MT Trespass Laws Seriously Altered Today

[BuzzH]

I'm a bit stunned here.

You guys do realize that OnXmaps is about 150' off on most of the places I checked this hunting season... All of the sections were shifted 150' north from actual location, so there is big reason why we might not know where we are. And most non-hunters aren't going to be walking around with their iPhone app open.

Also, a friend got detained by Turner's manager for allegedly trespassing on some property above the beartrap while hunting. It wasn't posted, or fenced in that particular section. He was let go only because there were several hunters up there and it wasn't clear who was over the invisible line.

Why was it off 150'?....that's not been my experience when referencing surveyed corners. Just so you know, fencelines don't mean jack shit...I've seen fences 500+ feet into public with not trespassing signs on them. Many times fences are put in places of convenience...not on the surveyed property line.

I would trust the onX data way before a fence line.

I agree with you that in the case of p. easements this may be problematic.

 

[RobG]

Why was it off 150'?....that's not been my experience when referencing surveyed corners. Just so you know, fencelines don't mean jack shit...I've seen fences 500+ feet into public with not trespassing signs on them. Many times fences are put in places of convenience...not on the surveyed property line.

I would trust the onX data way before a fence line.

I agree with you that in the case of p. easements this may be problematic.

Trust me for the moment. be back in a minutue.

 

[mdunc8]

Just so you know, fencelines don't mean jack shit...I've seen fences 500+ feet into public with not trespassing signs on them. Many times fences are put in places of convenience...not on the surveyed property line.

This cost me a really nice buck in eastern Montana. I was hunting a new spot and was working my way towards the back of the section. Saw a nice buck just over the fence. Watched him walk away into private. Come to find out, the fence was 150 yards on to public...Turner often fences way inside his line (e.g., Beartrap) because they want to stay out of the timber and on flatish land.

 

[tjones]

I checked mine standing on the corner pin of my property and it was off a short bow shot maybe 20 yards. Anytime I am near a property line that close I just stay away from the exact line ONX shows. I pay no attention to fences. If a landowner was to hassle me he best have a survey crew in his back pocket.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I certainly don't see how this bill is going to help us as hunters and has potential to cause even more public/private conflicts. Seems to me that any landowner willing to enforce trespassing and owns land intersected by public access shouldn't have a problem painting "posted" markings.

If this bill does indeed take away previous freedoms to access and hike certain trails, we lose.

 

[hank4elk]

I stay off the lines 20yards or so usually.
My onxmaps is pretty spot on.I have checked it against surveyors gear & the usgs cornermakers I have.
Get at least 9-12 sat.s. Usually within a yard or two,10 at most.
And agree with fences don't mean much as to placement.
My area is a total jumble of BLM/PVT checkerboarding,old ranch/homestead fences,unsurveyed properties and folks set in their ways.I carry a BLM map,GPS,cell with local law on speedial,camera and a 9mm....lol

 

[RobG]

Sorry I had to duck out. I had several opportunities to test the OnXmaps maps in the crazies against known boundaries this fall. For some reason the sections were shifted up 150' or so. East/west was fine. I checked the GPS coordinates for the section corners and they were spot on. It was a problem with the map the Onxmap app was showing. This became obvious to me because I was also using the Avensa app with forest service pdf maps. I started noticing differences and the Avensa app was spot on everywhere I checked, whereas the OnXmaps program was consistently off.

I tried it in other places and it seemed to be off but I couldn't verify.

I believe it was just the property boundary layer that OnXmaps had a problem with. The trails and roads and images were spot on. I told them about it. Crickets.

Again, the GPS coordinates were coming out perfectly, but the property boundary map was off.

 

[Bulldog0156]

Could this change allow the easier closure of roads without requiring posting where there may be a prescriptive easement? I can think of plenty of BLM roads that may cross private property that have never been posted and that are heavily used by hunters. I doubt there is a single recorded public easement on any of them.

I know one of my favorite access roads got shut down a year and a half ago. I was out hunting and figured I'd go up the road but all of a sudden it was posted. I was not happy, but because it was posted went on my way. Checked in on it when I got home, and from what I could tell the landowner had every right to close it, but in doing so had to post that it was not open to the public. If it hadn't been posted, I would never have known that something changed.

