Report Violations on Public Land!

[UpNorth89]

Who cares if a road gets ruts in the winter? That’s totally normal and is fixed with a blade and tractor. I do this yearly on miles of dirt road and the state does the same. We should expect road maintenance…we pay taxes.


There is yearly maintenance for boat ramps, dirt roads, trails, and so on.

We have a right to access public land. Roads are how that happens. Closing a road is denial of access. It’s wrong.

Most people care about a road getting rutted up. It's not necessarily in the budget to have the equipment and operators to fix up all of these roads after getting tore up every spring. A couple months of closure until the road dries and hardens saves a ton of money. No reason to feel entitled. Nobody is denying access. The land and road is still accessible by foot.

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[QuackAttack]

You. Ignored… what a great feature. I’ll just start ignoring the people that constantly post pointless garbage. Maybe they’ll reciprocate

Pro tip, when you leave, you don’t have to announce it and be dramatic like a teenager…you can just go.

 

[BigAntlerGetter]

Just word for everyone I wouldn’t argue with the quack guy, it’s pointlesss guys like him do is bring you down to their stupidity level then beat you with experience….. the guy is probably a poacher to I mean isn’t the wildlife publicly owned and it’s his civil right to choose which laws he wants to follow….. isn’t there another word for that???? Choosing which rules you do and don’t want to follow…. Like criminal is that the word?


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[QuackAttack]

Most people care about a road getting rutted up. It's not necessarily in the budget to have the equipment and operators to fix up all of these roads after getting tore up every spring. A couple months of closure until the road dries and hardens saves a ton of money. No reason to feel entitled. Nobody is denying access. The land and road is still accessible by foot.

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Foot massively limits how far and where you can go. It concentrates hunters and hunting pressure, causing a disproportionate take close to a trailhead. ATVs allow hunters to spread out and access more land, away from crowds.

 

[Wyobohunter]

The USFS employee I spoke with said it’s a $500 fine. Is saving a few miles of walking (or riding a non motorized bicycle) worth $500? If I see someone doing it I will do all I can to make sure they pay that $500.

 

[BigAntlerGetter]

Foot massively limits how far and where you can go. It concentrates hunters and hunting pressure, causing a disproportionate take close to a trailhead. ATVs allow hunters to spread out and access more land, away from crowds.

No foot traffic limits the disabled and lazy hunters. Which are you?

Back before atvs and utvs and all that everyone had to hike every where or have horses. 4 wheelers have changed hunting with so many illegal roads, overused roads etc. just like social media has changed hunting.

What ur not understanding is seasonal closures, and old road closures, sometimes they close one road and reopen another. YOU don’t know the exact reasoning other than what you think it means and that they’re stealing ur easy access. Hit the treadmill dude and work out you’ll be able to walk further and get away from crowds.

Make sure to inform is though of what the ranger says when he rights you a ticket for illegally taking ur vehicle somewhere and you respond “it’s my public land and my civil right, stick ur ticket up ur a$$”. Be even better if you recorded it for the TIKTOK!!!! Don’t be scarred ur committed now


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[UpNorth89]

Foot massively limits how far and where you can go. It concentrates hunters and hunting pressure, causing a disproportionate take close to a trailhead. ATVs allow hunters to spread out and access more land, away from crowds.

Closures happen for a reason. One of those is to prevent damage to land that we all own. I've seen first hand how a few bad apples going around a gate and tearing it up can lead to it getting shut down completely with no more maintenance. Impassable for everyone.

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[Ucsdryder]

Hey mods, I’m pretty sure someone stole @QuackAttack password. Only time I’ve seen someone post so much stupid shit is in the classifieds when some Nigerian prince was trying to convince people he was actually selling an archery item he knows nothing about.

 

[DenverCountryBoy]

Foot massively limits how far and where you can go. It concentrates hunters and hunting pressure, causing a disproportionate take close to a trailhead. ATVs allow hunters to spread out and access more land, away from crowds.

Well, I guess we should just get rid of all wilderness designations then. /s

 

[87TT]

 

[Rich M]

I usually don’t post on these back and forth argument threads. Usually stick to the reloading advice, WOD, etc., but this one and some others over the last couple weeks prompted me. Here it goes.

