirm boundaries via GPS w the public land agency. If I know it is public, I'll hunt there, and damn the signs. If I'm not court-of-law certain, I go elsewhere.

[Trophyhill]

I've ran into locked gates on public land. That's why now I have a cordless peanut grinder in my truck

[Indian Summer]

There are public thruways that get you through private property. But there are also roads through private that are not easements. Sometimes it's hard to know for sure when you are there.

Before I go places I am on the map so much I know where the lines are. I haven't gotten my onXmaps yet but when I do it will be the premium version which has the name of the landowner. If there's any doubt I would go track them down. But if I see a sign where I know it shouldn't be I wouldn't even take my foot off the gas.

Land swaps are one thing to consider for sure. I know of one where it meant the closure of a road previously open to and used a lot by the public. Come hunting season there was a guy making people turn around. He was legit though.

[Trophyhill]

There are public thruways that get you through private property. But there are also roads through private that are not easements. Sometimes it's hard to know for sure when you are there.

Before I go places I am on the map so much I know where the lines are. I haven't gotten my onXmaps yet but when I do it will be the premium version which has the name of the landowner. If there's any doubt I would go track them down. But if I see a sign where I know it shouldn't be I wouldn't even take my foot off the gas.

Land swaps are one thing to consider for sure. I know of one where it meant the closure of a road previously open to and used a lot by the public. Come hunting season there was a guy making people turn around. He was legit though.

In the unit I hunt for deer here in NM, swaps happen frequently it seems. More often than not benefiting LO's. However with that said, even if the maps or sd cards are not updated, our G&F is doing a pretty good job of posting the swapped areas where you can now hunt.

[Swede]

Usually it is pretty good evidence that a road is open if it has MUTCD correct signs and road numbers. You can get fooled it there has been a land swap, or the agency has given up its easement, but just go to the Forest Service or BLM office, and ask to see their list of open roads for your area. I would not just ask if a road is open. Ask them to show you their list of open roads in the area. Often the people at the front desk have no idea, but a few may guess. You do not want a guess.

[Lefty]

Make sure you know you are right before you enter.
Ive run into similar situations well over 100 times. Most often like Indian Summer stated I kept my foot on the gas.
While running traplines I often got stopped by those that posted public land. I ask if they put up the sign,.. yes was the usual answer. This was before cell phones; I would give them the local conservation officers phone number. ( Sherriff wasnt a good idea,.. I have stories on that too) Then hand them the state law on properly posting land,.. then gave them a copy of what was illegal posting,.., Usually tell them to have a good day and drive off. I was almost always cordial.
Even had a CO contact me where a landowner apologized through the CO and asked for me to not press charges,..I had no intentions just a farmer that got mixed up in another landowners issues

About 6 years back I was standing beside a sign and a deputy pulled up. He had been assigned to pull down all the illegally placed signage. And told me I should do the same on all of the signs north of a certain road.
It happens a lot in the west . Most often it is posted by ranchers running the grazing lease. However Ive come across signage on state land that Im quite sure was posted by leassee extended family for hunting only. I knew it was a public FS road I had confirmed it with the FS and local CO. Literally the last day of the last elk hunt of the year in that unit a deputy was taking the sign down.
The locals had been driving around the sign all season, I had a fellow at the local diner ask me about it .
A group of locals post BLM trying to keep others from hunting a couple drainage's.

I think I told this story before. I was riding with a friend who became a big wig in a state wildlife dept. We pulled up to a fence and a rancher was just completing fencing the road shut. My friend was nice and reminded them it was a public road into public land . A couple days later the fence was over the road again. The ranch kid removed the fence for us. The next day my friend honked the horn then cut the fence. And nearly every year for 10 years he cut the fence. Then sent the county prosecutor after the rancher. Its been a gate ever since.

