Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Wyoming access can be confusin!

My wife and I have been doing some driving around our new home, and figuring out BLM, state, federal etc land to hunt. We have an archery only walkin area right down the street and were out yesterday "car scouting".

we came across some confusion! We found a place very clearly marked 3 ways (as in all signs within feet of each other):
1) Walk in hunting area, no motorized access beyond this point
2) Bicycle and foot traffic only
3) Private property no hunting

We were like, hmmmm, can we go there or not

Check the regs for the walk in area. Some are only open certain times and restrictions on access are posted online.
All walk in and HMAs are updated yearly so new areas and any changes will not be out until July.
If it's a walk in area only posted roads will be open.
Don't trespass if not sure, it will make the landowner mad and perhaps pull his access.

Welcome to Wyoming!!

What about "archery only walkin" that's also listed as open for turkey and other birds/small game? Does archery only refer to the deer/antelope and shotguns can be used for birds?

Check out which side of the post each sign is on. Your could be looking at a corner. They all could be true.

Walk in Areas are private land that are leased for non motorized access to hunters. They have specific rules to abide by and are not treated as public land.
1- Parking is limited to parking areas shown in the walk in area map. People are not supposed to (but often do) park anywhere but those areas
2 - These areas are open on specific calendar days, and are not open year round.
3 - These areas are often open for specific animal species, so it may be open for grouse and waterfowl, but not rabbits, deer, elk etc
4 - Here is the link to Walk In Area Hunting. Choose your county, and then your walk in area by number and you will get a map and a table of open dates, open species etc. https://wgfd.wyo.gov/Public-Access/Walk-In-Hunting

Good luck.

Bob......welcome to Wyoming! You’all also find land listed as private and posted.....but, your gps says otherwise! The gps will stand up in court! memtb

If the GPS has an ONX chip it can be wrong and will not stand up in court. I personally know of lands demarked wrong on the ONx maps because our county GIS has it listed differently than it should.
For answers to questions on access for the walk in areas talk with your local GW. Most of our GWs are great folks and would rather help you be legal than write you up.
Also take the time to go to a season setting meeting in your area if you haven't missed them. Great time to talk with G&F folks about hunting areas near you.

Beware some landowners also post land private that is public.

Very popular thing here....especially if they lease to a outfitter selling hunts! memtb

Call the GW and ask about the archery walk in area.
Guess you don't want to mention which on it is one here, might be smart but they are all pretty well known with the info available online.

Bob, not all Walk In Areas are private land either. Quite a bit of it is State land as well. The individual or company who has the grazing/timber/mineral rights to that leased land will petition the Game & Fish to have it declared a Walk In Area. So that now a piece of land that was open to all hunting and fishing is now under the limitations of whichever restrictions that they came up with for that particular Walk In. Which is usually whatever the land leaser wants them to be. Lost a few state sections North of Laramie Peak to that. Only open to late in the season cow tags now.

OnX...

So does that mean the people that has the lease has to walk in too since it is walk in only?

As do some guides.

We were in area 38, I had a guy drive up to us as we were loading a couple antelope in the truck. Tells us we are on private land and he is gonna call the sheriff. So I calmly told him I knew we were on public land, go ahead and call, we will wait right here. He mumbled something about having clients in the truck and then said he would follow us out and show us the posted sign.

We drove to the gate, he then pointed at the No Hunting sign and told us we were in big trouble. Land was still posted as public on the opposite side of the gate and there wasnt a No Hunting sign when we went in. I got out of my truck, digital camera in hand, took a pic of his tag, walked to the gate, took a pic of sign, then pulled sign off of post. Told him I was gonna call Game and Fish and report him. Dude punched it and took off.

I never did make the call, but still wish I had.

the one in particular is right down the road from my house: Johnson 1, we also came across some others and it crossed our mind that Onx, G&F etc say "walk in, archery only" but list pheasant, rabbit, turkey etc, along with deer/antelope. wondering if the archery only is for deer/antelope (note I can see it making sense due to surrounding buildings.

I'll try to get ahold of a local GW!

Already seeing more deer on a casual couple mile walk with my wife than we saw in a few seasons back in NH!

Looks like it may very well be archery only for the birds too. Good question for that GW though. Make some local landowner friends and you'll get some great antelope access. It may work into deer and elk access too.
Glad to hear your seeing deer.

Hawk , was that on the Laramie side in 38? Might have been one of the Kennedy's. They think they own the whole country side and have been trying to get the state lands sold to them.

That is untrue. Trespassing violations are either validated or omitted by law enforcement using ONX. If they can use it to prosecute you, you can certainly use it in your defense.

While you may want to use it in your defense, the ruling is going to be based on what's recorded at the County Clerk's office, not what some third party product is depicting. Sometimes the GIS data they glean from government providers is wrong too, so it gets displayed incorrectly in their product. That's why onXmaps has the disclaimers below.

(c) ALL CONTENT MADE AVAILABLE THROUGH THE SERVICE IS MADE AVAILABLE FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR CONFIRMING THE ACCURACY OF ALL INFORMATION BEFORE TAKING OR OMITTING ANY ACTION. ALWAYS OBEY PROPERTY LINE POSTINGS AND USE COMMON SENSE IN VISUALLY VERIFYING BOUNDARIES, ROADS AND PATHS. DO NOT USE THE SERVICE FOR ANY PURPOSE REQUIRING PRECISE DIRECTION, DISTANCE OR LOCATION.

(d) THE CONTENT MADE AVAILABLE THROUGH THE SERVICE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A LEGAL SURVEY. OWNERSHIP OF LAND, WHETHER PUBLIC OR PRIVATE, MAY CHANGE AT ANY TIME. TO OBTAIN THE DEFINITIVE DESCRIPTION OF REAL PROPERTY, CONSULT THE DEED OR OTHER OFFICIAL RECORD MAINTAINED BY THE APPLICABLE GOVERNMENTAL AUTHORITY.

Wrong, while OnX is an aid, it does not validate anything if there is real data to use. Last year I was involved with an incident where a 5 year old survey line was not properly shown on OnX. Walked with the rancher and hunter out to the new survey markers and they were more than 100 yards off what was projected on all the GPSs involved. Hunter was hoping a bend in the road touched BLM, and in OnX it showed he was good by more than the width of the road.

Exactly, OnX relies on county records and I know for a fact that some lands listed are not correct by OnX. I also know that county websites, GIS, can have inaccuracies also.