Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire State, or Federal Owned Land Where You Live?

Yep, for his restaurants. Although did see where he was selling hunts on a portion for big money.

it's too late for debate now.

the logic and process is moving forward.

who pays?

who receives benefits?

is the agreement fair enough?

if it's not fair, there's hell to be paid?

Thousands of acres of PA State Game Lands/PA State Forests one half hour drive to the north, south, east or west of my house.

Here in New Mexico:

US Forest Service: 9,327,000 acres
BLM: 13,400,000 acres
NM State Trust: 8,700,000 acres

Total open to hunting: 31,427,000 acres = 40.34% of the state.

I'm not sure the percentage of federal, state! I do know, I can hunt for days on end without leaving public land. My guess is I can hunt the land mass of Vermont, Rhode Island and Maryland easily and never step on private land! I want to keep it that way.

Hey Gus,

we all pay for it.

You too.

Come on out West and enjoy YOUR public lands.

Geno

PS, a few hours/ a day's drive will put you in over 500,000 acres on the Allegheny NF. Probably one or two closer to you too. (But we have lots out here for you to enjoy)

PPS matter of fact, come out this month and enjoy Burning Man on BLM land. Folks there would enjoy your perspective on life somewhat.

Washington state

Total state acreage: 42,693,760

Total federal land acreage: 12,173,813

Federal land percentage of state: 28.5%

Number of national parks: 13

Number of visitors to national parks (2012): 7,529,549

Economic benefits from national park tourism (2012): $419,200,000

Payments in Lieu of Taxes (2012): $15,340,025

Payments in Lieu of Taxes (2013): $17,222,833

Pa. 1.5 million acres of State Game lands

Bedford county, has 5 or six tracts. Quick look 2 combined 11,200 acres, one that has 12,000.
Too lazy to search all of them. Add state parks and The Allegheny National Forest.

Game lands are property bought and paid for by license fees over a century.
Managed solely for the benefit of The Pa Game Commision. (Whoops, the benefit of hunters is the official policy.) However, it is used by anyone to recreate, and hunting does not exclude
Others during seasons.

Idaho

Total state acreage: 52,933,120

Total federal land acreage: 32,635,835

Federal land percentage of state: 61.7%

Number of national parks: 6

Number of visitors to national parks (2012): 553,554

Economic benefits from national park tourism (2012): $25,500,000

Payments in Lieu of Taxes (2012): $26,560,218

Payments in Lieu of Taxes (2013): $26,326,163

Area of each state owned by government (federal, state and local combined)

https://www.nrcm.org/documents/publiclandownership.pdf

PA. 4,228,290 acres are owned by government

A little over 1/3 of the land in Colorado is controlled by the Federal government and the sate controls more. The U.S.Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) control millions of acres of land that is open to hunting. There is also some substantial tracts of National Park Service land where hunting is not allowed. Land owned by the State is a mixed bag. Potions of state parks are open to hunting. School Board lands are generally leased to private land owners who contol the hunting rights.

I own 55 acres with State Forest adjacent or nearby. 240 acres of SF adjacent to my East, 280 across the road West, 1000 across the road North. With in 4 miles is access to another 5000 acres. No subdivisions will be built next to me.

Yep love it down here.
Growing up in Maine also.
Schitt loads of public access timber lands and state lands.
Places with all the land locked up must suck.....

I'm surrounded by four National Forests. Most hunters won't go there because anybody can.

Oak???

You got it good man.

Did some time guarding Newport chemical depot 3 weeks after 911
They had 1600 metric tons of vx nerve agent on site.
They was making a plant to deactivate it all and basically turn it into rock salt somehow.

All mature white oak plots and oak travel corridors with big ass cornfields around em also on the depot.

Seen some huge and I mean huge bucks on that place.
160 to 180 B&C class
Lots of em in the 120 - 150 range.
It was fugging killing me at the time cause derr season on ft Campbell starts the 3rd of september.
We was up their till the 1st week of November then the ING took over the mission.

and it will never be paid off,

Those numbers in the doc for Oregon don't jive with what I know and other sources. It shows 31.8%. It's more like 53%.

Maybe I'm misreading it.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42346.pdf

Three generations of my family have made their living logging and wood products industry, so I feel qualified to comment a little on federal ownership vs private. I think up until about 1970, private ownership was a good thing for small communities, hunters and outdoorsmen had free access to millions of acres of private land which produces the best big game habitat It created a lot of family wage jobs and economic vitality in rural areas. Then, it seems several small seemingly unrelated things began affecting that picture. Radical environmentalism, with it's fake science, the packing of federal court benches with active Sierra Club members,tort law mushroomed into an industry of itself, and the management of the US Forest Service began building it's top heavy bureaucratic structure. In the 1960's it took about 3 foresters to prepare, sell and manage a timber sale. The feds actually made money selling the timber, or they at least broke even. Now it takes about 10 people to do the same thing. Foresters, hydrologists, biologists, archaeologists, cultural advisors, soil scientists, zoologists, and a civil engineer. So, for the last 30 years, it cost the taxpayers more to do a timber sale, by far than it earned. And salvage logging after a fire? The Forest Service takes so long to prepare a sale that the burnt timber is rotten and useless before they can market it. So it rots. Meanwhile, private companies have done their legal logging plans and are hauling it to the mill before the smoke has cleared...literally. Private timberland is MUCH more resistant to catastrophic wildfire than public land. So on the face of it, it sounds like private timberlands are the best bet for outdoorsmen. Well, remember above, the tort law industry? Bubba and his cousin throw in the chainsaw, the beer, the deer rifles and head out on private timberland to get a little meat and a little jag of wood maybe. Well they drink all the beer, run off the road, roll the pickup and Bubba gets killed. Damn. But Mrs Bubba and the three lil' ones are contacted by a nice lawyer fella. You can figure the rest, there ain't a dry eye in the jury box and Mrs Bubba and the lawyer fella split the 6 million, from the evil timber owner. So since about 1970, the timber owner gated off and locked up his holdings to the public access. Can we blame him?
It's an axe that cuts both ways, and I don't know the answer. Public vs private?