So here’s my beef with the entitlement and a real world example. My family has lifetime hunting licenses in a particular state. There is a mule deer unit that we draw on occasion that is legitimately one of the best units out there. It is a fairly large, remote and mountainous unit. Illegal atv and motorcycle activity is common. USFS can’t even scratch the surface on enforcement. So the FG has to manage it. How? By significantly reducing the tags and hunting opportunity to counterbalance the illegal motorized use. So basically these entitlement freedom fighters are limiting my kid’s opportunity at hunting an awesome unit. IF people actually followed the rules, the area could handle significantly more tags due to difficulty, success rate, etc. So your freedom and liberty is limiting my kid’s opportunity.

I'm a hunter liaison for a national wildlife refuge down here. It's mainly duck, deer, and hog hunting - that's what we got. The NWR personnel talk to the hunters when they are leaving the area, we have to check out.

When folks complain - the feds introduce new laws. When 3 or 4 people have the same complaint, they really want to introduce new laws. There are about 400 guys using the resource on a regular basis in this instance.

We get some dude whining about someone parking somewhere, they have to change the parking on the entire refuge. Some guys shooting too often, they restrict the amount of ammo you can carry. Someone doesn't like a guy using a boat motor - yup, you guessed it, they limit motor use. Someone shoots another guy and they close off the entire area instead of banning the guy who did the shooting.

The last time they tried to " really fix it" in response to complaints, they tried to cut the hunter access by limiting permits by up to 30-40% and shortening the season by a couple of weeks. As you can guess, all hell broke loose but we were able to get it fixed with a concerted effort.

Sad thing is that the govt only seem to respond to the whiners. And the whiners always look for stuff to whine about. The "normal" guys who don't do anything wrong are victims in this kind of scenario.

The real answer is not to whine & "turn in the enemy" every chance they get. Pick and choose the battles cause there is a good chance the whiner is ultimately gonna provide a problem for themselves in the future.

An example that was put forth was a road that got closed forever.
Another was yours in that they reduce the hunting permits/opportunity cause of the folks driving closed roads.

The combination of the whiner and the law breaker have ruined the average Joe's opportunity. The whiners never see the negative result of them "upholding the law" but they cause just as much trouble for everyone as the guys breaking the laws. Go figure.

 

[Wyobohunter]

I'm a hunter liaison for a national wildlife refuge down here. It's mainly duck, deer, and hog hunting - that's what we got. The NWR personnel talk to the hunters when they are leaving the area, we have to check out.

When folks complain - the feds introduce new laws. When 3 or 4 people have the same complaint, they really want to introduce new laws. There are about 400 guys using the resource on a regular basis in this instance.

We get some dude whining about someone parking somewhere, they have to change the parking on the entire refuge. Some guys shooting too often, they restrict the amount of ammo you can carry. Someone doesn't like a guy using a boat motor - yup, you guessed it, they limit motor use. Someone shoots another guy and they close off the entire area instead of banning the guy who did the shooting.

The last time they tried to " really fix it" in response to complaints, they tried to cut the hunter access by limiting permits by up to 30-40% and shortening the season by a couple of weeks. As you can guess, all hell broke loose but we were able to get it fixed with a concerted effort.

Sad thing is that the govt only seem to respond to the whiners. And the whiners always look for stuff to whine about. The "normal" guys who don't do anything wrong are victims in this kind of scenario.

The real answer is not to whine & "turn in the enemy" every chance they get. Pick and choose the battles cause there is a good chance the whiner is ultimately gonna provide a problem for themselves in the future.

An example that was put forth was a road that got closed forever.
Another was yours in that they reduce the hunting permits/opportunity cause of the folks driving closed roads.

The combination of the whiner and the law breaker have ruined the average Joe's opportunity. The whiners never see the negative result of them "upholding the law" but they cause just as much trouble for everyone as the guys breaking the laws. Go figure.

I don’t think this is a good comparison. You are mostly giving examples of peoples feelings about things that are not clear violations of the law. Driving around a closed gate into a non-motorized area is a clear violation. We should not ignore this behavior. Not liking it when another hunter gets “my” camping spot before me, then whining about it to the USFS, would be more akin to the kinds of things you are talking about. That’s how I see it anyway. The difference to me is something that’s inconvenient vs illegal and actually harmful.

 

[Matt Cashell]

The combination of the whiner and the law breaker have ruined the average Joe's opportunity. The whiners never see the negative result of them "upholding the law" but they cause just as much trouble for everyone as the guys breaking the laws. Go figure.

