Trespassing / Posting Public Land Stories

[Bubba94]

OK, I'll take the bait. I have had quite a few.

Years ago was hunting public that stretched into private. Shot a nice mulie. Was quartering it out when the rancher's son comes up telling me that I owe him $5000 (roughly 1997-ish dollars) for that deer, his client was going to shoot it, etc.. I showed him the map, with the right color of land, the GPS coords. He started yelling and I told him to call the sheriff, I would be making a few packout trips and they could just apprehend me on the way out and I'll pay him his money if I'm wrong. He walked off huffing and puffing.

Was on public land and shot a white tail and a guide comes driving up cross country with a suburban load of clients/dudes and he bails out yelling that I took a deer from his paying clients. Showed him a map, told him he's driving and guiding on public land and harassing a hunter. His clients kept asking him to calm down. I knew his dad, where he worked in the electrical trade and he finally drove off. He is or was in the hunting video business. Actually a good dude, just a bad day.

In Eastern MT was antelope hunting on BLM way off the road. Across the sagebrush, comes an outfitter's truck. Easily recognizable outfitter company from the logo on the door, took a picture, called the warden and asked him exactly what would happen once it was clear that he was breaking the law and the warden starts lecturing me about rights, guiding business challenges, etc..

Was on state land bird hunting. A guy comes up on a four wheeler and asks me what I'm doing, and did I know his ranch dog could kill my city/hunting dog. I asked him to please keep his dog under control, hope it doesn't come to this but I will protect my dog and what does he want to do now? He drives off. I was in the same car a year later hunting antelope nearby. Come back to the car with the rear window broken out. The car was way off the road so it was done on purpose. I called the sheriff, told him about the psycho up the road, how it could have been anybody - but had to be him, that there would be no proof obviously. Sheriff called back saying there were several complaints, one person had a picture of him doing it, got busted. From then on I called the guy, told him I'd be hunting public near his ranch, just wanted him to know and could I bring him anything from town and it has gone well for 15+ years.


If this happens again, and it will, I'll bring out my cell phone, turn on video and start recording and tell whoever's squealing that this conversation is being recorded, is being uploaded to the cloud as we speak and know that everything that's being said will be available.

As we all know, there are insane people out there looking for hero shots to raise their creds for whatever reason - and some of them have lost all reason. There are mostly wonderful people out hunting and I do enjoy running into people way off the road, but only non-crazy people!

Thanks for your stories.

 

[S-3 ranch]

I was on a private ranch in colarado unit 83 , and we saw some people
up above timber line watching / hunting sheep in a drainage, the LO
called the game warden, he came and watched a couple of days,
about 3am one night we heard people outside the cabin, it two locals driving up the only road that went to the top
coming to resupply the “ sheep hunters “ a license plate was taken
and given to the warden and county sheriff office.
some tickets where written and criminal trespassing charges brought

here in Texas you trespass with a weapon and it’s a automatic felony charge, we never get any lip from poachers/ trespassing

 

[NickKreutz]

Saved up some money and bought a nice piece of farm/hunting land close to my parents farm. First hunting season I owned it, I was walking in down the road with my bow to hunt my elk stand and I see a truck come up a trail from the river bottom on my land, stop by where I've got a trail camera then proceed to come past me on the road. i stand in the middle of the road and stop them, and get their story. They are also "elk hunting", hadn't seen the no hunting signs, and asked if i had heard someone shooting on the other side of the river, which i hadn't. I tell them to screw off and don't come back and to not be doing that anywhere else. I was being lenient because they were young and dumb and i thought i was setting them straight.

When i get to my camera, i notice the salt block i had put out was missing and there was the perfect set of photos on my camera of this idiot getting out, picking the block up and putting it in his truck. I was PISSED. I walked back to my car and catch up with them at the gas station at the closest town and as soon as they see me they high tail it out of there.

The next day i'm out on my land again and go across the river following their tracks and see that they had gunned down a pair of porcupines (illegal where im from) and tore down every no hunting sign they came across.

My dad got all worked up, called the conservation officers and the kids parents and the next time i went out my salt block was sitting in the middle of the road. Not sure if it was the COs or my dad that got it sorted out more effectively.

 

[Will_m]

I like when I bump into people and they tell me they have permission from the owner to be there.


After a while of their jabbering I tell them I am the owner.

I do this too…..except I’m never the owner.

 

[Ucsdryder]

Used to hunt a duck club that had a creek border. The club flooded every year, some years would be 6-8' under water. Guys thought they were entitled to hunt the high water line once the water receded and would trespass. Called the sheriff and hed set them straight and they'd move down the creek and try and pull the same stunt on the next club. We would have to go pull all the deeks at the first sign of flood stage because these same gang would steal the decoys because they were left on a "navigable" body of water.
I've also found hundreds of no trespassing signs here in California and all across the west on public property

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Sounds like you were hunting the sutter bypass?

