# Private property/National Forest land



## utbowhntr (Sep 11, 2007)

I just wanted to voice my frustration regarding private parties either buying or leasing NFS land and not allowing public on there and posting there No trespassing signs everywhere. I was up at Whitney reservoir this past weekend and some outfit called "Two Bears" keeps taking more and more land up there. they are now posting their signs on the south side as well as on the North side of the main road into Whitney. There signs say No fishing, hunting camping and No Trespassing. It really ticks me off that they can do this. It is supposed to be National Forest land for everyone to enjoy. I used to bowhunt and camp there, but now I can't thanks to Two Bears. What can we do as public citizens to stop this!!! It is just plain OUTRAGEOUS and Ridiculous!!! Anyone else here feel the same way as me?


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## orvis1 (Sep 7, 2007)

It has always bugged me as well, I am not sure this is allowed. This is public land why can a private individual restrict the usage of it...


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## Guns and Flies (Nov 7, 2007)

This bothers me as well. Up by Woodruff reservior, a CWMU was given permission to include BLM land into their CWMU, in exchange for allowing public onto some other private sections. The BLM sections that were included into the CWMU are beautiful sections with lots of deer habitat, the sections they gave back to allow the public on, sagebrush. How do they get away with this; because the public lets it happen?

Also on maps I've seen, CWMU's are including the green national forest sections into their CWMU's? 

If a guy accidently hunts private because "hunters are responsible for knowing where they are hunting", he gets BBQ'ed, but if a land owner "accidently" puts up some no tresspassing signs or something shady like that, is there any punishment? It seems like land owners are allowed to do lot of shady things to make things look private, and there is so much confusion around access that benefits private land, it is quite irritating.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Wow! I guess I had heard of CWMU's including some public land, but is that the case with two bears? if so, I don't believe they would be able to restrict any activity other than hunting, correct? If not, I think we have quite an issue on our hands here!! :evil:


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## utbowhntr (Sep 11, 2007)

That is what the signs they put out at Whitney say. No Trespassing and then below it it says no hunting, no fishing, no camping. My dad made the statement that at least they didn't put no goldpanning (he likes to do that) so i guess he will be in there doing that. But I agree, I think there is a huge issue here!


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## Guns and Flies (Nov 7, 2007)

I think some of the problem is that no one does anything about it, like the river rights thing; finally a couple decided to put their neck out and do something about it and it was changed, it took 8 years but finally someone did something about it. _(O)_


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## utbowhntr (Sep 11, 2007)

I guess that's my question...Where do we start? How DO we do something about it? This is an issue that really bothers me because I don't believe it's right for the public to be jipped out of what is there's by some landowner. National forest land should be for the PUBLIC to use and not bought up by some rich person or company.


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## Bow Mama (May 1, 2008)

Now that chaps my hide, I love Whitney Reservoir. We frequent that place, but havent been there this year. Doesnt Chalk Creek own private property there as well, with no tresspassing etc.? I hadn't heard of Two Bears.


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## utbowhntr (Sep 11, 2007)

Bow Mama,
Yes I believe United Sportsman owns some land over in the Chalk Creek area. I believe that is the road that heads back to the North West right there by the West Fork of the Bear River. There are signs right there by that spot that are posted by Two bears. Head up there when you get a chance and you will see what I am talking about. VERY FRUSTRATING!!!


I thought about this issue last night and I guess the best place to start would be with the County Surveyors office to see where the boundries are and make sure that Two Bears isn't just randomly posting signs to keep people out of "their" hunting area. Which I wouldn't be surprised that they are doing since the hunts are about to open. I believe this would be Summit County. Correct me if I am wrong. Any other suggestions for a place to start?


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## Guns and Flies (Nov 7, 2007)

I think that would be a good place to start. If you find out that the land owners are putting up signs, research needs to be done about what law is being broken, then a lawsuit needs to be made. If some sort of punishment is dealt, the landowners are going to think twice about where they are putting their signs.

Also, like the streambed deal, if the land is national forest or otherwise public land, a person might have to "test the waters" and see if there is a charge brought up and then fight the charge. I can't image a court charging you with trespassing on national forest land. The couple that decided to fish the Weber River was very brave indeed, but in the end it paid off.

My family was hunting some land a few years ago and there was a section that touched the land we hunted that was some type of specialty land, I don't remember what exactly but it wasn't national forest and it wasn't BLM. We did our homework and found out that it was public accessible. So the next year we went to hunt it. The land owner that owned the land around this particular section of land, came over furious taking pictures of us and our vehicles. We calmly got out the map and showed him and told him we had talked with the county reps; he was so rude. He must have come to right conclusion because he never brought any charges against us.

Knowledge is power. Unfortunately it takes a lot of time and talking with a lot of people because no one agency or county department has all the answers your looking for so it becomes a huge undertaking that not a lot of people are up for, and I think the landowners bank on it. I am trying to do some homework on one section and it has taken me months to get any kind of clarification on it. It seems no one wants to take accountability one way or the other. :? 

Good Luck, don't give up, and let us know how it goes!!


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Guns and Flies said:


> My family was hunting some land a few years ago and there was a section that touched the land we hunted that was some type of specialty land, I don't remember what exactly but it wasn't national forest and it wasn't BLM. We did our homework and found out that it was public accessible.


Probably STLA land-State Trust Lands Admin (http://trustlands.utah.gov/) land that was deeded to states to fund schools...something to that effect. I will assume that this was the type of land, shows up as purple on BLM maps. The DWR has purchased the hunting rights from STLA for a certain period of time...