Turning in a violator isn’t whining. It’s civic responsibility. The violator is responsible for their behavior, not those that caught them.

When the non-hunting public sees hunters policing their own it goes a long way to preserving our ability to hunt and fish.

I guarantee those fighting against hunting will be the first to point to guys like QuackAttack as the face of hunting.

 

[westsloper]

You guys can complain about QuackAttack but his attitude is super common and can't be ignored. Tons of people have his attitude and they aren't just trolls. I disagree with him obviously.

Usually there are two possible solutions to people illegally accessing these roads. One is more enforcement of the rules and fines, etc, but Forest Service law enforcement tends to be stretched thin. The other solution is more permanent methods of road closure, basically destroying the road.

If neither of those is an option (when more enforcement isn't an option and the road has to remain accessible for management or other reasons), you just deal with some people breaking the rules and mostly getting away with it.

It's frustrating to walk in and see the tire tracks of people who broke the rules, but you can feel good knowing that by not driving in yourself you didn't make the problem even worse.

 

[Blackcow]

On the 2 Forests by my house, it’s a $5,000 fine individual, 10,000 for organization, or 6 months in jail, or both for driving closed roads. In fact the LEO can issue the same ticket on an open road if the conditions are poor and you’re being an a hole.

 

[Bighorner]

Who cares if a road gets ruts in the winter? That’s totally normal and is fixed with a blade and tractor. I do this yearly

Not that I think I can change your mind, but other people are reading this.

You should care. The cost off fixing thousands of mile of road is pretty substantial, particularly if the nearest BLM office is 60 miles away. It's a really simple choice to close the road as opposed to fixing it. Once it is tore up it continues to error to the point where it takes a wheeler to go where a truck could, and then it goes to foor traffic only, or some dude makes a new road, so now we have two roads washing out. Here a hot tip as well. There is almost always a another way back in there, but it crosses private land. Pretty soon there is campaigning about access. How come they get to drive in there? Well they treated their road with some common sense.

If there is one thing that ticks me off it's people tearing up roads. They will not get fixed and they will be garbage to drive on for the next year.

Some of these roads don't just get fixed. It may be 3" of dirt on top of microwave sized rocks. Once that road starts to wash out there is no fixing it. Guess what, you just lost truck access and it's a pain in the butte with a wheeler.

This is obviously not where ever the heck you are from. You dont just drive the tractor down and fix the road.

 

[QuackAttack]

What good is a road you can’t use? None….


It exists to facilitate access via wheeled vehicle. Literally, the reason it was built.


As you said…thousands of miles? You can’t walk that. It’s too vast.


The only way to cover some of the larger areas and spread out, away from other people, is via ATV.


Road closure is de facto denial of access to the places beyond walking distance.

That’s flat out wrong.

 

[MattB]

Who cares if a road gets ruts in the winter? That’s totally normal and is fixed with a blade and tractor. I do this yearly on miles of dirt road and the state does the same. We should expect road maintenance…we pay taxes.


There is yearly maintenance for boat ramps, dirt roads, trails, and so on.

We have a right to access public land. Roads are how that happens. Closing a road is denial of access. It’s wrong.

You must REALLY hate the concept of wilderness and how wilderness areas are completely inaccessible to you because there are no roads. What a terrible violation of your entitlement.

 

[Matt Cashell]

Your points are legally, ethically, and often logically wrong, but this one is particularly nonsensical:

The only way to cover some of the larger areas and spread out, away from other people, is via ATV.

The only way?

Imagine how spread out hunters can be from other hunters in areas without motorized access at all.

I certainly encourage you to take a public stand though and let the local management agency know when and where the next time you are going to go around a gate, so you can be given proper credit for your protest.

 

[Bubblehide]

I don't agree with quack. However, here in southern Ca, the forest service locks up all the dirt roads with very very very few exceptions (travel routes) once deer season is over. They say it is due to reduce wet weather road damage. 2 to 3 months of dry weather typically goes by before the first storm hits. This practice simply shuts down after season scouting.

This is a frustration here where I live, and significantly limits the areas I scout, until late spring, when they open them back up. In so called, the real reason bvb behind closures, is due to the FS not having the funding to continue patrols. It is simply easier and cheaper to shut it all down. However, here there are areas close to the cities that look like trash dumps (non winter months)

Other parts of Ca, and the nation, areas need to be shut down for a variety of reasons. I am not at all opposed to shutdowns for reasonable reasons.