Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Federal Lands in the West

Single species of trees is about all that grows there anyway (ponderosa pine) they do plant bitter brush and mountain mahogany for the critters. Never seen them fertilize or spray. They don't plant western juniper, you guys call them cedars, as they are a fricken weed. ED

I know that Soper Wheeler in Yuba and Butte county plants whatever species grow native to their land. ED

No way do I want the public lands to wind up in the hands of a private anybody.. The private land holders have taken the land here from swamp, live oak forest and hardwood ridges to condominiums.

I have been roaming around on federal land in eastern MT for basically my entire life.



The country(BLM/CMR) is probably in better shape now than ever. At least in the last 20 or so years that I've been paying attention.


Why?


Lucky rains and proper grazing programs.



Thing that scares me is executive power, or whatever it's called.

One swipe of the pen and 'save' something and call it a monument.

(read the fine print on some of those 'deals'.....)

Exactly. Sell the land to people like you, or let you lease it from the State. The Federal Government is growing like concrete.

Big corporations aren't people, and that's where it will go.

Also, I bet I can't drive out to Sam's ranch, through his gates and fences and set up my deer camp.

Ever try to hunt on 20,000-100,000 acres of all 20-40 acre ranchettes?

How about hunting massive holes in the ground and scars that were once whole mountain ranges that are now mines? We have too much of that already.

This is what WILL happen if the Feds divest to States out west. Special interests and corporations have too much money and clout, Pat.

The West is vanishing too fast as it is.

I love sam like a bruddah, but for the prime land, he's going to be waaaay down the list of buyers if it came that time.

Mr. Rams, the frac brothers and Ted would be gobbling up Montana like a fat family at the golden corral.

Yes I do earn a good part of my check from folks like that, but I sure don't want to see them own the whole state.

No doubt.


It would be game over.


Impossible now to buy any decent sized acreage unless you have (major)outside money coming in. 20-30 years ago, maybe, but sure as hell not these days.

Those of us that understand the greed of men are all on the same page. Nobody likes or trusts the federal govt, but if the land is not in their control you can kiss it goodbye forever.

So we all agree that they can't run the post office, epa, irs, dot, nasa.....etc, but we want them to run the blm? Pass.

FWIW, most of Washington abd idaho are "tree farms" been harvested and replanted a few times. It's just forest to me.....unless I have to deal with the Forest circus.....then it's a pain in the butt.

Did you see the BLM budget numbers I posted?

They actually make money for the government.

I wish you guys the best. I just don't see how WANTING Obama, and his like, to control your destiny is the smart move.

Out.

That's a red herring, bro. It isn't wanting Obama.

It's knowing the history of the west, and what state politicians are capable of..

In this case the devil we know is better than the one waiting around the corner.

Not to mention Chinese billionaire(and others)s who are licking their lips right now getting ready to buy up your former hunting areas.

I really stake my dase on state that the feds. In the 80's they let the pine beetle not only wipe out national forest in East, TX thru inacation of not cutting a break line they wiped out 2 counties of pine timber and depressed the industry region wide because of it for a decade. Didn't want to spend the time and money to to cut the break on national forest property at a KNOWN pine beetle outbreak and by the time it escaped you couldn't cut a break wide enough it was 1/2 the county in a region where you could drive to withing 1/4 mile of every spot on flat land on the forest. They wind up losing over a million acres, which in the south is a pretty good chunk of land.

Not to mention this was NF land that had been purchased in the 30's and the agreement with the counties were they would give the counties 50$ of timber profits from cutting in exchange for removal from the tax rolls. Well they don't cut anymore, loblolly pine will grow to matuarity, die, and rot standing up because it's a fast growing species. That has become basically their plan. Let it die and rot in place rather than to cut and replant.

Loblolly pine doesn't live that long, 80 - 100 years at most. And they have it on a 120 year rotation when the industry is at 40 years tops now.

These are interesting matters without easy answers.

Freedom of access/use by the public always would be the big issue for me, no matter whether owned/managed by the Fed or the state. To insure such access and avoid profiteering, some smart and upright folks would need to control the terms of any such change and a state would have to step up and continue to do the right things. Would that happen? Probably in some states but not likely in all. My state would be questionable in that regard - we have seem some rotten politics at work.

A person's perspective may be conditioned by living in a National Forest and witnessing up close the attitudes and behaviors (not to mention other features) of the USFS folks and that bureaucracy, as well as the local BLM operations, and as well as the several other Fed and state departments/programs that "cooperate" with the Fed entities. This can be messy - and deleterious. Then - there are the deemed closures and restrictions, the big fires and all the behavior that comes with those, etc., etc.

Some local land is owned/run by the state and that seems well done - but I would not extend such an expectation to any big Fed land taken over by the state.

The problem I have with the blm is getting locked out of what has historically been public land here in Idaho and Washington. If the blm, which produces nothing except fines, fees, rules and regulations can make money by doing nothing, the state should be able to do the same.

If you are worried about it, impose a no sale on public land act....done deal.

This has been discussed at length on several forums. It would only take another act or legal maneuver to reopen the state lands to sale.

I'm sure I have told the story of when I worked for the USFS in college during the summer. I was hired to go out and cruise timber and basically see what was happening in stands. The reason the silviculturist (the person whose job it is to set when timber sales are, thinnings, burns etc..) was he plead guilty to being part of a $400k timber theft ring or whatever you call it.

The judge ordered that he couldn't set foot on the national forest any longer. But the USFS didn't fire him. Instead they hired me to do his job for him while he sat in the office. They made him move to another national forest. So instead of driving 30 minutes east every day he drove 30 minutes west and didn't have to move. Knew the same people he was involved in with the timber theft etc....

Federal government at work.

The problem is, its not unknown. All we need to do is Look at Texas and see what will happen..No thanks.

You may dig leases,game farms,corn flingers,time slot hunting and all that glamour that comes with buying your hunt..We dont.

Some still like to put on a pair of boots and hunt vast acreage of land, without ranchets,different landowners and fences every mile.those that dont go to Texas.