WY Land Hunting Etiquette

[bullbugle307]

Cat Urbigkit is a clown. She has made a living trespassing her sheep all over public land, demanding compensation for "lost" sheep, and complaining about the government and all the hardships she has to endure.
She also wrote a shitty book about the wolf reintroduction and has spent her career perpetrating the myth of the Canadian super-wolf. If it has her name on it, it's not worth the vomit that came up on the back of my throat reading it.

Did she have that sheep outfit in the Upper Green?

 

[wytex]

Oh yes, the poor beset upon rancher. I grow tired of that old schtick. Farmers and Ranchers do not have a monopoly on hard work, flat tires, delayed schedules or setbacks. Most that I have known worked easier schedules than many other professions.

There are certainly valid complaints in the article and I can't fault her for pointing those out. The violators should be prosecuted, absolutely. I appreciate the private land access programs and can't stand the bad behavior that endangers that access for everyone else. Her tone turns toward condescending a couple times which is grating but I can understand that inclination. I take issue with her complaint about the hunter "hiding" on the property line on public land. She and most every other large landowner will be very quick to point out that they have the right to do whatever they damn well please on their land right up to the property boundary. Well guess what, hunters have a right to use public land right up to the boundary also. If it makes you uncomfortable that I am right next to the fence, it sounds like your problem not mine. Respect is a two way street, landowners risk that when they harass hunters who are engaged in a legal activity on public land. I'll follow the rules when I'm on private land, but landowners don't get to intimidate or push me around anywhere else.

I agree whole heartedly about the public land right of use but to say most ranchers don't work that hard I have to disagree with.
Have you ever been involved in calving, irrigating, haying, feeding livestock over winter? You are at mother nature's schedule, you don't get to set it.
Yes, tons of folks work hard and some much harder but can't agree with that sentiment.

Her article has spurned an interesting debate though I'll say.
Certainly food for thought, to grant access or not . Some responses have opened my eyes to say the least.

 

[PrairieHunter]

I have, on more than one occasion, also seen a land owner attempt to block a public road going through their property in Wyoming. Sometimes it’s a sign. Once, they even parked their truck in the middle and sat on the tailgate mean-mugging. Told the GW but don’t know if anything ever came of it.

In Colorado, there’s a piece of BLM land that has private land signs scattered through the whole thing. I thought that would be illegal but every year I tell the game wardens and every year I return and they’re still there.

I’ve even been threatened by a land owner for hunting on PUBLIC land adjacent to his. Had to call the warden to tell him he had no right to kick me out.

Still, every time I draw HMA permission, I’ll send a hand written thank you letter with the land owner’s tag and hope karma catches up to the bad landowners.

One of the things you will notice is the lack of law enforcement on public land. It's the feds land in most cases so they are responsible for it, but in most cases the federal LEO is not actually held accountable for doing their job. In fact the feds choose to take the busiest days on USFS and BLM land off for weekends and holidays so nobody is around most of the time. So in spite of the state not getting tax revenue from the federal land it ends up being the state who "pays the freight" as Buzz likes to say, in the form of county sheriffs or game wardens enforcing laws on public land on weekends and holidays so the federal employees can be off, offices closed, visitors centers closed, etc.

Seems like the game wardens are afraid of the landowners in most cases so they don't do much. Similar story with the Sheriffs dept.

So nothing gets done about the off roading, illegal signs, trash dumping, shooting range garbage, blocking camp sites for weeks at a time when nobody is there, etc that goes on.

I have not figured out what the feds are good at managing on their land but I do know it's not recreation, law enforcement, grazing rights, timber resources, job training centers, fires, etc...

 

[JAG]

To her point about staying away from public/private land borders when guardian dogs are present with sheep. I agree that we are entitled to be there if we choose to.

Keep in mind that if you are elk or deer hunting, isn't it true that you don't want to be anywhere near domestic sheep or their dogs? This would be an easy time to write off an area for your own sake. From what I've seen, the ungulates we seek do not seem to mind cattle and horses.

 

[Brachii]

To her point about staying away from public/private land borders when guardian dogs are present with sheep. I agree that we are entitled to be there if we choose to.

Keep in mind that if you are elk or deer hunting, isn't it true that you don't want to be anywhere near domestic sheep or their dogs? This would be an easy time to write off an area for your own sake. From what I've seen, the ungulates we seek do not seem to mind cattle and horses.

If it’s legal, why does she even mention it? Seems like her list of legitimate complaints was small so she tried throwing in the moral appeals of the dog and shooting a bird off water to lengthen up her content a bit. I have no doubt there are bad hunters abusing their welcome, but this article came off as “holier than thou” as others have pointed out.

Definitely leave the gates as you find them, be gracious and polite. Don’t shoot towards livestock or buildings. If in doubt about anything, ask or don’t do it.

