Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting So You Want To Hunt Out West

I have hunted Wyoming since 2000. I had to stop because the rancher closed it down for the last 2 years because of the lack of deer. This year my wife and I decided to not go. It costs just $800 to hunt. I didn’t think that was bad!

I don’t really mind being called wrong or idiot or whatever as long as gets people involved sharing information and hopefully solutions. But I really don’t think this is a phantom problem — it’s real. Anyway maybe anecdotal but I had two Uncles in Nevada with large cattle ranches. Like most in the area North of Winnemuca the private ranch land may have been but a couple hundred acres but the BLM leased grazing land could be tens of thousands of acres. All the ranchers in that region ( Paradise Valley ) let their stock free graze or go wild then they got together and had round-ups which was dozens of horseback cowboys driving cows to big pens, sorted out, calved up and driven back to their ranches. During round-ups these guys would run hunters off as shots scared the stock. Otherwise hunters who were smart would just let a rancher know they wanted to hunt the land or prospect and usually no problem with most but some did not like hunters around their cows. More than once a cow would be shot either accidentally or not ? This didn’t help things. There were cattle crossings and gates at the roads or trails along the edge of private property and large fenced holding pens with gates for the round up. These were located on BLM land. If you needed to cross the private land then you had to open gates and needed permission. And trying to sneak in out there is tough as your truck’s dust trail can be seen for miles and at night the dogs take over. I recall once some hunters got thru the gates driving a truck that looked like a power company truck and pulled that off for a while but finally got caught.

In some areas of Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico and others listed below large tracts of BLM are landlocked by private property owners. Who’s fault is this well it goes back to the Homesteading Acts of 1862 in combination with railroads, large cattle operations, giant paper companies in the East, and mining companies many of which are Canadian. It’s very confusing and one could spend years trying to unravel this mess but it should have been the federal government and BLM to admit this problem existed and solve it. But organized money has more political leverage than handfuls of public hunters. This is not new and isn’t just about hunting but prospecting anything requiring access to these lands which is mostly out West. The BLM manages 245 million acres and all are Western states I believe.

But it is not just the BLM in the West. In Maine and the mid Atlantic where giant paper companies like Weyerhaeuser, Champion, Georgia Pacific, International Paper etc own and control enormous tracts of prime land they gate access and lock. In Eastern NC if you want to hunt any of the better ground you’ll find private hunt clubs paying the companies for exclusive use and they don’t allow non-members access. Military bases also hold large parcels of good hunting land but many of them will actually give you a permit and pass to hunt them.

So when you say “ Theirs is no caveat to BLM or FS land that a rancher leases for grazing. If it’s accessible, it’s open to the public. “ and therein lies the real problem as the facts show. I think if it was just the feds and BLM it could probably be worked out by buying public right of way but where it gets tricky is if open public access interferes with a state licensed company like an outfitter or other concerns who may claim such traffic hinders or negatively affects their business. Businesses built by investing time and money. Even though an outfitter does not own or have legal exclusive hunting rights to the BLM land he’s been doing it for years and the government/BLM never told him he couldn’t. It’s almost a ‘ Grandfathering Clause ‘ also known as ‘ Legacy Clause ‘ whereby a business has operated and succeeded on property for years uncontested by the legal owners. After so many years of operating without opposition you can actually created a legal right to it. This type of legal question has standing in the courts.

For anybody interested there is one group called the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership ( TRCP ) who undertook a thorough GPS mapping survey of all BLM land and found a total of 16.43 millions acres landlocked from access by private land. 15.87 million in the Western states. Here is the state by state breakdown.

Wyoming 4.16 million acres
Montana 3.06
Nevada 2.05
New Mexico 1.90
Colorado 704 K
Idaho 279 K

I have not done any background research into this group but they have been politically active on various state and federal levels. I guess they are just another lobbying outfit but from what I can tell they are not anti-hunting and seem to be on our side. However for those interested in this group you’re certainly going to find claims of “ liberal “ hiding under conservative clothing but nevertheless they are supported by hunting and fishing groups. I honestly don’t have an opinion on them other than their publicized agenda and their statistics but please understand I’m certainly not some liberal tree hugger

It’s a pretty interesting article or write up by this partnership. As usual a cautious reader never takes anything at face value. You can find it at: www.trip.org

Rick

Wyoming has a total of about 302 licensed outfitters in the entire state, not counting ranchers that outfit their own land.
Not sure who told you otherwise but those numbers you threw out are not correct.

Still plenty of non landlocked public ground to hunt, easy or steep you can find it in Wyoming.

A locked gate does not mean you cannot access the land, just that you can't drive on it. As it should be, people can be real a-holes in the woods and even more so with a vehicle and/or ATV. I worked for a private timber company out west, we locked all our gates year round, but the land was open to the public to hunt, fish, walk, hike and use otherwise on foot unless it was actively being logged. This is land that the people paid zero taxes for, required zero entrance fees, and had zero outfitters on it. That's a pretty good deal to me.

