Retrieval of game from private land in Montana

[antlerradar]

I generally avoid hunting up against private….especially archery. I just assume the landowner has seen it/heard it all before and is sour.
I imagine an average guy in town would get equally as sour if strangers were constantly cutting through his backyard looking for a frisbee or football etc….

The trespassing doesn't bother me nearly as much as the getting lied to and then if that doesn't work sometimes you get the insincere sob story.

 

[mtmuley]

A person should ask beforehand if they plan hunting close to private and let the landowner know and see if hate/dislike hunting. It would save a lot of hurt feelings and legal issues

This works. Kinda. I sometimes hunt near some private property. I have an understanding with the property manager that I can retrieve game through the property. I don't hunt close enough to the boundary to risk an animal getting across. Sure has saved me some miles though. mtmuley

 

[Ought Six]

Absolutely and I believe that better over-sight of the leases needs to happen. That's not on the person leasing it, that's on the agency.

I know one job that I wouldn’t want to have is a range management specialist for the BLM or USFS. Leasees always think they know best and hammer on the poor RMS when asked to get their livestock off public land like they have some God given or historical right to keep them there whenever they want for however long they want. The altercations can be very contentious, even though the leasee agreed to the terms before hand. And if the RMS doesn’t hold their ground or enforce it, the leasee just grazes it to the dirt and the public pays the price. These are multi-use lands, but public-use benefits go way down in terms of wildlife when it’s trashed by the leasee. Then the RMS gets hammered on by the public hunter as to why there’s no grass in their favorite elk spot. No wins being an RMS. I have a lot of respect for people in those positions at these agencies, would be a tough position to be in.

 

[BRI]

As a recently retired Resource Manager involved in managing nearly 80,000 acres with most of them involving grazing leases, it is incredibly difficult to terminate a lease. The state of Montana DNRC administers nearly 9,000 individual grazing leases on roughly 4 million acres. There simply isn't the time, money or resources to inspect every lease every year. So they're generally on a 10 year inspection. The majority of lessees are great and do things right, but there's absolutely some bad ones. The process to terminate the bad ones is lengthy and requires a lot of time, resources and money that isn't there and in many cases, termination may only allow said lessee to use the land without paying for it. So you end up trying to work with bad lessees to get them up to ok. It can be incredibly frustrating and challenging.

 

[Steiny77]

This is a very common issue in the midwest, particularly with archery hunting. In my state, and most it is illegal to track wounded game onto private property without first securing landowner permission. Everything is private and there are many small acreages.

Although completely legal, I don't hunt my edges for this reason. I don't appreciate it when the neighbors crowd my borders either. Nearly every year I get a call from someone hunting on a neighbors ground wanting to track a wounded deer on to my place. I've let a few of them follow up and I've told a few dipsh#ts to stay out.

Get to know your neighbors and get on a friendly basis, but more importantly make a clean shot. Even with archery and they generally don't go far with a well placed arrow.

 

[Flatbrimmer]

I’m only on the first page. I haven’t read any further than that.

But the cow I shot two years ago died more than halfway under a fence sloping down a berm. Me and my buddy could not drag that thing up the berm to our side of the fence to save our lives. Dude from Helena that saw me take the shot came to help us. He said he had shot a nice bull the year before and had it run a few hundred yards on private. Landowner told him to pound sand so he called Montana Fish wildlife and parks and they came out. Landowner told FWP to pound sand as well. FWP told the landowner if he moves that elk he’d better tag it with his own tag. He then told the hunter, if the landowner touches that Elk you call me immediately.. The landowner did in fact leave this nice bull to rot. The hunter from Helena said he’d never ask permission again. Thankfully we had legs on our side of the fence and didn’t have to trespass, but I was intrigued and upset by his experience with this scenario. Retrieval on private land is far from promised and in my experience permission is about 50:50.

Even places that have flat out denied HUNTING permission still have let folks in for RETRIEVAL and I’ve witnessed that personally

 

[Flatbrimmer]

I would say the second worst thing you could do is admit to breaking the law?

You were told no, and still went ahead and trespassed? Damn, I lost a lot of respect for you.

I admire his honesty

 

[Straight Arrow]

I admire his honesty

Thanks. As humanoids, living life to fullest sadly involves some times of poor judgement and bad decisions ... moreso for some of us. It's been my experience that to acknowledge the mistake and honestly admit to it is the best way to earn forgiveness, from others but maybe more importantly ... from one's self.

 

[Elky Welky]

BTW, it has also motivated me to study trespass and property rights laws and regulations.
Regardless ... your loss of respect is warranted.

