Much land access has been lost to the public, because of vandalism and failure to leave gates as they were.
Many out here are spread too thin to babysit every hunter.
That's pretty much what happened with my inlaw's property. My FIL would let almost anyone hunt, but he'd have them come by his office, look at the map he had there with a plexiglass sheet over it and mark out the area that the person had permission to trespass on, along with the dates and times. When my FIL passed, my MIL and BIL tried to keep it going, but too many people thought that having had permission to hunt in the past was an open invitation to continue to have acess to the ground whenever they wanted to and with whoever they wanted to bring with them. My BIL lives near the farms and didn't want to get into it with anyone, so my MIL closed it to all trespassing/hunting/trapping and left it to me to enforce it. I didn't live in the area, so I don't have a problem tearing down treestands or blinds and calling the sheriff and/or CO about trespassers. Being the trespassing police is a PITA and has prety much ruined firearms deer hunting for me in Nebraska. Since August 1st I've torn down 3 ladder stands and a stand with climbing poles, about average. I drag them out to the nearest maintained county road, then cut them up with a sawzall and leave the pile for the scrappers to pick up. If they have named on them, I try to contact the owner to let him/her know where his/her tree stand is. They expect it to be in the condition that they left it, but it never quite is. The farms are all fenced and no trespassing signs posted as required, so there is no question about where the boundrys are, all surveyed and marked within the past 3 years.
