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

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 to a couple 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 small, seven acre lake on my own 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 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 share.

The 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 in the combine broken during pheasant season.

Then, there were 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.

Amazing, ain't it?


I can't tell you how many times I've heard 'I didn't know this was your property' to which I always reply 'But you knew it wasn't yours, and that's all that should matter'

OH ! I didn't think anyone lived here!
Really? with smoke coming from the chimney and dogs barking in the yard?
we use the orange markers where we don't want people and don't use them where we don't care. works mostly.
don't see a need for a new law. new laws are never good.

I will say, after Utah went to it's new trespass law, that requires permission for hunting any cultivated or irrigated land regardless of posting, my problems have gone down about 90%. Prior to that, trespassers always wanted to argue that the property wasn't properly posted. Even if they were the one that had just stolen the sign.

love seeing all the comments from people who don't seem to know what the hell they are talking about. in the west, in public lands states with some common sense you can generally tell whats private and what isn't based on the terrain and looking at the land.

I could take you to property boundaries around here where there is nothing to denote private/public land. Sure there are places where it is obvious. And there are places where it appears obvious, but isn't. And it goes both ways. Lots of land appears private but isn't. And I'm born, raised, and lived my whole life in public lands states.

Like Chet wrote earlier it amazes me all the "conservative" folks on here that think private land owners should be forced to mark their property to keep folks off.

Idaho is a patchwork of private and public land. Fences don't count because there are lots of fences on public ground for grazing allotments. There are small patches of odd shaped private land in some very peculiar places with no way whatever to sort them out. I don't know the history of how many of them got to be private. Some might be old defunct mining claims or maybe line camps.