Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Idaho Legislation considers new tresspass bill

MS tax maps are often purposefully offset. Now the amount they are offset is often very little, but I have seen them off by as much as 20 feet. They purposefully offset them so nobody tries to use them as a survey map.

Most MS tax maps have warnings and disclaimers too. Here's one.

Users of this mapping service are hereby notified that the aforementioned public primary information sources should be consulted for verification of the information contained on this map. Harrison County and the Mapping Contractor assume no legal responsibilities for the information contained on this map.

Wow, butthurt much are we?
I've read that same point several times now..'landowners illegaly posting land as thier own.' I've yet to see it once here, but I imagine it does happen.
I suspect that 95% of the time it's the other way around. Trespassers doing what they do.
And I know that with your attitude, you're absolutely the type of guy we want nowhere near our place.

Whatever happens with this law situation, we'll be very diligent with the posting this year and we'll enforce it. And we're presently organizing "posting" with all of the neighbors (some who own big acreage) around here. So far 100% agreement.

Posted property issues are not solely related to our hunting activities. Nearly every facet of outdoor recreation has it's bad apples. Fishermen, rock hounds, geo cachers, atv users, photographers, pot hunters, and druggies are all out there, and there are always a few bad ones in the crowd.

Ranchers used to maintain reasonably stocked line shacks (typically on small unfenced deeded parcels) all over the west. Standards were if one truly needed it, one was welcome to use such with expectations of replacement, some form of payment, or maybe just a thank you note. Today, such will be vandalized and any form of useable gear ripped off within a month. The same goes with the 99-year cabin leases on forest lands. Doors will be caved in and the place trashed. Our local scout troop has an inholding cabin within USFS property. Over the years, they've hiked in several times to find squatters have essentially moved in. Not just hermit types, but sometimes entire families. If not the squatters themselves, then a month's worth of garbage left and the expected stack of firewood fully consumed. We once considered acquiring a cabin, but in todays world we'd have to be there 24/7 to keep it secure.

Admittedly, I've cursed a few property owners. One can be traversing thousands of acres of public ground and suddenly be stopped by a locked gate blocking the road after someone fenced their 40 around a spring. One might have to do a 15 mile detour to get around, and you can see the opposing gate about 400 yds down the road. The owner may not show up for years, but I fully understand their anger at finding garbage, a carcass floating in their spring, the facilities burned, or a well pump destroyed or vandalized. I'm one that usually learns the lesson the first time, and I would subsequently go after trespassers big time if the property was mine.

A distant acquaintance ranches along a remote section of Oregon's Deschutes River. His boundary markers and signs are ripped down about as fast as he can put them up by floaters and fishermen. His worst was a couple targets placed immediately in front of a stack of irrigation pipe with about 30 lengths shot up. That gets expensive. I've been on a couple ride-alongs with him, and when he finds a trespasser he is the nastiest meanest SOB on the earth even if she looks like Bo Derek in her 20's. Similarly, we had a local gentleman who has since moved away, but he was famous for getting after trespassrs on his 160 in the forest. He'd step from behind a tree and stick a 45 in their ear, seize their guns if they were packing, and tell them where to find them when leaving. Never once was he bothered by legal issues, and he upset a bunch of people over the years.

It is sad that society has dropped to today's level, but I side with those that hold title and feel it's my responsibility to know where I am. I can't remember which state it relates to, but seems there are some that even prohibit corner hopping in checker board situations. That's one that would really get my goat.

You are absolutely right that trespassers and slob hunters are getting worse and worse. I've spent several thousands of dollars replacing windows in pickup trucks and our shop building that were shot out by duck "hunters" floating the river. They were all "duck commando's", I guess. Yes, that property is posted at the high water mark. Yes, people tresspass anyway. Yes, we have the sheriff on speed dial. I've had people fishing the dam raceways......!

In all those years, I not recall EVER having a tresspaser face any real consequences, other than a talking to by the sheriff. Which is probably the real reason why we're having this problem.

That's a different issue that bumming aroud the back country and walking across a mining claim that hasn't been active in a couple of decades, or has never been active. With property lines that make no logical sense. Or a long abandoned homestead in the middle of a state school section. Or a piece of private timberland or dry ground in front of a piece of BLM or Forest Service land.

Yes, times have changed, yes, technology has changed. There still isn't a need to keep people of every piece of private company. Public access to private land has a millenia long history. What hasn't changed is that there is no need for this bill.

What has changed is the lack of enforcement of trespassing. I see this bill as a knee jerk reaction that makes things worse for everyone except law-breakers, and the law breakers aren't going to change until the trespassing violations, and vandalism violations are actually going to be prosecuted and punished.

And, FWIW, I have contacted my represntatives and senator. No response.

Been a couple of weeks now, did it pass the ID house and go to the Senate?

Geno

It's been kicked back and forth. It's currently in the agricultural affairs committee. There are supposedly some serious constitutional concerns with it as it's now written.

Out here, the forest service is the managing agency and the BLM is the administrating agency for the National Forests....the green/white checkerboard on land status maps denotes white for private and green for public...most of the private land in the national forest here is from land grants to the railroad companies back in the day.... today,it is owned primarily by "fruit growers" aka "Sierra Pacific" until it is logged and then some of it is retained and some sold to large investment and insurance companies....unless a person were to check the land status maps at the BLM, then go to the county recorder to see who actually owns it, you wouldn't have a clue it was private land. Enforcement of trespassing laws (for unposted land) within national forests, would effectively shut down ANY outdoors activities in them around here....

Just like Colorado.

Thanks RC,

Geno

It appears that an amended version of the bill passed into law last week.