The one illuminating point the author brings up is that of carcasses. I have always wondered how to best handle that. If there’s livestock, it seems like a good practice to drag it away from their land… but I don’t know how realistic that is, especially if I’m not bringing my truck on their property. I welcome any advice or insight.

 

[Firedude]

I would never leave a gate open, hence altering it so it can be closed. Lots of ways to tear a coat but it is irritating when it happened trying to close a stubborn gate. But unless the gate has one of those lever closers, it's pretty much necessary to wrap oneself around the anchor post to close it or gate will be too saggy to do its job properly. Torn coat is acceptable collateral damage in that case. Oh well. But when it takes two guys to close a gate, then there's a high probability it won't be doing its job if someone hunting alone gives up and leaves it on the ground.

Most ranchers I know would rather you figured out a way to get that thing closed than just leave it. All of our gates that we've found rebuilt or fastened diffently we just assumed something went wrong and fixed it as best they could. If you've never shut a tight wire gate you probably don't know about the bottom loop needing to be as high as you can get it. It's not taught in school or in hunters ed. But you'll always have a rancher who gets upset if you do alter it. So just be minimal about it and call him if you have to mess with it.

I got chewed out for poorly fastening a gate with paracord. Kicked off. Etc. Turns out it was another guy who only had one arm. But when I got to the gate I refastened it how I found it with the paracord. The one armed guy tried to tell the rancher he altered it because as you can imagine it was tough for him to get a wire gate closed. It took him a couple of days to find the rancher and tell him.

The other issue I've had was a gate that I could barely open and could not for the life of me get shut. I tried everything. I wired it up and got the rancher. A whole bunch of cussing me later we all pulled up to it and tried and tried and couldn't do it..
If you've had cows for any amount of time you learn they have nothing to do besides find creative ways to mess up your day. Ever seen a bull jump and lay on a top wire. Yep. It pulls the whole length of fence over. A few hundred yards of leaning t posts down the line is 2000 lbs of Angus bull farking up everyone's day...

 

[RobertD]

The wire gates you guys are talking about have a proper name: "cracker gates"

My policy with cracker gates has generally been to leave them shut in the first place if I don't think I can close them myself after opening - haha

 

[idelkslayer]

I agree whole heartedly about the public land right of use but to say most ranchers don't work that hard I have to disagree with.
Have you ever been involved in calving, irrigating, haying, feeding livestock over winter? You are at mother nature's schedule, you don't get to set it.
Yes, tons of folks work hard and some much harder but can't agree with that sentiment.

Her article has spurned an interesting debate though I'll say.
Certainly food for thought, to grant access or not . Some responses have opened my eyes to say the least.

Never said ranchers don't work hard, only that they don't have a monopoly on that attribute. They do however seem to have a higher proclivity for telling you about it.

 

[Bluffgruff]

...So in spite of the state not getting tax revenue from the federal land...

Didn't we establish in the thread about Gordon blocking the BLM's purchase of the Marton Ranch that the state DOES get paid for federal lands in the state, even more than if the land was private and paying agricultural tax rates?

 

[bullbugle307]

Didn't we establish in the thread about Gordon blocking the BLM's purchase of the Marton Ranch that the state DOES get paid for federal lands in the state, even more than if the land was private and paying agricultural tax rates?

PILT is definitely a thing. Not sure the payments go the state though. For some reason I wanna say it goes to the counties, but I may be wrong.

 

[mtmiller]

Payments in Lieu of Taxes | U.S. Department of the Interior

PILT payments help local governments carry out such vital services as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations.

www.doi.gov

 

[OntarioHunter]

Payments in Lieu of Taxes | U.S. Department of the Interior

PILT payments help local governments carry out such vital services as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations.

www.doi.gov

Even if the payments go to the local governments, it takes a load off the local rate payers and likely the state treasury as well for some services. For school funding there would probably be less need to rely on precarious whimsical year-to-year local mill levies.

 

[mtmiller]

Even if the payments go to the local governments, it takes a load off the local rate payers and likely the state treasury as well for some services. For school funding there would probably be less need to rely on precarious whimsical year-to-year local mill levies.

Who are you talking to?

 

[PrairieHunter]

Didn't we establish in the thread about Gordon blocking the BLM's purchase of the Marton Ranch that the state DOES get paid for federal lands in the state, even more than if the land was private and paying agricultural tax rates?

Federal land is exempt from state level property taxes.

 

[Ben Lamb]

I've known Cat for a lot of years and I think very highly of her. If she put it in the article, it happened.

The livestock dog issue is real. Those dogs deserve space and it's just curteous to give them room, especially if you have your bird dog or hounds with you. LGD's will kill your dogs. It's their job to protect the flock, and you & your pooch are a perceived threat.

And the idea that Cat's passive in anything is pretty darned funny. I don't know that I've met a more direct person in my life.