How do we fix the access problem of eastern hunters?

[BuckeyeRifleman]

Like most here I love to hunt the west, it offers a freedom like no other, roaming millions of acres of public land. I especially appreciate it having grown up in Ohio, where hunting either meant knowing the right person, having family land, or slumming it out on extremely crowded public land.

I was an unlikely hunter, I didn’t grow up in a hunting family, I was raised in the suburbs, and didn’t have any close relatives who hunted either. That said I had a natural love of the outdoors and firearms almost from birth. I quickly made friends with the few kids at school who did hunt, and thanks to their Dad’s at least had some opportunities in my teenage years.

Throughout my 20s I was busy starting a career and serving in the military. I had one or two spots in Ohio I had permission to hunt, but I mostly slummed it out on public land. I had some success, and learned quickly that “going deep” was the key to success on public ground. I hunted some “urban” deer management programs in small towns with deer problems. I now finally have my own 20 acres I can fill the freezer if need be.

It wasn’t until last year I finally made the leap to applying and hunting out west. With an antelope hunt under my belt I am 100% addicted to the western game.

That said for a lot of us it isn’t realistic to go out west every year. There is some awesome hunting out east, but it’s just as hard if not harder to reach than going out west in my opinion. I’d much rather spend $100s on tags, drive two days, and chase elk/Antelope/deer on public land out west than knock on a bunch of strangers doors to hunt a few hundred acres 30 min away. That’s super intimidating, especially for a new hunter. I could also see where crowded public land would be a huge turnoff to new hunters as well.

To me, access for hunters in the east is the elephant in the room folks like Rinella, the BHA, Newberg etc don’t want to address. I see a lot of western guys bitching about increased pressure out west, but the root cause of much of it in my mind is lack of access in the east.

We won’t likely make an appreciable amount of property out east back into national Forrest, but I think more states should look at a block management program like Montana. Offer tax incentives for land owners to participate rather than lease their property. As more and more “corporate” farms pop up and less family ownership, I think block management is a reasonable solution to the eastern access problem.

 

[GunsAreFun]

I live in Missouri and had a similar background as far as not having any family or friends that could show me the ropes.

Now, I can only speak for Missouri, but I used to think that you had to have private land or know someone that did to get on good deer. I even bought some land to accomplish this. Just 20 secluded acres but it was a start. Now that I am a better hunter, and more importantly a better scouter (thank you Google Maps). I actually have found multiple public hunting spots within 30 minutes of a city that are better than any of the private land I’ve ever hunted, including a 1000 acre place I had access to for a few years.

I see a lot of new or just not great hunters on local forums and groups complaining about not having anywhere to hunt and asking to get on someone else’s property. Nothing wrong with that. But the reality is those people likely live within an hour of multiple excellent opportunities and they just don’t have the skills or desire to find them. Again, that’s just Missouri, but I only bring it up because I hear the same sentiment here. To me, mentorship is the bigger issue. If people could have the skills passed to them on how to find good ground, there would be less complaints in my state. And honestly, with social media, you really don’t need mentors. Yes, it cuts the learning curve, but I learned most of what I know from the internet and then trying, failing, trying and succeeding...so maybe it is just desire.

 

[SteveCNJ]

I'll chime in for NJ, the most densely populated State in the Country and more being developed all the time. I pay to hunt private land. It's only about 100 acres and there a few others there as well. I started with the private when my son started hunting at age 10. The public land is crowded and dangerous. I went on my first elk hunt in Colorado the third rifle season in the Bull Mountain area. I didn't get a shot but I learned a lot and caught the bug. I'm going to Wyoming for a horse pack in rifle hunt the last week in September. Spot and stalk is so much more fun that sitting in a tree all day. I'm driving out alone as my hunting buddy and son are flying. I figure it could be a box of cigars each way. Moving to SC next year and God willing and the crick don't rise retiring 2 years after that. If my finances are fortuitous, my dream is to get a cabin adjoining public land someplace out west where I'd have a chance of regularly getting a tag. We can all dream. NJ sucks, nobody can get a carry permit. The politics are being run by completely demented libs. They are now trying to limit people from going out of State for health care, so someone diagnosed with C wouldn't be able to go to Sloan Kettering in NY. That's how crazy they are. Oh, and the taxes would choke a horse. Moved here in '65 and it was beautiful but can't wait to leave.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[trslabaugh]

Coming in at 42nd on the amount of public land, I'm in Oklahoma. Knocking on doors is hard, you can have success at it but I feel like it's a lot of time spent to come home without a spot to hunt. I was only able to track down 6 land owners last year to ask for permissions.Two of the six had a 10-20 minute chat with me but I still got a "soft" no. I'll visit these guys here in the next month or two and try again.