 

[amassi]

Sounds like you were hunting the sutter bypass?

Butte sink, club backed up to butte creek.

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[Ucsdryder]

Butte sink, club backed up to butte creek.

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Ah the butte creek! possibly the most argued over stretch of water anywhere in the US!!!!

I hunted inside the sutter bypass and outside. Picked up a lot of decoys in my boat floating down the bypass when it flooded.

 

[Bubblehide]

I have ran into the " No hunting or trespassing on private property behind this sign". The problem is the signs are a half mile from the private property. Very misleading if you ask me. The sheriff said it is perfectly legal.

No it's not. Public lands have legal time limits you can leave private property on it (some exceptions for moving it).

 

[Still Hunter]

We Hunted a Panhandle of National Forest between two ranches for several years. One of the ranches , whose owner is a billionaire and politically connected bought the Panhandle. We were informed of it. For the next few years hunters were repeatedly entering the panhandle using old maps. We still hunted near the area and we would inform guys that we saw were trespassing. They thought we were full of it. OnX had it updated within two years. So after that the OnX came in very handy. The ranch owner clearly identified the borders and marked them but the hunters would walk right through. After three years the Rancher is now pressing charges. As a hunter, I highly recommend updating your maps annually.

 

[Sherman]

a long time ago my father, who is a state game warden and I drew pretty coveted tags in northeastern california. we were hunting an area very well known to be public land and a group of men approached us and started telling us we were on private property. My father was in plain clothes as we were hunting. he played it coy for awhile and listened to them. asked for them to show us on the map where we where and just kind of went with it for awhile. He politely pointed out where we were on the map and how that we disagreed with their evaluation of our location. They started to get a little more aggressive and threatened to call the game warden. At that point my father pulled his badge, told them they already had the warden and my dad pulled out his handheld radio and called the local game warden who we had already been in touch with earlier that morning. The guys tried to back peddle pretty quickly and got very scared. I remember my father actually telling them they were at that point being detained. which for a 13 year old kid got pretty nerve wracking. My dad was pissed. The local warden showed up and new the men well and they knew him. I was very relieved when he showed up because up to that point it was my dad and I faced off with about 6 guys. Turns out these guys had a high paying client who wanted a specific deer that had been living on their private ranch and this client had bought a Private Land Management (PLM) tag from them. That deer had apparently wandered off the property and we were close to him. (we never saw it) I cannot remember everything that happened after that but these guys were prosecuted and I think that ranch lost their PLM tags over all of this.

This one made me feel good. Instant karma.

 

[Loggerdude]

I think it’s Elk Fit on YouTube, New Mexico rancher has a hired hand x law enforcement telling the hunters it’s leased state land and no hunting allowed. They call fish and game and the information the ( hired hand has said is not accurate ) all recorded. So ONX wins again. Oh it just so happens the land owner is the largest land owner in the state and has been cited for hazing with a helicopter in the past

 

[Bighorner]

I just leave this here. The law protects both ways and it's your own fault if you dont know the laws and call in law breakers.

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title43/chapter25&edition=prelim

 

[Silveroddo]

We’ve got a few hundred acres in the family surrounded by state and county TFL land, there is a neighboring private 40 that borders us, to the north is a county 80, our land is directly east of it. My uncle was hiking the county tfl and found several no trespassing signs on the west line, directly north of the neighbors, but a 1/4 mile west of ours. Funny thing is they had our name on them……..

 

[Southern Heritage]

3 things. First I duck hunted a piece of public with river access only to find it posted one day. I call the core of engineer and give them the gps coordinates and they say it’s there land. I check it two or three more times and it’s always posted. The next year I go out there no signs and fresh new red paint clearly done by the core. Fast forward three years later I’m a DU event and the ol Pres of our chapter talks about posting his favorite core land on the river to keep people off.
Second in North Dakota I saw people take 5gal buckets with no hunting signs set in concrete and put on fields with ducks hitting it. That gets more and more commen each year.
Third Im the trespasser/ poacher. I’m duck hunting the Mississippi delta On our lease. The farmer comes by says there ducks all over his catfish ponds. Y’all go hunt them if you want. We go over there and find 5 ponds on the boundary that are drained and full of grass with Water to about knee high( I don’t find out until the next morning) . 1000’s of mallards Are hitting them. We set up in a Pond the next morning and about 2 min before shooting light and spread full of green heads already, 2 officers and the actual land owner show up. He was pissed and raising cane telling the officers to throw us in jail etc. We Are sick and confused. Showing him the lease we have with the farmer etc. farmer was called he shows up apologizing. He forgot to tell us he sold those ponds.
mossy oak had Bought or leased them and had a camera crew set up on another one filming a show.
I still feel bad about that. The farmer did the same thing to more of our guys another weekend. Needless to say I got out of that club.

