WY Corner crossing update

[204guy]

I’m glad you feel that your elected leaders have the interests of everyday WY residents at the top of their list, as opposed to large landowners or outfitters. Your right, they deeply care about you. Heck, I bet all Wyoming ranchers, and the outfitters that currently lease their places, would just love to share those previous land locked sections with lots of other non paying hunters- so long as they were fellow residents of Wyoming.

I didn't say nor imply any of that.

 

[Flyjunky]

I’m sure many of you know that every corner doesn’t have a pin.
They can be miles away. Or should I say…. Corners away.

I've written this before, not sure if it was this forum or not.

I have a friend who does forest surveys for a timber company and we talked about this very topic. He told me that more often than not the fences that private landowners use are often not very close to actually being on their land. By not very accurate, he said he was being generous.

If this is the case how can a landowner get away with not having their property properly marked? I thought someone mentioned somewhere that the fence is assumed to be correct, and it's not the landowners fault? Could this be correct?

I would guess that there has to be some law of not having a properly marked piece of property. Wouldn't it be nice to make landowners survey their properties and make sure their fences aren't on "our" public lands? I'm sure it would cost a good amount of money to have their land surveyed and possibly have to move fences.

 

[jmez]

As far as fences, now your going to get into prescriptive easements, eminent domain, adverse possession, etc.

Many years and $$ worth of court filings to further delay anything not clearly surveyed and marked recently.

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[Flyjunky]

As far as fences, now your going to get into prescriptive easements, eminent domain, adverse possession, etc.

Many years and $$ worth of court filings to further delay anything not clearly surveyed and marked recently.

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I guess what I was getting at is there any recourse as far as not having private property correctly marked? To me it seems prosecuting trespassing over some corner a little more difficult if that corner isn’t even possibly correctly marked.

 

[Rich M]

I guess what I was getting at is there any recourse as far as not having private property correctly marked? To me it seems prosecuting trespassing over some corner a little more difficult if that corner isn’t even possibly correctly marked.

Then we get into the argument of who's responsibility is it to have the corner marked. If the landowner isn't using the corner - what do they care?

So, it would fall on Johnny Public to make sure the corner was properly marked - why? cause he's the one who wants/needs to know where it is.

 

[Bighorner]

For all the arm chair lawyers following this, you can not claim adverse possession against the federal government.

 

[jmez]

Good to know, wasn't sure how that worked with public land.

So then the question for the lawyers, who's responsibility is it to make sure fences are on property lines? How is that enforced? We all know, lawyer or not, most fences, and we are talking hundreds of thousands of miles of them, are not on property lines.

 

[Ucsdryder]

I’m sure many of you know that every corner doesn’t have a pin.
They can be miles away. Or should I say…. Corners away.

This heat will become the issue. When I was cruising timber, finding these corners was a royal pain in the ass! Good luck wandering around trying to find one while staying on public the entire time, not according to onx, but to the actual lines. Finding a stake 2” above the dirt sucks! Just waiting until the land owners “accidentally” run it over with the tractor. Or it mysteriously gets pulled up in the middle of the night. Then what?

 

[Bighorner]

Those corner monuments are protected from being disturbed by the law. The law is what keeps honest people from knowingly trespassing.

It's all just hypothetical once we just assume people are not going to follow the law.

There is the Unlawfully Enclosure of Public Lands act, but I do not know enough about how it could be used, only that it is rarely enforced.

 

[Bighorner]

Just waiting until the land owners “accidentally” run it over with the tractor. Or it mysteriously gets pulled up in the middle of the night. Then what?

Then that landowner has knowingly broken the law (it is stamped right on the cap) and then it gets remonumented by a land surveyor following a survey.

It is hard to find monuments sometimes, it's also hard to hike in 3 miles, but lots of people do it to have access to good habitat. Some people won't take the time to go look for them, but once they are found theres a good chance there will be a trail right to it in a few years. We are playing the long game on this one. It's not about one or two seasons we are taking about a big, long term shift in what is avaible to be accessed by the public.

 

[BwanaKubwa]

I didn't read the whole thread but I don't think landowners have any responsibility to mark their private lands as private in Montana. It's on the hunter to know who's land they're on. If corner crossing gets approved it will devalue at least 1 large ranch near me by millions of dollars. The whole place is a checkerboard of state land that is currently off limits. Sure would be interesting

 

[Wyobohunter]

If corner crossing gets approved it will devalue at least 1 large ranch near me by millions of dollars.

I don’t feel bad for the “rancher”. Sure, he may run some, or even a whole bunch of cows. Sounds like a big chunk of his income might come from blocking public access to public land. If that’s the case, too bad. Correct me if I’m wrong about why it’d devalue his ranch.

 

[Packin_packout]

Wasn't there a bill in wyo house or senate to try to stop corner crossing?

 

[Wrench]

For all the arm chair lawyers following this, you can not claim adverse possession against the federal government.

And.....pretty tough to claim prescriptive easment on open spaces with alternate access.

Had that one pulled on me by a neighbor....it ended in expensive disappointment for him.

 

[Rich M]

Good to know, wasn't sure how that worked with public land.

So then the question for the lawyers, who's responsibility is it to make sure fences are on property lines? How is that enforced? We all know, lawyer or not, most fences, and we are talking hundreds of thousands of miles of them, are not on property lines.

There is no requirement to fence a property.

 

[Bighorner]

There is no requirement to fence a property.

Wyoming is a fence out state for cattle, meaning that landowners who prefer not to have livestock on their property are responsible for fencing them out. There is almost always a fence between neighbors, some smaller Federal areas may be fenced in according to grazing leases or the fence may be in a place of convenience, but there is almost always a fence on any tract of any size.

 

[204guy]

Wyoming is a fence out state for cattle, meaning that landowners who prefer not to have livestock on their property are responsible for fencing them out. There is almost always a fence between neighbors, some smaller Federal areas may be fenced in according to grazing leases or the fence may be in a place of convenience, but there is almost always a fence on any tract of any size.

I thought that's why we had the hundreds of thousands of cattle guards?

 

[BuzzH]

I didn't read the whole thread but I don't think landowners have any responsibility to mark their private lands as private in Montana. It's on the hunter to know who's land they're on. If corner crossing gets approved it will devalue at least 1 large ranch near me by millions of dollars. The whole place is a checkerboard of state land that is currently off limits. Sure would be interesting

Oh BS I heard that same crap when Montana passed stream access.

Go try to purchase some land bordering a river in Montana that's "devalued".

 

[Fordguy]

I didn't read the whole thread but I don't think landowners have any responsibility to mark their private lands as private in Montana. It's on the hunter to know who's land they're on. If corner crossing gets approved it will devalue at least 1 large ranch near me by millions of dollars. The whole place is a checkerboard of state land that is currently off limits. Sure would be interesting

This doesn't necessarily affect state owned land, it might if the state chooses to follow the lead of a federal ruling on corner crossing for access on federal lands though.

 

[Bighorner]

I didn't read the whole thread but I don't think landowners have any responsibility to mark their private lands as private in Montana. It's on the hunter to know who's land they're on. If corner crossing gets approved it will devalue at least 1 large ranch near me by millions of dollars. The whole place is a checkerboard of state land that is currently off limits. Sure would be interesting

If my neighbor ever figures out I built my shop on his place and I have to tear it down, that would devalue my place also, so I know where he is coming from.