Our public lands here get hit hard if they are close to home. Many states do offer walk in hunting areas. Oklahoma pays land owners for hunting/fishing access (its all shotgun or archery) and like most walk in land, you can't be out scouting in the off season. I'm slowly learning to take advantage of this program and donate when I put in for my draws. We still have limited lands but if you do your homework, you can get an opportunity. In my opnion, Kansas is a state that hardly has any public lands, but they do a really good job to make it possible to hunt without having to get permission.

I, personally, think that midwest/eastern hunting will only get better with more support of the walk in access. Oklahoma department of wildlife does purchase properties every now and then. I'm sure many states may do the same, but it will never equal "western" levels of public. We'll never be able to walk for hours and set up camp to hunt, but with due diligence you can find public land areas that aren't overly publicized and only a few locals use them. Archery hunting helps a lot, as many of these places are archery only.

The lack of public land here almost makes it harder for me to hunt out west due crazy amounts of access. It is really been a learning curve for me. I'm used to heavily dissecting a "small" parcel of land, say 20-640 acres, to really up my odds before I even set foot on the property. I get so overwhelmed looking west because I have too much land to look over! LOL I can barely talk my hunting partner into coming west, because he simply loves learning these small parcels of public and simply wants to out hunt everyone else. I find my honey holes and keep my mouth shut!

 

[5MilesBack]

It's like anything else in life. People choose where they live based on the "access" they have to whatever interests them. That may be a job, any other hobby or passion, or just restaurants and fine arts. I could ask "how do we fix the access to beaches here in Colorado". I love going to the beach, but we just don't have much access to them. Keep in mind that we do indeed have some beaches here.

A lot of locations just don't provide meaningful access to what interests us. That's why we move to where we do have access to what interests us. It's hard to force others to cooperate with your interests, as it just may not be in their "interests" to yield to your interests. I.e.......I want access to hunt your property, they want to keep their property "private".

 

[kda082]

Cut my teeth on KS public and WIHA, basically public. I’ve leased the last 10 years but still deer and waterfowl hunt a lot of public. I fully expect to lose my lease at some point but will continue to hunt public, the acreage around my house, and will be just as happy killing does. Access will never be like out west but I make the best of it.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I live in NY and hunt NY and PA.

I will come right out and say it, the east will never be like the west. Too many people and not enough available land. Having said that, some states are better than others. PA has a ton of public land. The biggest difference between their State game lands and the stuff out west is you are not allowed to stay overnight. A lot of it is forested, like NY public land, so it isn’t great for deer density but if you hunt smart like on transit corridors on the edges near ag fields, it can be very productive. I think you can make public land work but it requires strategy and effort.

There are a couple of other options.

Someone mentioned a cabin backing up to public. A friend has 200 acres that bumps up to 5000 acres of huntable state land. His property is on the south Sid of the state land and the hunter access is on the north. So in addition to hunting his own land he can hunt the southern half of that public land and hardly sees another hunter. It also makes me thing that there is a strategy to ask people on the rims of public land if you can simply cross their land to get access to less trafficked side of public parcels.

Another option is clubs. I joined one that has hunting rights on 7000 acres across 20 properties. For a few hundred bucks I got a ton of access. Now no one in the club was really all that connected. There were groups within the “club” but it was basically every man for himself. The advantage wasn’t that pooling my money with others gave me tons more access than I could have paid for on my own.

 

[BuckeyeRifleman]

It's like anything else in life. People choose where they live based on the "access" they have to whatever interests them. That may be a job, any other hobby or passion, or just restaurants and fine arts. I could ask "how do we fix the access to beaches here in Colorado". I love going to the beach, but we just don't have much access to them. Keep in mind that we do indeed have some beaches here.

