- Joined
- May 2, 2001
- Messages
- 7,487
I made 2 trips to WY hunting big game this fall. Both times I was hunting on various areas of public land and also scouting for public land to hunt on next year. I bought and used BLM maps which of course show state and federal land.
When you read these maps you assume you understand pretty well where the private land starts. After all the map is to scale and you can simply count miles on your car's odometer to see where it starts. But when you approach the area in your car and later when you have wandered on the public land for a while you start to realize that in some areas it just isn't that easy...or even possible to tell if you are still legal. For example, if there is some public land next to private, there may not even be a fence between the two pieces. If the rancher is grazing on the public he doesn't even have incentive to ever build a fence (that would delineate boundaries) between the public and his private.
I am curious to have a little discussion on this subject. Of course if you are hunting inside of huge blocks of public this is a non-issue. But how many of you are sometimes frustrated with the difficulty I had in some of the areas I hunted or scouted?
When you read these maps you assume you understand pretty well where the private land starts. After all the map is to scale and you can simply count miles on your car's odometer to see where it starts. But when you approach the area in your car and later when you have wandered on the public land for a while you start to realize that in some areas it just isn't that easy...or even possible to tell if you are still legal. For example, if there is some public land next to private, there may not even be a fence between the two pieces. If the rancher is grazing on the public he doesn't even have incentive to ever build a fence (that would delineate boundaries) between the public and his private.
I am curious to have a little discussion on this subject. Of course if you are hunting inside of huge blocks of public this is a non-issue. But how many of you are sometimes frustrated with the difficulty I had in some of the areas I hunted or scouted?
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