Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Corner crossing

I'm not sure what the issue here is, we had to go to court years ago to get access to an inside eighty. A high priced mess, lawyers, surveyors.

I would hope it would go back to the intent. Was it intended to be public land or was the intent the land owner could control the public land?

and THAT is what nobody seems to want to touch.

Some sections were never intended to be public land, they just reverted to the government when homesteaders failed.
Some sections were intended to be state trust lands to raise revenue for schools, but access was not included.
Some were intended to produce forests, as revenue.
And some were created as grazing lands.
I think the concept of “ public land” is somewhat of a misnomer.

Many parcels of land were actually set aside for a specific purpose. The secondary use just happens to be a benefit, and probably should not be viewed as a right.

Somebody or somebodies with a vested interest for their own benefit got the ear of people in the goodole boy govt law network back in the day to make things like this happen. All across america in most cases it seems.
Same issues here in Tn with state and fed lands being inaccessible by surrounding private landowners.
Basically they consider they own it for their own use carte blanche.
Cause it is the way it has always been for them.
And they know the massive legal action to grant a ROW cost huge benjamins and John Q public aint gonna pay to have it done.

JMO....

It's a catch-22, the corner, if you go by the "4 points" argument early in the thread, is both public and private and it comes to air space, so my foot is on public as I step over the corner, but to get there my foot and body take up to much space, so I'm in both. Which wins?

The taking clause is interesting, because is gives all benefit to the private. the only way this will work for "taking" is a lowering of property taxes, anything else will spiral into unaffordable. By "taking" you are dropping teh property value of many of the private values. That's the guts of it. REgardless of how we got here, the land is worth extra BECAUSE of the landlock.

Bob,
You mean the private "locking" land is worth more?

Because land locked (flag lots w/ an easement for the pole) are sometime worth less.
But it depends on the frontage situation. Sometimes there is a premium to be insulated from a busy road...

Blue Duck,
If you can figure out intent then there may be another option. I know in some states there has been a push for easements for water access (usually "significant" water bodies, vs. trout streams). This is probably a "waters of the state/republic/commonwealth" issue, so the parallel would probably be based upon established intent where public access was included..

Idaho, like many states, has a recreational easement on all navigable waters in the state. It allows free access within the normal high water lines. Navigable in Idaho is basically defined as any water big enough to float a float tube or a 6" log.
This opens up all but tiny streams to public access through private land as long as you stay within the high water marks. If the stream is somehow blocked by a fence, irrigation dam, or other obstruction, you have the right to leave the high water lines long enough to get around the obstruction.

We have a premier fly fishing stream north of here named Silver Creek that passes through quite a few miles of private land. Back in the '70's one of the landowners fenced it off and posted it as he was tired of fisherman on his land. At that time it hadn't been officially recognized as navigable even though it's considerably larger than other recognized streams. A co-worker of mine and 2 of his buddies took float tubes and floated it just to prove it's navigable. They got the job done and the landowner was forced to reopen it.

Thanks Rock Chuck that clarifies /parallels what I referred to as "Waters of the x/y/z"

Where I was going with the easement angle is that some states were working on water access easements. Basically a corridor down the property line of 1 out of x parcels to reach the water... sort of a undeveloped boat/canoe launch...

I imagine it would be rather controversial but it would provide some measure of access...

https://www.onxmaps.com/pdf/PublicLands_Report_2019.pdf

If people want to read the on x report.