In Iowa the state owns little by comparison. Most Iowa land is worth paying tax on.

What about where you live?

Half of our county is Dept of Defense, the surrounding areas are TVA-COE, Land Between Lakes-Natl Rec/US Forest, state forest areas too all within 50 miles' radius.

And they get all assy if you think you can take off on a 2 day atv adventure on these areas.


No BLM, set aside Nat'l Monument 'dirt piles' or precious barren wastelands here.

Yep, welfare offices and post offices all over Texas.

the feds would rather pay a subsidy for schools and taxes to local counties rather than harvesting timber.

no tellin' how much good turning the federal land over to the private sector.

but they have their supporters. the rich for one, and the hunters for two.

there are others. but plenty of support to begin divesting land too.

And immigrant concentration camps

I live in Iowa, too, and totalled up the land the state owns that they allow hunting on and in the counties whose names are in the A's through C's, and there is about 90,000 acres that can be hunted on. That does not count the non-hunting land, which is also pretty abundant. Not to the tune of hundreds of thousands, or millions of acres in Federally owned forests out west, but quite a bit for our meager population. I doubt if we have much Federal land here, unless along the Missisippi or Missouri rivers on the border of the state, and down in the Ammunition Plant by Burlington.

In Iowa, .7% is would be owned by the state. Way down by state ranking, a lot near us however. We are in the cow racket, it be nice if we could have some of that for grazing.

Everybody hunts the state land, the birds fly into our grass, and crops, and they want to hunt that.

If anyone here is offended by my statements, they are few 'fire members I would not let hunt.

Iowa ranks 47th and Nebraska 48th (actually a tie) at 2.8% public (state and federal) and 97.2% private by total acres.

we folks debate this stuff over and over and over.

what are the benefits of federal land ownership?

what are the benefits of state land ownership?

what are the benefits of counties owning it?

why is the private sector not welcome?

There are shortcomings in Federal stewardship of public lands, but I can guarandamtee you states would sell it off if it was turned over to them.

75% of the county I live in... is the size of Rhode Island and yet is owned by the Federal Government...

Virtually endless country that’s wide open to hunt, fish, hike, berry picking, mushroom hunting, etc.

A mixture of federal land and state land.....mostly BLM and National Forests. A guy could spend everyday of his life in the backcountry and only see a fraction of what’s available. From the wilds of the North Cascades to the steppe country and deep coulees of eastern Washington to dense rainforests we have an abundance of areas where a man can stretch his legs and not feel crowded.

This is a beautiful place to live, politics aside.

About 4000 square miles in our county and I'd bet 3/4 of it is Federal (BLM or FS primarily with some NP), State, and or Reservation land. A lot of that land is juniper sagebrush scrubland. Conifer forests in the higher elevations.




Gus, that's somewhat of a misconception. There's a very large contingent of FS and BLM folks who would love to manage the land with higher rates of logging but they are effectively prevented from doing so by lawsuits. Even in areas that are burned there are particular groups that are opposed to all logging and nearly every time a timber harvest plan is proposed it gets litigated.

In the eyes of this hunter(and many of my friends) I can see NO good reason to turn the local Federal lands over to private, or even State interests. It's not like back east where a fella could buy 160 acres of raw land and have game on it. Our deer tend to wander a bit more than whitetails and even with food plots, water, etc there, it's no guarantee that deer would stick around. A person would have to be able to afford square miles to even have a chance to get quail to stick around, much less deer, antelope, etc. And most folks here I know that hunt, DO NOT want to pay trespass fees to a timber company that does have the money to purchase large tracts of land from a .gov agency.

All this land is "We the People's" land. Come on out and enjoy it. For Free!

Geno

Gus, we weren’t debating. I stated simple facts, nothing more. Benefits were never part of that. Seeings how my state has/had very little public land, I have always had to deal with landowners since I started hunting and fishing farm ponds in the early 60’s.

We are blessed in Wyoming with thousands of square miles of BLM, USFS and School Sections, You can hunt a different spot every year forever and never wet a line in the same hole twice.

Sometimes someone wants to give it all to the State or sell it off to private interests but they dont get very far. Wyoming people are fiercely protective of what we have.
.

i think we're dealing with a population density issue.

and the number of hunters & fishermen.

and the cost of access to land.

free land is better always?

then, east vs. west?

we have no answer?

that is, it all depends?

i've walked NF's & private.

both work. it's just who pays?

now adays no debate ends rationally?

Damn I wish it was population density. 1.2 million people in the state, roughly 800,000 live in the Lincoln and Omaha area. Third largest city is Grand Island but on football Saturday it’s memorial stadium in Lincoln. Density no, people like Ted Turner coming in a buying up half a million acres and closing most of it. There’s more but I won’t debate it.

What does Ted Turner do with his land? Bison?

My backyard is 4.4 million contiguous acres.

53 percent of Oregon is Fed. 3% is State and local.

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

https://www.deseretnews.com/top/231...-is-owned-by-the-federal-government.html

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?

