False property Lines

[AMonroe]

Just sharing my experience from scouting several public parcels. I’ve found two so far which had wire fencing cutting off parts of public. Went to the local authorities and verified it was public. Every one had a stand on private but up against the public property line. They’ve literally pounded the deer back to public. One fake fence, I’ve found out it’s been up for a decade. I went in to check it out and ran into a buck and three does.


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[Bubblehide]

Lots od public land has legitimate fencing. So feel free to cross it, but don't mess with it.

 

[huntngolf]

Yeah those fences could be there legally. Don’t assume they aren’t and also don’t be afraid to hunt the public. Could actually work out in your favor, the fence likely keeps most people away

 

[scott85]

They could grazing allotment boundaries or any thing else.

 

[wytx]

Yep fences are not always at the boundary.

 

[Texasbuckeye]

How accurate is OnX or other mapping software for the exact borders? I know around my place in OK it is pretty dang accurate, so i assume the same out west or elsewhere…

Any experiences where OnX led you wrong?

 

[Billy Goat]

How accurate is OnX or other mapping software for the exact borders? I know around my place in OK it is pretty dang accurate, so i assume the same out west or elsewhere…

Any experiences where OnX led you wrong?

In the east it's hit or miss. It goes off of GIS information, just depends on how accurate that is. A friend bought a farm 2 years ago that was last surveyed in the 1890's. The property lines that someone had mapped out in the 40's for the county weren't that accurate. Several years ago it had a lot of my property lines incorrect, however over the last few years I think they have been corrected.

 

[KHNC]

They are very accurate in NC and SC in my experience. I literally stepped on corner stakes this past SC on my property in Greenwood County SC while tracking with OnX.

 

[WCB]

I've ran into this in every state I've hunted.

 

[Macintosh]

Pretty common near me, especially on public land. Example, a lot of the state WMA's were added onto piecemeal, so the first couple hundred acres, then another 50, then 100 here, etc were added later to build onto the existing piece. End of the day a single state WMA might have originally been 4 or 5 or more different properties 50 or 75 years ago--that's actually quite common. In most cases they took fencing, etc down, but not all--any interior fence between pastures that grew up and didnt get a crew to specifically take it down, is still there across the middle of that parcel. Also, it seems they used to put perimeter fencing up around the state WMA's in many areas, I assume to keep neighboring livestock out--but if the WMA has been added onto, that fence that used to be the perimeter often wasn't taken down, and now runs right through an area that is clearly not even near the boundary of the new state land parcel. This used to throw me for a loop too before I started using a mapping app with parcel boundaries. It seems everyone is using them now, so I'm not sure it's keeping anyone out of those areas at this point.
FWIW onx (as well as other similar apps I've used, its not just onx) property boundaries are often a few feet off from the satellite image for me, and perhaps due to frequently poor cell service(?) the gps location on mine is often very imprecise and constantly bouncing around, so I feel like the mapping app can only be accurate to within a handful of yards at best--usually that's plenty accurate, but in a few cases where I want to see if a specific tree or feature is on public or not I dont think it's accurate enough. I've walked my own property boundary with onx in hand and tried to use it to find some of the old intermediate survey marks, and it's close but definitely off by 20 or 30 feet.

 

[deerhunt1988]

2 Thoughts:

1.) Most private ownership data in the mapping apps comes from the county level. And the mapping apps are only as accurate at the data from their data source.

In my home county, i've found places where the county-level data is off 400-500ft. and in this instance, it affects public land. OnX shows about 7 acres as private land at this spot, when it is all actually public land. But if a person did their research and got the public land map from our state game and fish site, they would know its public land and that OnX is wrong. This is an extreme case, but i've found discrepancies all over the U.S. You really need to double check questionable areas with another source (i.e. state or federal maps).

2.) I have encountered multiple instances all over the U.S. where private landowners post public land. They normally start posting "No Trespassing" signs a couple hundred yards from their actual boundary. Or put them along an old fence or something that is actually on public land. Or put them on a public land road that they use to access their private land. I very much enjoy tearing signs down in these situations.