 

[RobG]

That's another good point. It is vague how to handle situations where the landowner changes his mind. It will be just like how bird hunting went. If you want to do it on private land you need to have the landowners permission. There is no way around it. I can't see how it would be different for roads or trails crossing lands without documented easements. Hiking will become just like hunting.

 

[onpoint]

I completely get the desire to know where you are at while traveling from point a to point b and to want to be sure you're "legal". What's lost on me is the (seeming) obsession to skirt the almighty private land paradise, in which the buck/bull/cow/etc is hanging out. Then once it steps onto the public - boom. If I'm unsure where a boundary is, I use my gps to make sure I'm far enough onto public land that I won't have a problem. Of course, if you want a better chance for your Gopro hunting vid to go viral, you probably need that edge.....
This legislation does present some concerns beyond hunting, however.

 

[Sytes]

I am not following this general line of thought... there must be a respect for a private landowners land. In a day and time where our focus is on the protection of our public lands staying in public hands... we must use due diligence to ensure we respect private land! No if, ands, or buts!
It is someone else's land. It is not your land to Step One damn foot on it. Ask permission. If permission is not granted you best know where your foot touches ground. It's your responsibility to know where you are. Private landowners do not need to hold your hand to make sure you do not enter their land. If they wish to post it then all the better on their behalf for your lack of knowledge of your location so it really should not be their responsibility. It is yours.

You want public land to be respected? I sure as heck do! I also fully respect private landowners property.

I surely must be missing something here...

 

[Washington Hunter]

The accuracy of a GPS unit is only as good as the map you have in it. Property lines on those maps come from county assessor maps and could easily be off by 150 feet. This is not uncommon at all especially in remote areas that may not have had any land survey work done since the original government surveys in the 1800's.

 

[RobG]

Guys - think far beyond hunting. Also, under the current law I'm 99% you won't be cited for criminal trespass for simply walking with a gun through non-posted land if you are accessing public land using a trail, so it does change the burden for hunters.

As someone who just got a criminal trespass ticket I can assure you that you don't want one if at all possible. Let me explain to you how it goes

The sheriff writes you a ticket for $585 ($500 + court costs). If you don't want to pay it then you are going to burn at least that much fighting it, probably 10x that much.

Here are the steps to avoiding that $585 fine.
1) First you have to go the courthouse and enter a plea on a date they pick. They schedule the time in the middle of the day in the middle of the week so you miss work. If you aren't first in line it can take hours before you appear before the judge then another 30-60 minutes for the judge to explain the process and the implications. For me, the courthouse was in Big Timber so I had to add 2-3 hours driving time.
2) You get fingerprinted.
3) Your next step is to hire an attorney because you don't have a damn chance of doing this on your own.
4) If you are lucky you can have him get it dismissed by communicating with the DA before the Omnibus hearing. That will only cost you a couple thousand bucks.
5) If he can't dismiss it before the trial you will then go to an Omnibus trial. Expect to pay attorney fees for the drive to and from the courthouse on top of his time preparing for it and presenting it. At this time everyone shares what evidence they are planning to use. Maybe you plea bargain... at this point you are lucky if you aren't into it for $5000, and you haven't even gone to trial yet.
7) The trial itself will require a THIRD trip to the courthouse. Another day of lost work and another bill for the time the attorney spent driving. If you don't hunt in your own backyard you should be especially scared of this because you probably don't want to drive all the way across state just to spend time in a courthouse. If it goes to trial I can see this being very expensive.

On top of all this, unless you have an awesome friend like Kat, you are paying people to do FOIAs and other crap trying to make the case that a trail has a prescriptive easement even though it isn't recorded. Trust me, this is very stressful and taxing on your personal time. This is the first day I have had any free time since Sunday when the article came out... yeah, somehow those reporters can sniff these things out even if I wanted to keep it quiet for a while. I started getting calls that morning from people supporting me and offering help. Yes, it is nice to be appreciated, but it turns into a full time job.

If you are found guilty and you were hunting, fishing, or trespassing you could lose your license for two years. I'm not sure how the guilty ruling affects your record.