60% of Idaho is public, mostly BLM and Nat Forest. Almost all of it's open for hunting. That's about 51,000 sq miles of hunting land.

You a Burner V?

The part that confuses me, and it's hard to get answers over the phone with the game wardens. I apply for tags in Wyoming. There are quite a few units you could draw antelope in the first or second year. You look at the website, and those units say (*difficult public access). You look at the unit maps and they will have several blocks of public land from 3-8,000 acres that nobody can legally hunt. The maps have roads all over, but I guess they are oil/gas company or private roads. Seems like if the state or BLM was going to have all that public land, they would have an easement to it, maybe 1 parking lot, or on the roadside, and if someone wanted to hunt the far side, well it's walk in access only. At least it would be used that way, you'ld have to be willing to put in the work, but it could be used.

I've read about the trespass fee's to cross ranches. Haven't had any luck there on even getting a list of ranches that participate.

As far as local hunting goes. I see more people hunting my place than when I go to public land.

It normally doesn't bother me, but 1 year I had a guy open the gate, drive right by me in his diesel all the way out to a cleared point. He sat behind the wheel drinking beer with his gun out the window, 1 person got out and went in the woods, and a 3rd hopped in the bed of the truck and drank beer on a 5 gallon bucket....

Had another guy call the game warden on us for trespassing on "his" property. Told him to "go ahead and call", what did i have to worry about, place has only been in my family since it was homesteaded. Game warden really got a kick out of that guy.

https://oregonwild.org/sites/default/files/pdf-files/OregonPublicLands1.26.15b.pdf

Oregon about 52% public land mostly USFS and BLM. Here in the SE corner, most counties are about 70% public. Wonderful for hunting and fishing opportunities.

Also, no one can own or post ocean beaches.

No way weasel, no way.

Perhaps in my crazy youth (I can neither confirm or deny that I may or may not have "inhaled").

Now I seriously dislike massive crowds of crazy people. I go to the desert for the reason you see in my signature line, not to be surrounded by thousands of folks.

I don't even like being inconvenienced when they come through town on the way from the cities to the North and West of us. The local chamber of commerce loves them though. Big signs outside the restaurants, ads for the Rabbit Trax gas station in the newpaper and such have started already or will shortly.

If you are, I sure wish you the best in enjoying yourself and the party.

Geno

Lots of public land to hunt in Arkansas. National forests and state management areas. Much of Southern MO north of us is state or National Forest land.

Renegade,
White and red oaks, hickory, yellow poplar, maples, etc. the SF is all woods and my property is woods, creek bottom and old pasture, all on rolling hills. Nearest agriculture is a couple miles away. I worked in Terre Haute South of Newport for 31 years.

Lol, not my cup of tea either. Working for NDOT has led to some interaction with attendees, some of the vehicles I'd not drive around the block for fear of a breakdown. A coworker has a tire shop in Austin, a burner bus had a flat tire. Of the 10+ folks riding nobody wanted to pay $30 for the repair but offered to pay with "peace & love" so he started to take the tire off, shortly enough the money appeared, not without some rude gestures and name-calling.

Sorry for the hijack!

A large percentage here in Wyoming....but, I’m too lazy to do the research for the exact amount. For us personally.....state land on one side, and BLM on the other. We have neighbors on each side, far too close.....about 400 yards! memtb

In much of the west the trust land was set aside for the schools. The income from leasing it out goes to the school systems.

The public can hunt anything that has a road access. Rules also are in place that while using these lands you must stay on established roads or trails.

Tracts with no public access can be hunted with permission of the lessee.

The guv let's us call it privately owned land but in the end it's all owned by the government. We just pay rent on it.

Someone’s been paying their property tax 🤷🏻‍♂️

Si

When you add up all the city, county, federal and tribal lands, (all non-tax paying) it gets up to a high percent.

Looks like Utah is 3rd on the list...........75%....that's just fine with me......

as I always say.......this land is your land........this land is my land

(click linky)



https://www.summitpost.org/public-and-private-land-percentages-by-us-states/186111

Pay attention to what Flintlocke says, he lives in the epicenter of litigationist stupidity. The Greens have destroyed the ability of the Forest Service to do anything cost-effective and habitat-positive. Ambulance chasers (and stupid Bubbas) soured private landowners on public use, what it all boils down to is the decline of common sense and respect.
I;m amazed that Valsdad will bring up the Green lawsuits and still want the Feds in control of what are, in the end, local landscapes. Sure, back when the mission was multiple use, heck yes, it was wonderful. But now, fire and disease is running rampant, something which to me is just criminal.
I fully support turning over management of the "suitable" non-preserved federal estate to state interests. Not the ownership, just the management. Trust me, state trusts know how to make a profit while managing good habitat conditions and good public access -- for a price, but it's a REASONABLE price that covers the cost of the use.
It blows my mind that hunters will spend thousands upon thousands to equip and transport themselves to someplace and then howl like a scalded cat at the idea that they might have to pay a day fee. When it was "free," that's because timber sales and grazing income and mining permits and all the other productive uses in the multiple-use categories PAID for recreation infrastructure/access.