 

[minengr]

What's fun is when someone calls the GW on you. Several years back, after months of behind kissing, I talked the land manager into letting me hunt a piece of company property. It had a locked gate, and I parked inside the gate at the same spot several times before being stopped. One evening I pull out of the gate and I'm greeted with flashing lights. The GW had to have been parked waiting and watching me from somewhere. After a phone call to the land manager I was let go without incident. However, I'm quite certain one of the local "hunt clubs" or a lease holder called me in. No one has had permission to hunt that ground in years and I don't think they wanted anyone messing up their paid hunts. I think it was acting as a small refuge for the surrounding properties and they were being leased for big cash. It had some monsters on it, they just never got within bow range. Worst part of leaving that job was loosing permission to hunt there. If I'd had one more season I'm sure I would have killing something really nice.

 

[BuckSmasher]

In the late 90's when I was a teenager I found an easier way to access this swampy piece of public land in Texas that had tons of deer and hogs. When I got there it was gated and locked even though map showed access, talked to the owner and he said, "If I was gonna let anyone access it, it would be you thank you for stopping and asking but I have had too much trouble". It always bothered me that it looked like it should be a piece easily accessible. Five or 10 years later in my mid 20's heading out for a evening hunt I see a federal game warden, stop to pull in and ask him about the legality of access on this parcel and he brushes me off and says if there is a gate don't do it. Proceeds to give me a ticket for having rounds in my rifles magazine because the WMA was on both sides of the road where he was when I stopped to ask him a question. Fast forward another 5 years and the gate is open and land is CLEARLY marked as public. Swampy and thick so I walk the cleared fenceline heading to my hunting area. Landowner comes up in a truck, demands to know why I am planning on poaching, and warns me to get out. I say no way. He wants to get combative but a passenger in his truck calms him down. That afternoon I could hear him driving his property line honking. A few weeks later I am hanging out with my buddy who was a cop in the county and there are Game Wardens in his 'cop shop'. I tell them the story from the beginning and they tell me that it was a long running story with that landowner and the national forest had to sue him to quit locking the gate, they apoligized for the the federal GW being suck a jerk. Yet later still, I learned the guy was using that piece of public as his own, ran cows on it and set up feeders, just wanted to keep it as de-facto private. What a jerk.

 

[rclouse79]

I have ran into the " No hunting or trespassing on private property behind this sign". The problem is the signs are a half mile from the private property. Very misleading if you ask me. The sheriff said it is perfectly legal.

It sounds like the sign was posted on public property and it would also be perfectly legal to remove it?

 

[FLATHEAD]

Got invited on a hog hunt in S. central florida by a family member (cousin in laws).
Supposedly grandpaw owns a lot of land. Long story short, after driving around all
morning across pastures and through orange groves we end up killing a few.
As we're loading them up I look waaaay across a pasture and somebody is standing
beside their truck with their binos watching us.
I asked family member if we were still on grandpaws land? His response was "I dunno,
we better get out of here". Me "Oh Crap"!!
Get back to the house and process the hogs and as we're leaving down a one lane county
road here comes Florida FWC,, We wave and keep driving.
Why that guy didnt pull us over was an absolute miracle.
At least 6 months off my life right then and there.
Havent hunted with that guy since. Prolly 25 years ago.

 

[Elkdreamer]

It sounds like the sign was posted on public property and it would also be perfectly legal to remove it?

I have no idea. The sheriff and I were standing next to the sign when he said it was legal. Also stated a retired leo owned the property. Dont say!

 

[rclouse79]

Finding a waterhole in my antelope unit can be a real bugger on public land. After heading out the day before it was legal to place your blind I checked over ten different holes on public and they all had a dude on a four wheeling camped out on them. After I told my buddy about my fruitless search for a waterhole he put me in touch with a landowner.
I ended up putting my blind on public land that could only be accessed by private, or a very long walk through public. I left my name, phone # and hunt # on the blind as required. Before the start of the season I got a very aggressive phone call from a guy who had found my blind. He let me know the only way to access that spot was through private and demanded to know how I got in there. It was funny listening to the wind go out of his sails when I dropped the name of the land owner and let him know he had given me permission. It turns out he had permission from the other landowner who could access it. He proceeded to let me know he had been hunting that spot for years and wasn't happy with me being in there, but he guessed I could hunt it. It was all I could do to keep from laughing, based on the fact it was public land.
I bit my tongue and kept things friendly. I now have his number saved in my phone and contact him if I draw the tag so we can coordinate blind placement and hunting days. I figure it is best to keep things civil when possible in hopes of avoiding things like vandalized or stolen gear.