A Trespassing Story

[Mayfly]

Last year I was kindly granted access to bow hunt on 20 acres of land in the northern metro area. I had been living near the land and I knew there were a lot of deer around and it seemed like the perfect place to bow hunt!

It wasn’t easy to get the permission. After a little bit of research I found out who owned the land. The next thing I did was go to their house and knock on the door. I introduced myself and explained why I was there. I think it is always a little weird when a stranger shows up at your door so I wanted to make that clear right away. The owners were a bit concerned about letting me hunt the property due to problems with trespassers on other land they owned in the past. After a conversation they agreed to let me hunt. In return I signed a waiver and I promised to respect the land as if it were mine.

Opening day came and I started hunting the property. This went on for about a month and the season was progressing well until one night I was leaving my house to meet some family for dinner. As I was driving past the land I saw another person dressed in camouflage with a deer stand strapped to his back heading into the 20 acres that I was given permission to hunt. Knowing that I was granted exclusive access to the property I stopped my car and waived the individual down. He saw me and walked my way. I explained the situation to him and he told me that he too had permission to hunt the property. Apparently he was give permission over 10 years ago to hunt the property and has been hunting it ever since. What he didn’t know was that the person that gave him permission was now living in a nursing home and that his children were in charge of the land. What a messy situation this was turning into.

To make a long story short this individual ended up calling the land owners and it turned into more than they wanted to deal with and we both were banned from hunting on the land. 

It was hard for me to accept the outcome but I had no choice. I did my homework, found the property owners, got permission, learned the boundaries and respected the land as if I owned it myself. I even went as far as to contact the bordering property owners to let them know that I would be back there. I did everything the right way and in the end lost my permission due to a trespasser.

This is not my first experience with trespassers and I could tell stories all day but that is not the point. My point is that this is something that needs to stop.

It is not easy when you do not own land. In the metro area there is not much for public land and to find a place close to home that you can bow hunt on a weekly basis is extremely hard.

In this situation the individual that I encountered was give permission once over 10 years ago and never talked to the land owner again. Is that the kind of relationship that you want with someone that is hunting your land? If I am the landowner and I grant access I want to know everything about you and it would be nice to know when and where you will be hunting. I think this is just a common courtesy and should be followed by all hunters that are given permission.

Just today I helped my cousin call the sheriffs department in Anoka County because he was in his stand on posted property and encountered a trespasser. In this case the trespasser had been supposedly hunting the land for 26 years and thought he was on public land. These people boggle my mind. If you are out hunting know the property lines, know whose land you are on and make sure that you have some type of relationship with the landowner besides talking to them once 10 years ago. It is people like this that make it harder and harder for us to find property to hunt. There are a lot of people out there that would not mind having nice, respectful people hunting their land but because of a few bad apples those opportunities are dwindling!

In addition, always leave the property better than you found it! These simple rules will help you, your friends, and your children for years to come.

[proangler16]

Great read, that is so true these days, a few bad seeds wreck it for the good ones that go by the book.

 
 

[stevejedlenski]

i have had an experience like this, we occasionally run into tresspassers on the land we hunt and they always try to act like they can do what they want. when we got permission we were also asked to post the land for them, after we had "exclusive rights" we still ran into people and some highschool kids started poaching the deer in that area. well now that the kids have somewhat grown up we are seeing more bucks but i know that there are still deer being poached there. people feeding them and shooting them from their houses. we have even had a few stands stolen. people just plain have no respect for private property unless there is someone watching it all the time...!!!!!

[beeker]

I have permission to hunt a 40 around my land in mcgrath. every year I talk to the owner, and bring him some venison, fish or pheasant what ever I happen to have. but I wouldn't think of hunting that land without talking to him each year.  I also had someone try to toss me off that land one year. I have about 3 instances of someone trying to take ownership of land they don't own and try to toss me off. in all instances 2 on private 1 on public once you toss out some facts on borders they start backing off and in the 2 private land instances they wouldn't go to the farm with me to talk to the owner. so i know they're full of crap.
 as a land owner I do hate finding my signs destroyed or 4 wheelers through my swampy area by the road, fences cut (to get four wheelers through), woodduck houses gone (why do they hate woodducks?).   I'm close to the sooline so I'm thinking 4wheelers just wander off the main trail and try to find some mudd.. but cutting a fence to do it?

[sconihunter]

A few years back we caught a hunting group who had shot 10 deer off of our property in South Dakota.  We had just purchased it, so they used the old excuse of 'I thought so and so owned the land.'

This year we were checking trail cameras when we approached some young hunters on the land we hunt.  We rent pasture from the man who owns the hunting land and we have been hunting on it for 15 years.  So the hunters told us that they received permission as well..They ended up putting up about 5 stands and a ground blind.  Long story short they scared every deer into only moving nocturnal in the first few weeks of bow season (i found the blind literally on top of a huge scrape).  After chatting with the landowner for a while, it turns out that he only gave them permission for a certain part of the land (across the road), where there is not much deer activity.  When we asked them about that, all they said was 'Oh'.  Not only did these kids screw up our early season hunting, but they are hurting the reputation of young hunters. 

[beeker]

  I hunt pheasant in SD and my relatives told me never to talk about any deer I see when I'm at the gas station or cafe... they told me if the wrong person heard the deer would be gone that night.

[catfish_catcher]

My grandfather and I ran into some trespassers on his land on thanksgiving this year and they tried to tell us that we were on their land and we were close enough to see his house still!  to make matters worse they had a buck hanging from a tree that they shot right next to our permanent stand. some people have no respect at all. 

I worked hard to get permission to hunt on the land that I do in near the cities.  I bailed and lofted hay for several weekends for my friends dad to earn his permission to hunt there, and thats how it should be.