As an interesting side note, the AG's office is worried that the new trespass law, when combined with the new "Stand Your Ground Law" may create some dicey situations for trespassers.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article204633849.html

The subject of fences has come up repeatedly. Using fences as a form of land ownership identification in much of the west is useless. The BLM and FS both have hundreds of miles of fencing across public land to separate grazing allotments. A lot of private rangeland isn't fenced. I use a Huntx gps map and it doesn't show all fences, or all roads for that matter.

A bill quietly back by Texas billionaire brothers Farris and Dan Wilks that bought at least 175,000 acres of Idaho forest
Seems they want to make Idaho like Texas, and have been hiring guys to run folks off.
So who will pay for when their land catches fire, as all forest does sooner or later?
If the taxpayer is shut out of the land use, it damn well should not be taxpayer money used to fight fire on their land.
Fug em, let it burn

I am a little confused. If the Wilks brothers now own 175,000 acres of private land in Idaho, are they not also 'Idaho Tax Payers'?

If you do not allow the public to use your house and yard, should the fire department let your house burn if it catches on fire?

There is very little if any public hunting in Texas. You own or pay for a lease. It ain’t really that big of a deal. I like the idea of knowing who I’m hunting with. I wouldn’t like being set up to hunt and some Dumass wanders across the place I’m hunting. I guess if you grow up with free hunting, the idea of pay hunting would bother you.

Thanks for the update Chet,

This sounds familiar, kinda like "we have to pass it so we can know what's in it", to paraphrase a certain person re: Obamacare I believe?

“What I would ask is we give this a try and if sportsmen are being abused by landowners, or we find things that don’t work, then next year we bring forth a bill to correct that,” Boyle said before the vote.

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/...tics/article204633849.html#storylink=cpy

Yeah, right! We'll fix it next year if it don't work.

I'll not believe a politician.

Geno

I have never paid to hunt and never will.
I live in free America, not Texas

Around here there are more hunting and hunters than most place, but still most here are not hunters. My biggest problem with trespassers is atv and snowmobile traffic. I've had some trespassing hunters, but a tiny number compared to the riders. Do the trespassing problems in Idaho come mainly from hunters?

From what i have read in the news, it has not been hunters on Wilks land.
They bought land that has been owned by company's that were in the lumber business, that always allowed public use, just like the Natl. Forest that adjoins their land, and now want that to change.
It;s their land, that's their right, but if the public use is gone, so should be any public paid for assistance,

OK I agree, let the local FD show up just like they will for me or anyone else.
That help with the confusion?

I know on my land, the vast majority of trespassers are hunters. As an avid hunter myself, I am always amazed at the number of guys that will lie, cheat, steal and otherwise make a fool out of themselves in the name of shooting a bird. I could fill at least twenty pages with stories of trespassers, but I will limit it to a few of the more notable ones.

I grew up on a large ranching operation in Central Utah. We had several thousand geese that would spend the fall on the crop aftermath from October through January. My Dad is not a hunter and would not allow others to shoot the geese, as he enjoyed having them on the farm. So, for at least a couple of months each fall, about 40-50 rigs would park along the public road between the farm and the lake and sky bust the geese as they flew over. Sometimes the birds were well over 100 yards up, so the 'Hunters' would use buckshot, which is entirely illegal. At least twice a week, Dad would make me go pick up the dead geese out of the field that had been wounded and later died. I would usually get about 10 each time. Dad would call the fish and game, and they would send a warden who would tell the people to leave, but they all claimed to be humble birdwatchers according to the warden. He would catch a couple in the act each fall, but it was never enough to make them leave.

These guys would tear down signs as fast as we could put them up. One time, my Dad decided to make 'No Trespassing' signs out of 4x8 sheets of plywood and wire them to T posts in the field. They were all gone the next day.

Fast forward to about ten years ago when the State of Utah passed it's 'Hunter Harassment' law. This emboldened hunters everywhere, including on my own property. I have a small, seven acre lake on my farm, which has a hot spring that draws ducks and geese in the winter. I got up one morning and went to check the cows on my ATV. I drove past the lake and the geese, that had roosted there overnight, took off and headed for the nearby wildlife refuge. About a hour later, two policemen arrived at my house. I had been reported for hunter harassment. Apparently, some guys had snuck in on the railroad right-of-way, (which is trespassing as well), and were hidden along my fence line. When I spooked the geese, it made them fly in the wrong direction, so the hunters couldn't shoot them. They were so angered by my actions that they reported me to the police.

Then there was the time that I asked a trespassing pheasant hunter to leave. He screamed the F-Bomb at me and told me to get lost. I told him that Utah is 60%+ public land, and suggested he had better go hunt there. He then told me the hunting on the public land wasn't as good as what I had and that he couldn't see why I wouldn't just share.

Then there was the cow that I had to put down as her entire left side was full of shotgun pellets. Her rumen was hissing and wheezing like a sucking chest wound. There have been at least ten wheeline sections shot up. The front window of the combine broken during pheasant season.

Not to mention the feral cat commandos that shot my wife's cat in the field below the house while trespass pheasant hunting.

My favorite, though, was the guy who was sneaking through the wheat stubble on his belly, trying to get close enough to a flock of geese to take a crack at them. He was using a large tumbleweed for cover, which I had noticed kept moving from the house. I let him crawl about 800 yards, then decided he had had enough fun. I hopped in my 4WD John Deere, which was already hooked to my 24" tandem disk, and started tilling up the stubble. At first, he hunkered down and didn't move, so, I make a pass about forty feet from him. Then, I make a pass about twenty feet from him, then I squared him up, and bumped the tractor up to about 5 mph. As I got closer, he started to fidget. When I was about 30 feet away he jumped up and started running for the fence, where the local sheriff was waiting for him.