For every person who lost respect for you you've also gained respect from those who understand that the imaginary lines drawn over land stolen from Native Americans are far less important than respecting the life that you just took.

*EDIT* Reading the story over, I want to emphasize that there was no right to pursue the animal on to private and then kill it there. Had the animal been shot on public, then died on private, then I stand by my above comment. I also advocate for asking permission, and then weighing the consequences if the landowner is unreasonable. I also think people should do everything within their power to operate within the bounds of the law. But the law and ethics are different things. There are plenty of things that are legal that are unethical. And plenty of situations where breaking the law might not only be ethical, but necessary (speeding to get a wounded person to the hospital, for example).

 

[LukeDuke]

A couple yrs back a buddy arrowed a bull on some block management ground. It was about 30 min before dark and we tracked him out into an open meadow and then lost the blood. Dry tracked him for a bit and then lost that due to other tracks and darkness. Went back in the next morning to see what we could find. On the hike in, the block management landowner called and said the neighbor found a bull on his property(the neighbor was also an outfitter) and asked if we shot one the night before. We said we had but our blood trail was running the opposite direction from the neighbors property but we would go check it out because maybe he circled back on us.

Met the neighbor, his guides, and their two hunters at the fence line. Right off the bat, the one older hunter reaches out his hand and tells my buddy congratulations on his bull. He said “your arrows match the one still in the bull.” They could sense the relief and a little bit of confusion.

After piecing things together, their hunter had shot a bull that came onto the block management property and our bull had jumped the fence on to theirs and died about 50 yds onto his property but down in a timbered ravine that we couldn’t see into. We compared our onx tracks with theirs from the night before and found the spot where their bulls blood trail and our bulls blood trail had crossed just a couple yds off his fence line. We simply ended up getting on their bulls blood trail vs ours after they crossed and followed their bull out into the open meadow where he stopped bleeding. The landowner/outfitter said he knew it wasn’t the bull they shot because they wouldn’t shoot one that small

The hunters said they would take us to the bull and the landowner asked how we planned on getting it out of there. I think he was expecting us to ask if would drive around to his place and come up to it on his property but we told him we would quarter it up and pack it out through the block management, which was twice as far, but we also knew better than to ask to come through some great elk bedding area to get our bull when he had clients. He appreciated our common sense approach.

 

[tjp]

As a property owner I don’t take kindly to trespassing, either myself or others! Many have wrote that they hunt property boundaries, to that I say you’re opening yourselves to this very issue. WHY! Hunting is Ethics, conservation.

absolutely -

 

[Hunter4Life78]

Agreed. But I'm completely okay with someone retrieving an animal. I just want to know about it. Nothing pisses me off more than finding out during or after the act.

Most recent one was the last evening of rifle season here. Had 2 people walking through the woods on trail cam at dusk wearing carhartt brown. That's safe...

Darwin award candidate

 

[devon deer]

Easiest way to deal with this situation is don't let it happen from the get-go.

If you're going to hunt boundaries, plant a bullet appropriately where there's no chance of an animal jumping a fence.

Isn't complicated, unless you make it that way.

Yep, thats what I do over here, smack it through the shoulders, or if close enough through the neck, they ain't going anywhere.
We have different laws here, firstly I don't know of a single land owner that would let a deer rot rather than grant permission to retrieve it, letting it rot is a disgrace.
Should I shoot a deer and it jumped a fence, if I left my rifle on my private land and retrieved the deer, it's a civil matter, but, if I crossed over with my rifle thats called 'armed trespass' and is a police matter, and too much to risk.
I get on really well with neighbouring land owners, and a quick call and we work something out, but I always believe, 'talk to the organ grinder not the monkey'

Just thought some might be interested what we do.

 

[rjthehunter]

Darwin award candidate

Yep. Carhartt brown closely resembles the color of deer. It got interesting once i put their pics up on Facebook (to find out who they were) and they messaged me asking me to delete the photos of them trespassing...

 

[Cogreeny]

Just this year I found a truck parked half way up the private road leading to the house. I thought who would just park there, so I went driving around and found two guys hiking through the trees. I caught up with them and asked what they were doing. Their reply was we’re looking for an elk we think we hit.

It’s all private land around me. I asked well,if you had come up to my house and talked to me or called the sheriffs dept and have them get in touch with me it would be ok but now I don’t want you on the property. They left and I got a horse and a couple dogs and spent the rest of the day looking for a wounded elk. Never did find one. All they had to do was ask and they didn’t.

I think a lot of times when you bust them like that they’re actually hunting. They use that as an excuse because it sounds better than I decided efff your property I wanted to hunt it and now I’m caught.