Which school of thought do you fall into re: hunting w/o permission?

[wyohome]

I wouldn't want people crossing my front yard all day without permission, let alone eating my bean dip. We don't own the animals here, just the land they stand on. BTW, we get a stipend for game harvested on our land as an incentive to let people hunt. This year it is $16 per animal harvested.

 

[zt77]

From a legal standpoint, here in OK it must be posted, whether fenced or not. If not posted the landowner must tell you to leave and that you are not allowed to be there. However, he cannot tell you to leave if you have a valid reason to be there (...oh my cat ran through here and I'm looking for him)

From a moral POV...I like Finland's law....and I don't post signs and don't mind people crossing or hunting/fishing so long as they don't damage anything that's mine. I do go on peoples land and do those things.and legally I can until they tell me not to. If they don't want others on their land they should make it known.

 

[AKElroy]

Well 83% say wrong, period without permission, and only 17% otherwise. You just about have me convinced to change my way of thinking guys; keep it coming.

This is a great thread; it provided an opportunity for me to disagree with you, Doc. I don't think that's ever happened before! As for the statement above, you are not suggesting that morality is established by a poll, are you??

 

[kimbernut]

FL.

I'm not sure how other states operate but in Florida trespass is a misdemeanor. Armed trespass is a felony and they don't play.
I wouldn't want people doing this to me so I would not do it to anyone else regardless of how the law reads.

 

[DeepSouth]

Around here B, C, D, and E, will get you shot at sooner or later.

I don't hunt on someone else's land unless I have gotten permission RECENTLY
(unless they live out of state and I just don't see them often)

EDIT:
Something else to remember is that not having a sign doesn't necessarily mean anything. Lots of the outlaw types simply tear down the signs and walk on, thus softening the punishment if they get caught.

 

[zt77]

EDIT- nvm misinterpretation

 

[wyohome]

This is a rough outline of my friend's property. He owns more to the north, but to give perspective the green rectangle not owned by him is an 80, the triangle is about 18 acres. Could you imagine having to post (and keep posted) that many miles of propertyline/road? The roads through there are public, so there would be hundreds of signs.

 

[ArmedBear]

In Idaho, he wouldn't need to post the cultivated fields, but if he wanted to keep people off the unimproved hillsides that are adjacent to land that isn't his, he'd have to post it somehow. Or he could let people hunt it. His choice.

 

[inclinebench]

I live in an area with abundant national forest. I feel that it is always wrong to tresspass on someone's property, but around here with so much national forest, I could find no reason at all to condone someone tresspassing for any reason.
I own a small bit of hunting land, and after we had someone spot lighting deer (and never retrieveing the carcass), I have the local sheriff and the CO on my cell phone, and I will persue that person legally untill they are broke or in jail.
So in short, I choose A.

 

[wyohome]

The unimproved hillsides are BLM. He has a lease and can't keep people from using it. He moves the cattle off before season. He also lets people hunt after we get our deer and leases the bird hunting rights.

 

[CoRoMo]

Some of you have posted that, your state's position is that the landowner must post signs, for it to be wrong. If I'm interpreting that right, then, the state's position makes it okay to go onto private property and hunt, if the landowner can't manage to apply signage to his property. That just sounds wrong for the state to allow/encourage that behavior. Maybe I've had too much coffee though.

 

[RKRCPA]

How is hunting on someone else's property any different than watching TV in someone else's living room?

 

[DRYHUMOR]

One very important thing to remember.

There is always someone somewhere willing to shoot at a movement or noise without being certain of the target.

If you are on someone else's land YOU could be shot. If you are on YOUR land YOU could be shot. It works both ways.

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=106884&d=1255122227

 

[kanook]

My land is posted and people still hunt it. I will put up signs, Somebody tears them down or steals them. If I put up a fence, I know the deer can jump it. But it may change their pattern.

Oddly enough, if the people asked me, I would probably let them hunt it. But considering I have people poaching and stealing my falled trees, I am starting to change my attitude on it.

 

[BADUNAME37]

How is hunting on someone else's property any different than watching TV in someone else's living room?