A lot of locations just don't provide meaningful access to what interests us. That's why we move to where we do have access to what interests us. It's hard to force others to cooperate with your interests, as it just may not be in their "interests" to yield to your interests. I.e.......I want access to hunt your property, they want to keep their property "private".

That’s certainly true. However I think eastern states can do a better job of improving access to private lands by incentivizing walk in hunting areas, opening up urban bow hunting opportunities, etc.

Are we going to buy up huge swaths of private land? No. But we can work with private and corporate landowners to provide increased opportunities.

 

[elkyinzer]

I think it can be addressed several ways. I don't think it will be because the headwinds are just too strong.

Purchases/easements to add public land is obviously ideal, but a pipe dream for most agencies. Just a matter of funding.

It's very much a feedback loop we've created. More avid hunters, more free time, and changing values have driven up cost of access. Higher cost of access drives more to public land. Crowded public land leads to frustrations, people quit. Less hunters equal less revenue for agencies, and there's no way to fix the problem. Nowhere to hunt equals no recruitment and no revenue for the agencies. It doesn't take a genius to see where that ends up.

I think beyond government the only real solution is just to change hunting culture. Hunting access cost is supply and demand, and we've managed to FUBAR the situation by creating demand out of this bizarre culture we have that values trophy hunting so much. Everyone and their brother thinks they are Lee and Tiff now with 80 acres and some food plot equipment.

So we obviously can't change the supply but if there is less demand because of changes in cultural values, we have a situation more like "back in the day" where you know your neighbors, handshakes, trust, yada yada.

You could write a whole book on why our hunting culture is equally broken today as it was 100 years ago. I assert we are again market hunting, just a different kind of market in modernity that places value of the head and not the meat. I guess it's easier to point to the problem than come up with a solution. To think its ever going to change would require placing far more faith in humanity than I can summon.

 

[Trial153]

Commodinize acess and wildlife and this what you get.

 

[camping1601]

Just an FYI. PA has both state game lands and state forest lands. You can camp on state forests, but do need a free permit if you are car camping. No permit for backpacking.

If your ok with public land hunting, the east has lifetimes of opportunity.

 

[juan trueno]

I think the OP is casting a pretty wide net here. Is there a problem with eastern hunting access? Or is it just the same crap as it is out west with people not bothering to see what’s available?

Ohio has a quarter million acre national forest. And here’s a list 7 pages long if public hunting opportunities provided by the state of Ohio. List Provided by the Ohio dnr website.

http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/portals/wildlife/pdfs/public%20areas/Public%20hunting%20areas.pdf

 

[kicker338]

All you eastern hunters can relax a little on the subject of axcess as it's getting worse every yr. out west on the national forests. Got my new road map from the forrest service and compaired it to an older one I still had amazing how many roads are either closed completely or only open from spring to Sept. Guys were not talking about little short deadend roads that are great for walking but roads that are anywhere from 2miles to 15, or 20 miles long. They are usually marked with road signs saying for administrative use only which means forest service cane drive them all the time but you can't period.

 

[tt_johnsclist]

I will come right out and say it, the east will never be like the west. Too many people and not enough available land.

I think you meant “The east used to be like the west, but it will never be again. “ And the west’s problems are already on the horizon as we are starting to see with the elk craze that is killing tag availability and leasing out all the private ranches.

As I see it there are three ways to attempt to fix this. 1. Increase the amount of available land via easements and access agreements. Many on the thread have suggested this and while I think it is a great idea it is unlikely to succeed unless hunters want to pay for it via some sort of private access stamp or funded program. 2. Embrace fewer hunters, not more. As someone suggested it’s supply and demand and it’s easy to fix the demand side. I personally would happily spend double on my tags if it meant 1/2 the hunters, but that’s just me. 3. Remove the market value that the “hunting industry” has created around our wildlife. As another poster mentioned It’s this value that has created the market around access to huntable wildlife. I’m not sure how to accomplish this, but removing market value for wildlife is supposed to be one of the guiding tenets of North American wildlife management and I am not sure why this marketing is embraced let alone tolerated.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Wapiti1]

In the sovereign state O' Indiana, the issue on private is Chicago folks leasing at prices the rest of us won't match. They lease a lot of the prime whitetail land and hunt it two or three weekends. By hunt, I mean come down, get drunk and enjoy the weekend without the wife an family around. I don't think they shoot anything, nock an arrow, or chamber a round. There are a few that are serious about it, but they would be about 15% of the population. Outfitters also push the prices up.