I was living in Box Elder County Utah when the state and feds first started developing public access identification mapping. Many ranchers at first thought it meant closing public access roads for them selves . The BLM, State of Utah seemed willing to let ranchers block access, or ignored the problem. Once the feds got involved including federal money Travel access maps has become more normal.
This really was a new beginning for the west

http://siterepository.s3.amazonaws.com/ ... ce_222.pdf

You get me going on this and I get a bit hot
Had a brand new CO 3rd day on the job give me a trespass ticket, He realized I was on public land after the court had the ticket (Federal DOT land) A landowner had fenced in about 10 acres that was deeded public land.
The county prosecutor wanted to proceed because "You will just pay the ticket because you live 400 miles away" I had a friend who was a lawyer( OK not a friend more of a good acquaintance)
He made a phone call to the county prosecutor, It sounded more like a deal or blackmail to me,.. "Drop the charges or the next call is to the state bar"
I wish I would have kept the nice letter from the county apologizing for the misunderstanding and the invitation to vacation and work in the county.

Then there was a big rancher in Wyoming. He didnt know where his deeded lease, National Grasslands ,BLM or National forest boundaries were or his private property was. His property is now one of those huge open pit coal mines

While Im still at it. Seems like many of the farmers near BLM lands get by with just farming public land, I had one fellow that was farming BLM land where I was looking at white-tail hunting.
The nearby landowner made a statement and asked if I knew the trespass laws. I was pleasant and stated I did, and that I had checked and made sure this plowed property was BLM. He made some remark about calling the law, just trying to bully me. I mentioned we should get a BLM agent here so he could sign rental agreement. Six months later his family was trailing stock where I was fixing a flat on my daughters horse trailer. Middle of no-where. Wit a coy grin he said I could have access to hunt as long as I didn't share the location with others,..
Wow I could keep going.But.. Make sure you are right, before hand. Absolutely right and use the property.

[wawhitey]

I know some areas where public land is posted. I just go in anyway cause i know rhe signs are b.s. i use hunt on x, and confirm whats what on county assessors sites when i find signage that doesnt jive with my mapping software. Now that doesnt mean i tear the signs down. Screw it. I would never put one up, but they dont hurt me any.

[Lefty]

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A rough 2 miles in on BLM. Sweet little canyon ,.. all public land for miles every direction. There was a road that went in another 1000 yards to stock tanks, trees dropped and drug blocking the road

[Indian Summer]

You have some bad luck Lefty. But it sounds like you hunt where there are lots of borders. I did that a long time ago. Good hunting if you can find the unseen ways in. But dealing with landowners is the price you pay I guess. Like you said make sure you know before you enter and it's not always easy.

Here's a funny one. In this particular case I suppose I was the criminal.

This was about 28 years ago. I had hunted a private ranch north of Medicine Bow Wyoming with family for 2 years and some public for another 2. This year I brought my brother. It was his first trip out west. It was also the first year that a little gadget called a GPS was available to civilians. I swear to you I waited for them to be released by Magellan and was one of the first people to jump on one. I learned how to use it fairly well but the thing took forever to give you a fix on your position. No onscreen topo lines either. The huge ranch behind the one we hunted was incredible. It had everything from antelope and mule deer to lions and elk. I knew that the owners strictly forbid trespassing too.

After looking at the map I decided that I had made a huge discovery. There was a way into that ranch! With the use of my new George Jetson type device I could just walk from corner to corner in checker boarded BLM land.... which led right to the heart of the place. Here's the funny part: It never even crossed my mind whether or not it was legal. I just knew it was possible. Soooooo, we parked in plain sight of the rancher's house early one morning and started hiking!

It was a hell of a day. None of the corners were marked and there were barely remnants of old fence so it was pretty much just us the map and the GPS. The mule deer sheds were insane. No question that nobody had ever picked any up on that ranch. I took out as many as a man can carry. The bucks there were huge. They were huge on the ranch we hunted but it was way smaller. Only 27,000 acres. haha This place was ginormous. Our plan was set. The next day was the first day of the mulie season and we were going to slay some monsters.

So we hiked back out to the truck marking waypoints as we had done on the way in. When we got to the truck nothing was out of the ordinary. Until I saw a cloud of dust behind a small truck coming from the ranch house. So the guy pulls up and walks over to the driver side window. Nice enough he asks "Are you some of those college kids from town (Laramie) looking for fossils? Dinosaurs are known to have been all around that area. We were like uh.... no. We're doing some scouting for deer season. You guessed it, he flipped out. So all naïve... and confident in what I had done, I showed him the GPS and explained how I used satellites to make sure I stayed on the BLM land and crossed at the corners. Now in 2016 or whatever I howl my butt off when I think about this stuff. Of course the guy knew jack about a frickin GPS and didn't give a rat's behind anyway. He said he had already called the law. They were on their way and it wasn't going to be pretty blah blah blah.