I suppose if their living room was out in the middle of the street, I might sit and watch TV, just like I might accidentally cross over onto someone's land by accident if it is not posted. When I'm in the deep woods, the woods all look the same to me. I don't see many fences, signs, people, I don't usually even see any deer.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother hunting.
Oh yeah, I forgot, to get into the fresh air and get a bit of exercise!

I would not walk into someone's house, watch their TV, Take a shower, or whatever!

 

[MCgunner]

God help you if I catch you on my property without permission. You can only pray the game warden gets there in time. You step one foot on someone else's property, sign, fence, or no, it's trespass in this state and there are criminal repercussions. I know one guy's boy that went to state prison for 6 months for it. He was on Kennedy ranch land, no fence, just stepped off the boat onto the land and thought he had a right to the Nilgai there. Expensive lesson. He now has a felony record, yes, that's right, felony trespass.

 

[SammyIamToday]

* Landowners who shoot the game that is on their land, without having purchased a license to do so.

They make you buy a license to hunt on your own land in your state? That sucks. We just report what we take here.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Would you consider it trespessing if someone drove through your yard, had a barbecue, and claimed it was okay because your yard isn't fenced and you don't have "No Trespassing" signs?

People who ignore property owner's rights are the reason so many property owners post their land and refuse permission to hunt.

 

[MCgunner]

We have to have a license to hunt on our own property, even for non-game species like hogs. Main thing is, I ain't payin' taxes on that land so some freeloader can come take game off it. Yeah, I have to pay to keep my own land every year to the tune of 800 bucks! Some dip a**hat thinks they're going to hunt it, I will get REAL radical if I catch 'em. If he has a gun, I could fear for my life. Think about it.

 

[shiftyer1]

Accidents happen when people trespass to hunt. What happens if the owner is also hunting and doesn't know your there? It's not that complicated to ask permission. And in some areas could have lethal consequinces. Is it worth getting shot because you didn't want to give someone common courticy? By your way of thinking, if YOU have a swimming pool in the back yard it's ok for me and all my friends to show up and swim whenever I get the urge?????? As long as you have no sign or a fence? Also straying across a property line while hunting is alot different from intentionally doing it because you want to.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

We have to have a license to hunt on our own property, even for non-game species like hogs. Main thing is, I ain't payin' taxes on that land so some freeloader can come take game off it. Yeah, I have to pay to keep my own land every year to the tune of 800 bucks! Some dip a**hat thinks they're going to hunt it, I will get REAL radical if I catch 'em. If he has a gun, I could fear for my life. Think about it.

Amen.

I had a known meth cooker coming on my land -- and if I had run into that guy with a gun in his hand, well ... I ain't gonna give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

[SammyIamToday]

Oh, I agree with you guys on the trespassing thing, I just can't believe that your states make you buy licenses to hunt on your own land. Just doesn't seem right. Especially with property taxes.

 

[MCgunner]

Sammy, there is very little public land in Texas. If Parks and Wildlife allowed anyone to hunt their own land without a license, they couldn't pay the bills. I'd still have to have a hunting license, though, since I hunt ducks on public WMAs.

 

[ArmedBear]

Before all of you from other places get your panties in a wad, this is a map of Idaho showing National Forests and BLM land. County land is legal to hunt, also, and Fish and Game has Wildlife Management areas in addition to these.



Bottom line? You can hunt in a LOT of places. If it's not obviously private (in city limits, developed, cultivated or posted), then it is generally legal to hunt.

A few people have little parcels in the middle of the National Forests, old mining claims and the like. If they want to keep people off these parcels, they post them. Otherwise, there'd be no way of knowing where they even are when you're out in the woods.

That's what I meant by B. I didn't mean I'd hunt in someone's obviously private land just because I didn't see a sign telling me otherwise.

In Idaho, there's so much public land that landowners know to post their private land outside city limits. If they don't post it, I don't have to carry around plat maps to figure out where their unmarked parcel in the middle of the forest might be.

This isn't Texas, and we are fortunate in that we don't have to own or lease a ranch, to hunt.

 

[DammitBoy]

Hunting someone else's land without permission is unethical and unsportsmanlike.