That said, we have a lot of pretty decent public land, but you have to want to hunt it. It is not convenient, or it is crowded. Even so, I've taken several respectable bucks and a pile of does off public and will continue to do so. Like I said, you have to want to hunt it. By that I mean get up early and walk more than 50 yards from the parking area. This has got to be one of the top 5 laziest hunter states in the union.

The best option for Indiana is to continue to buy land. There have been several purchases in Indiana that opened up really good areas. We have several conservation initiatives aimed at rehabbing rivers to improve their ability to handle flood waters. These lands become huntable as a side benefit. Sometimes going at a goal directly isn't the right approach. Pass legislation to fix other issues and then have the land turned over to the DNR to manage.

I stopped door knocking after getting booted for the 3rd time for being successful. Joe Bob's brother, son, or cousin doesn't like it when some stranger shoots a big buck, or caps 2-3 does in a day and they didn't see a deer all season. And I am hardly a stellar whitetail hunter. I only hunt them because we don't have elk.

Jeremy

 

[NVVAHunt]

So I don’t think it’s an access problem but more of a problem with people actually acting on opportunities. I live in the suburbs of Northern VA right outside DC. There are ways to get access to private property but it takes work that I don’t think people want to put into it. There is also public land that people overlook because for some reason in the east it is frowned upon. Sure there may not be opportunities for everyone to hunt on private but people that really want to find a place can put the work in for it and will find something.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[5MilesBack]

That’s certainly true. However I think eastern states can do a better job of improving access to private lands by incentivizing walk in hunting areas, opening up urban bow hunting opportunities, etc.

Are we going to buy up huge swaths of private land? No. But we can work with private and corporate landowners to provide increased opportunities.

Why does the state have to do that? Every individual can go talk to landowners to seek access. If they won't let a single guy on to hunt, do you really think that they want their land open to the general public.........regardless of who is brokering that deal? The state could give me $1000/month and I still don't want anyone in my back yard.

 

[BuckeyeRifleman]

Why does the state have to do that? Every individual can go talk to landowners to seek access. If they won't let a single guy on to hunt, do you really think that they want their land open to the general public.........regardless of who is brokering that deal? The state could give me $1000/month and I still don't want anyone in my back yard.

Well you don’t have to, it’s your land. Nobody is suggesting the state mandates you allow public hunting.

But wouldn’t it be great if farmers and corporate owners who don’t care who is on their land had financial incentives to open it up to hunting? I don’t understand how anyone on this site could view that as a bad thing.

Sure, anyone can go knock on doors. But have you done it lately? It’s awkward, rarely successful, and a difficult barrier to entry especially for now hunters.

 

[5MilesBack]

But wouldn’t it be great if farmers and corporate owners who don’t care who is on their land had financial incentives to open it up to hunting? I don’t understand how anyone on this site could view that as a bad thing.

If they didn't care who was on their land, people would already be hunting it.

But the biggest issue these days is liability. We live in a sue-happy world and any landowner can be sued for anything that happens on their property........corporate or individual. This fact has probably ruined more opportunities in the last couple decades than anything else. Most landowners don't want that headache.

 

[BuckeyeRifleman]

If they didn't care who was on their land, people would already be hunting it.

But the biggest issue these days is liability. We live in a sue-happy world and any landowner can be sued for anything that happens on their property........corporate or individual. This fact has probably ruined more opportunities in the last couple decades than anything else.

Agreed on the liability point. Ohio released all liability for hunters who have legal written permission.

Landowners either don’t care or are ignorant of it. “What’s in it for me?” You give them a financial incentive you will see participation. Until then you will see very few landowners be willing to open up their land to strangers.