And that doesn't even cover the issue of making it easier to lose prescriptive easements.

So.. you guys are fools if you just want to make it far easier for this to happen. I know I don't go research property records and obtain permission every time I go for a drive. And I sure as hell don't want to start.

 

[tjones]

The accuracy of a GPS unit is only as good as the map you have in it. Property lines on those maps come from county assessor maps and could easily be off by 150 feet. This is not uncommon at all especially in remote areas that may not have had any land survey work done since the original government surveys in the 1800's.

Its really simple to stay 150 feet off the GPS shown property line.

 

[Sytes]

RobG, your situation, from what I have read, is a far cry from the content shared here. You you were on a legal USFS easement through private property. End of story from my perspective.

 

[katqanna]

I was up with this late last night and on the phone with Mike Korn, retired FWP Assistant Chief of Enforcement. He is writing a quick statement on this for me to post here. This flu has hit me hard, so I could not stay up past midnight to listen to the audio of the hearing, but Mike did and sent his email of the situation this morning. I notified MSA and PLWA last night.

I then called FWP, Ron Jendro this morning, the current Assistant Chief of Enforcement, to see if they were aware of this and what happened. He was not. He had seen the bill prior to the gutting, but with the changes, they are now going to have to deal with the bill, as it would affect them. I will not speak for them on how or in what way.

The hijacking was done by Rep. Casey Knudsen from Malta and Rep. Bill Harris, the landowner/outfitter from Roundup.

The original bill change was understandable, dealing with landlord issues; but as it has been hijacked, it could seriously affect general recreation. I fully respect private property, have owned it myself, and do not trespass. I generally research and know where I am going, especially when I am documenting and recreating, but there are some situations where landownership has changed before an update on onxmaps or a road looks public and a portion of it is not or the road is public but the land on either side is not and that posting helps to clarify to the public what is private.

I know two guys that were hunting on DNRC, maps all showed it as DNRC, but a land sale had just gone through in a couple of weeks and it was then private. No signage of the changed status. They both lost their elk. This broadened amendment has greater ramifications and I question the motivation of Knudsen and Harris in doing this.

 

[RobG]

RobG, your situation, from what I have read, is a far cry from the content shared here. You you were on a legal USFS easement through private property. End of story from my perspective.

Nope - Even if I am 100% legal I'm stuck with paying the $585 fine or hiring an attorney to fight it for me. I did not know that going into this. It is possible I could fight this without an attorney but in a lot of the rural areas everyone can be on the side of the landowner and the DA isn't going to tell you what you need to present to counter his argument. Furthermore, if you select a jury now it becomes a popularity contest so the judge can't even come to your rescue if the law is on your side.

 

[katqanna]

Another thought - do you know how many freaking publications there are in Montana that deal with this property rights/trespass information that would have to be revised and printed to begin the very slow matriculation process to the general public and tourists? For what, what is the real motivation of Knudsen and Harris in this? What purpose does it serve?

New publications and distribution would be a hell of alot of time and money and would take years, at the very least. For FWP, this would be our sportsmen's dollars paying for this. Meanwhile, acting like a speed trap, there are going to be a lot of naive recreationists that would have to deal with the misdemeanor citations, the costs and that violation on their records.

 

[RobG]

Its really simple to stay 150 feet off the GPS shown property line.

Yeah, unless you have to pass through private property on a FS trail.

 

[Ben Lamb]

So, listening to the hearing on the bill, it seems that the majority took the opportunity to amend the bill based on a broadly written bill title. The amendment clearly changes the intent of the sponsor, who had a legitimate concern regarding tenants who refuse to vacate a property.

The a/v for the executive action isn't up yet, but in the preceding day's exec action, the chairman of the House Judiciary committee clearly said that amendments coming forward would be simple in nature. The amendment added by the majority clearly is not a simple one, and it changes the entire concept of the bill.

This is a bill that needs to be opposed. Not only did the committee hijack the bill, they changed the statute on trespass enough that we all should be concerned. Kudos to the minority for resisting the amendment. Let's kill this amendment and get the bill back to where it should be.

Start calling your House members now.

Nice work Kat & Rob.