 

[Macintosh]

Your first point above is also why people need to expect things to be off a little--even if the lines are right-on in one area, the exact same function in a different area could be significantly off, because the data is coming from a zillion different places.

Re the second point--agree wholeheartedly with a caveat--onx shows easement holders as if they were landowners in many cases. Example, I live adjacent to a piece of town land. One side of the town land is public land I can hunt; the other side has an old capped landfill and next to that the town hiway dept garage. It's all one parcel though on the map. The town signed a 20-year lease with a solar company for the landfill portion--the town owns the land still, but the use of the landfil cap is leased by the solar company, and they've got a zillion solar panels up on it. On onx now, that land is shown as BELONGING to the solar company, even though that is not owned by them, and even though the portion they have any right to use is only a tenth of the entire property. It is entirely possible for the state or a different public land manager or a .org to have a conservation easement on a property, while the landowner still owns and retains the right to control access--not all easements contain public access provisions. There is another area locally where the state fish and wildlife dept has an easement on some wetland adjacent to a local river, I know the farmer who owns it and while he does allow access it is shown on onx as being owned by the state and does not have a public access guarantee. Onx does not attempt to identify cases like this that I can tell. Just be careful not to tear signs down in such a situation.

 

[Rangerpants]

A lot of fences, especially in rough country, are fences of convenience, not boundaries. I try to respect the ones that are pretty close in case its a case of poor data from the county, but if its way off, I just assume some lazy cowboy threw it up a long time ago where it was easy or land changed hands somewhere along the line.

 

[fishslap]

I usually don’t put much stock in fence lines. I found one pretty far over on national forest a few weeks ago and it had a newish looking no trespassing sign just on the other side. I’ve double checked onx with county assessor and survey maps a few times and it’s always spot on, so I feel comfortable calling bullshit on incorrectly marked private. I’ve emailed onx and checked with the managing group for the public land type and never got a response that raised doubt for onx.

 

[hobbes]

There's a big difference between what fences typically mean East vs West. Grazing allotment fences in the West can cross criss all over public land and often are not boundaries. Fences east of the Mississippi are typically found on property lines and properties are much smaller. A fence in the Midwest or East may be to keep livestock here or there but the propertiea are typically small enough that they are boundary fences. I'm not saying that they are correctly located but they are usually intended to designate property lines. It's also rare that the country is rough enough that a lazy cowboy had anything to do with it.

 

[Rangerpants]

Good point about east vs. west on fence placement. All my experience with hunting around boundaries has been Rockies and points west.

 

[loganwayne]

I hunt in nc. Most of the public at one point was private. I find old homesteads, well, fences, stone fence outlining old fields scattered all through the places I hunt. I drop a pin and send to my buddy that works for the wildlife, most they know about... a few they dont

 

[Macchina]

I almost bought some property that was across the street from a road that accessed a large piece of public with private all around it. On the map it looked great. When I drove there, the road had trees hinge cut all along it and a locked steel gate on the entrance with no trespassing signs. It was a labeled public road on OnX, but the land owners clearly didn't like it. I knew I would fight them if I bought the property so I moved on.

On my current property (14 acres) one of the neighbors has a small lot (maybe an acre) that he keeps up well. An old barbed wire fence separates our properties. When I had my place surveyed they put my corner stake in the middle of his yard, probably cutting his property down by 1/3! I don't need the land so I never approached him about it as he's a good quiet neighbor. He sure did remove the wood flag stake right away but left the buried official marker, so I know he knows it's my land. Bottom line: don't trust fences, they are exactly where someone put them and nothing more.

 

[Zbo93]

How accurate is OnX or other mapping software for the exact borders? I know around my place in OK it is pretty dang accurate, so i assume the same out west or elsewhere…

Any experiences where OnX led you wrong?

Lines have been pretty consistent for me in NJ. Property owner updates are iffy but the lines for public/private seem legit