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## Guns and Flies (Nov 7, 2007)

Yes it was SITLA land, purple on the map. SITLA land cannot be leased currently for hunting purposes. I talked with them last week. The said that land is changing so rapidly that they update their maps weekly. The gentlement that I talked with said if you can get to it legally, you can hunt and fish on it.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Guns and Flies said:


> Yes it was SITLA land, purple on the map. SITLA land cannot be leased currently for hunting purposes. I talked with them last week. The said that land is changing so rapidly that they update their maps weekly. The gentlement that I talked with said if you can get to it legally, you can hunt and fish on it.


duh ,yes purple, pink is BLM, I edited it. Just getting it to it is the key; I have had the opportunity of explaining as we booted people off private land with guns loaded that they must have access across public land to get there... O|*


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## campfire (Sep 9, 2007)

There are many islands of privatly owned/leased land imbedded in forest lands. Some of them have been there historically and some of them may have been purchased from school trust lands. Many of these privately owned lands have never been posted so they appear to be forest land. Then ownership changes and/or land use changes and owners find that there is money to be made by restricting public access to these lands and presto-changeo no trespassing signs appear out of the blue like spontaneous combustion. I have seen the same thing in the Boiler Canyon area near Soulder Summit. One place in particular that has puzzled me is the area around Elizabeth Pass and Blacks Fork on the north slope of the Uintas. If you look at a Wasatch-Cash forest map you will find that that area is a checkerboard with literally every other section being private and forest land. It seems to me that this would be a very ineficient way to manage land. I would love to know what the history of that land ownership is.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

campfire said:


> There are many islands of privatly owned/leased land imbedded in forest lands. Some of them have been there historically and some of them may have been purchased from school trust lands. Many of these privately owned lands have never been posted so they appear to be forest land. Then ownership changes and/or land use changes and owners find that there is money to be made by restricting public access to these lands and presto-changeo no trespassing signs appear out of the blue like spontaneous combustion. I have seen the same thing in the Boiler Canyon area near Soulder Summit. One place in particular that has puzzled me is the area around Elizabeth Pass and Blacks Fork on the north slope of the Uintas. If you look at a Wasatch-Cash forest map you will find that that area is a checkerboard with literally every other section being private and forest land. It seems to me that this would be a very ineficient way to manage land. I would love to know what the history of that land ownership is.


Wow, i have not been to Boiler in years, but I don't think I have seen any private land anywhere in that area except for the southern Avintaquin tip. Of course, the county recorder is the only true determiner of what land is what. We recenlty had such an issue on the other side of Soldier Summit where there is now a gate on a road that has been open for well over 20 years (meaning that the easement has been created already), so my buddy who works at the county is looking into that for us. It is private land where the gate is, but beyond it is BLM, not that that matters, an easement across 100% private land is still an easement. This certain county is so goofy that it took one case that had been open for 80 years about two years to really decide that the guy could not lock the road.


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## bowgy (Oct 10, 2007)

Some of my wifes family land was included in a CWMU, and in the meetings with DWR, if the private land completely surounded the public land the public land could be included in the CWMU. One of the landowners posted by convienience instead of right on his property line, someone reported it to the DWR and they checked it with GPS and gave the CWMU a warning to get it right or the fine would be $8,000.00. The warning was since it was the first infraction.


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## Guns and Flies (Nov 7, 2007)

It's good to hear that some of the landowners and being put in check; sometimes it seems they get free range. 

Update on the land I was looking into: I called the SITLA office and they said that their land cannot be leased for hunting; it is open to public access, if you can access it through public. Since there is a BLM section touching the SITLA section I wanted to hunt I thought I was home free, come to find out this SITLA section is part of a CWMU. So I called SITLA back about it, listen to this loop hole, they said that this SITLA land is public accessible even thought it is a part of CWMU, because CWMU's give 10% of their tags to the public. I just about sold my rifle and sent in my application to PETA. They are now planning on selling the land, so the public looses this awesome hunting section (1 mile by 1 mile section) forever :evil: They are selling it (auction) on October 10th, before the deer hunt, so how is this already in a CWMU? The SITLA guy was surprised that this section was in a CWMU, he said that usually the DWS has to let them know what is going on, apparently DWS it taking it into their own hands. I hope the DWS is truly looking out for the public hunter.

In this same area there are about 8 section of BLM land included in different CWMU's. This is a bit disconcerting. Why is the DWS allowing this awesome hunting land to get put into private CWMU’s, most of them can be accessible to public, they are not land lock parcels. The CWMU’s already have 8-10 sections of land in their CWMU without putting public land into their CWMU. Northern Utah already has a ton of private land, what is more BLM land getting leased to private?


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## Afishnado (Sep 18, 2007)

I was up there the same weekend utbowhntr was, and I have the same concerns. It really saddens my family and I. 

Since when does the DWR care about the public hunter? Please, give me a break! We're the last thing on this green freaking earth the DWR cares about. They're more concerned that the big ranchers and "greenies" might sue them for something. 
I mean, "Why care about your customer?" It's like having to buy insurance, you have to have it, but just try to use it and see what happens. 

So basically what I'm trying to say is, "the public land hunter is screwed"!!

Gitty-up,
Afishnado


P.S.
Guys and Gals, Please use punctuations and paragraphs! It's very confusing trying to read a 400-word sentence.


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