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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Thursday, December 01, 2011 at 23:28:42 :
In Reply to: How to keep them out OT posted by Glen Id [70.41.246.139] on Thursday, December 01, 2011 at 21:53:02 :
I've been seeing a lot of their signs, especially in Oregon, Nevada, and California. Apparently what they do is contract with landowners for exclusive hunting rights, and then retail them to hunters. So, they're kind of a fee hunting broker. Something about them rubs me the wrong way. If you google them you can read lots of reviews from hunters who have used their service, and they're fairly mixed. Other than that, I don't know how you do it on your own as a small landowner. By small I mean less than a several sections.
I'm still not sure it solves more problems than it creates. It pisses off the guys who have been hunting your property for a long time. It brings in guys you don't know, who presumably are richer and therefore more responsible, but I don't really see a big correlation there myself. It's a real problem, and the more private owners post their land, the more over-used the remaining open ones are. I don't like to see posted land, and I also don't like to see vandalism, littering, driving off-road, or worse on anybody's land or on public land.
I am thankfully far enough off the beaten path here that most of the guys who want to hunt my place, or go through my place, have been hunting there since before I bought it and they're totally responsible. They check in with me if I'm around the place, or sometimes even find me in town or email me. Of course I tell them "thank you" and they're welcome to hunt there any time they want and they don't need to ask any more. You get some of the good guys out there and they keep an eye on the yahoos.
Most of the trouble I have is with ATV riders in the summer. I've watched them stop on my road, have a beer, and toss the can over the hill. I've had them come blasting right past me without stopping to say hi (I usually catch them on the way back down, and give them the "Deliverance" look and they get nervous). I've tried to talk to guys that were so bleary-eyed drunk they could hardly string two words together.
The trouble I see you having with fee hunting is if you can't keep the yahoos out with fences and no-hunting signs, how will you keep them out with "members only" signs? That's why all the logging companies have kelly-humped and gated their roads. Of course the ATVs just go around them, but it at least reduces the amount of trash they can carry in, and your stuff they can carry out.
It's really sad that people aren't responsible any more, on private land or in the National Forest. The amount of trash that gets left behind after Memorial Day weekend in the Cascades outside of Seattle is mind-boggling. People go "camping" with what looks like the entire contents of their house -- couches, TVs, table lamps -- and then leave it all behind, including several cases of beer cans and bottle strewn in the general vicinity of the fire pit. And then there's the "target practice" that consists of blasting old appliances to shreds and of course leaving all the trash and shell casings behind. I even ran across a concrete toilet that had been ventilated by what must have been a .50 BMG. The closer you get to a big city the worse it gets.
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