Some years back, I was bowhunting elk in an area full of angus cattle, all BLM land. I was sneaking through a big patch of quakies when I saw black cow lying in the shade behind a log about 20 or 30 yards ahead of me. A spooked cow can sound like a tank going through the brush so I didn't want to spook it. I stood there looking for a way to get around it without spooking it when she turned her head...seems that she had 2 round black ears. It was a bear and within range although I didn't have a shot. It put it's head down behind the log and I never saw it again. To this day I can't figure out how it sneaked out of there.

You are correct wytex it was my mistake. In researching Region G and District 5 I asked about the number of outfitters permitted here and it came up “ 307 Outfitters “ I heard the UPS truck outside when I came back I recalled 307 outfitters thinking that was the total number but instead was the name of an outfitter. Pretty stupid mistake for sure. BTW I thought there were 316 total outfitters but that could be wrong too

Regards
Rick

No problem, you raised an issue I actually have interest in knowing.
I emailed the WG&OA and got an answer pretty quick.
I think there are about 30 operating around the Cody area, but again that does not count ranchers that outfit their own land, they do not need a license to do that.

I have good friends in Michigan, good folks out there in the Union City area.

I’m not from Michigan but it’s my last move as it’s my Wife’s home. I emailed the association too after you busted me but never heard back, not yet. I’ve got some friends out there in Cody area and we got to talking about the Hoodoo Ranch and how they operate. I didn’t know this is a giant land buying company called Hunt Consolidated who keeps sucking up big valuable ranches out West. Apparently they prosecute trespassers who cross over and have been pretty strict about it. Not sure how much BLM land they have leased but I think it’s substantial. They leased out all hunting operations to 7D outfitters/ Dude Ranch operation. Hunt Consolidated which is the Hunt family, HL Hunt, Bunker Hunt etc are the famous Texas drillers, silver speculators etc. and I’m sure they or their various companies are alive and well in gas rich Wyoming. Enough of this huh. I can’t do anything about any of this anyway I just like to know who’s doing it.

Rick

Not seeing such in Oregon. Fifty percent public across the state and about 70% in this 10,000+ square mile county.

If BLM and FS land is national land, then why do the states regulate hunting on this land? Why does the concept of nonresident license fees apply?
It eeems that this land should be equally accessible to all US residents

The federally managed lands are equally accessible to all US residents. The animals being hunted are state managed regardless of where they’re at (USFS, BLM, state land, private, etc.) and ‘belong’ to the residents of specific states. That is why states can charge residents vs non-residents differently for licenses and tags. Much like college tuition.

The feds don’t charge different rates for a resident/non-resident to camp in a designated camping spot on federally managed lands for the same reason.

You been under a rock lately, this is an old argument and decided by the courts and Congress.
You are free to access any and all public lands in any state that has access but the state gets to manage the wildlife on it and has the right to limit NRs hunting.

Woodpecker we have another couple of big, out of state LOs down here buying up land, I feel your pain on that.

I don't see the diminishing number of hunters. Mostly in my local area here in Idaho I see fewer local folks and lots and lots of Washington state folks around that time of year. The demand is very high but honestly there's not near as much game on my place starting around this past decade. More people coming in, less resource, and shortened seasons.

The only real opportunities left IMO outside of public land is self propelled backcountry locations where there's fewer folks. This takes out most older folks and out of shape folks but it's called hunting for a reason. If a person no longer can do this activity and all one can do is an drive up and hunt on a ranch type affair then maybe it's time to give up going after game and start another pursuit like F-class type competition of some of the black powder rifle matched from a fixed firing line. Theres seasons in life .

Idaho was getting so overrun with non-res hunters that they had to put a cap on how many non-res tags they sell. There are only so many deer and elk and the number of hunters after them was getting out of hand. It's turned into a real fiasco for a non-res to get a tag now.

Nonsense…at least in Idaho.

Because the states own the game Dummy. SCOTUS ruled on that decades ago

You guys answered my question … could have done without the condescension.

I think you'll find that the next 5 to 10 years will take a big toll on your body. 60 is LONG way from 70. I'm 75. At 60, I was tough but I could see down the road that the elk quarters were getting heavier and heavier. My knees are in pretty good shape now but very few of my old hunting buddies can say that. My hips will let me go a long way but not with a load.
If you've gone through all that, one of these years it's all going to crash. You can keep hard at it and suffer the crash, or you can slow down and preserve what you've got left. That might get you another 5 to 10 years.

Well sorry, that has been discussed ad nauseum since the corner crossing case.

Look up US law 109-13 section 6036

You very accurately described many parts of Wyoming……getting worse every year! 🤬 memtb