We waited what seemed like a really long time. We were in the middle of nowhere but we still gave it plenty of time. Finally we said well it looks like he's not coming so we are going to head out of here. Back then I didn't know what cowboy time was. I can't remember what his reply was but off we went. About 10 or 15 miles down the road, after passing not a single soul, we see a dust cloud from a vehicle coming the other way. As we passed I saw it was Fish ad Game so we stopped. So did he and we both backed up and got out. My first words were "I think you're looking for us". He looked at the Colorado plates on the rental vehicle and said "yep, probly". We told him what I just told you up to this point. He looked at the GPS with the same look as the rancher. Then he said... I don't care what you can do with that thing. Those guys make a living on that land. That ranch is leased by an outfitter who makes his living there. If you hunt there I doubt if anything would be left of your vehicle by the time you got back. Do yourselves a favor and do NOT mess with those guys. I reassured him that I knew I was on public. He said whatever man do what you want, but if you want to have a truck at the end of the day I'd think twice. And he drove away.

We hunted somewhere else.

[Indian Summer]

After Bill Clinton gave the ok to eliminate the intentional margin of error on civilian global positioning units I was blown away at how fast and accurate they were. it was like the difference between driving a garbage truck and a Corvette. I was in heaven after all the years with the old system. I couldn't help but think back knowing that I was probably at least 50 to 75 feet or more off in either direction when I crossed those corners.

[Lefty]

You have some bad luck Lefty. But it sounds like you hunt where there are lots of borders..I could just walk from corner to corner in checker boarded BLM land...

Not bad luck,.. I try to be discreet about where I hunted and trapped when possible. And trapping I had to stay legal,.. I just didnt let others illegally posting land keep me out.

Hm has it ever been legal to corner jump in Wyoming When we trapped in the early 80s I dont believe state land could be corner jumped. We had more ground to trap than we had time but we did hunt and trap some public lands

[wawhitey]

Joe, thats some funny $/!#! Thanks for typing it all out. Gave me a good laugh tonight. I have some good stories that wont ever see the light of day, cause theyd require too much typing. But i like when other folks arent too lazy to put the effort in. Good schnit

[saddlesore]

Concerning Lefty's post. Except for the words "Private Property",the remainder of the sign is legal if that BLM land is leased . You may ride a horse/mule across it, or walk, but you cannot drive or camp on it without the leesee's permission.

[Lefty]

Concerning Lefty's post. Except for the words "Private Property",the remainder of the sign is legal if that BLM land is leased . You may ride a horse/mule across it, or walk, but you cannot drive or camp on it without the leesee's permission.

That is on BLM. this situation the land was posted by other hunters who didn't want hunters driving up" their canyon" Realistically there no longer was water in the canyon and no real reason to drive there to work on water systems.
While Im an ATV enthusiast. I still believe there are too many trails and roads on much of the public lands. In this situation It would be nice if the canyon was closed to all but foot traffic.
the real problem, someone posted property they had no authority to post.

[Charina]

I've ran into locked gates on public land. That's why now I have a cordless peanut grinder in my truck

I hope you are very careful to only do that to illegally blocked roads. I typically have a laissez faire perspective on public land use. But when I cross a gate closed and locked intentionally by the FS, hike 2+ miles in, and then some wannabe cuts the locks and rides his ATV/Truck right on top of where I'm hunting, I get pretty worked up. There's no way I would slash a tire or do unto him as he did unto the lock, but can't say it doesn't cross my mind. Cutting open intentionally closed areas is at least as bad in my book as posting public areas as if private.

[_rj_]

There's so many violations or questionable land usage issues it makes my head spin. West side of Oregon has logging companies to deal with. East side is dealing with property signs or people violating the states camping laws. People are starting to camp months in advance to claim "their" spot.