hunting permission laws

[bonasabuster]

the following is an excert from the michigan dnr website:Trespassing is illegal and seriously erodes support for recreational hunting.Permission is required from the land owner or leaseholder before you may hunt on any farmlands or connected woodlots or any fenced or posted private lands.Landowners may grant verbal permission.Hunters are required to produce thier hunting license to landowners upon request. well the way this reads to me is if it is not farmland or woodlots adjacent to farmlands is not fenced and is not posted i do not need to seek landowner permission to hunt? can this be true ?

[boehr]

Unfortunately, yes it's true. For a person to be prosecuted for recreational trespass all the elements as you have stated must be met. Criminal trespass is different, adding the element of if you have been told to leave before and come back, it's still criminal trespass.

An ethical hunter will know to ask permission on any land that is not open to the public although we all know there are a lot of unethical people out there.

[bonasabuster]

wait a moment ethical is a person following the law it's seems to me michigan law has put the responsibility on the landowner to make it known he wishes no one to come upon his property without permission. if this is his wish and he does not take the nessasary steps to do so and he wants to be upset then he is the one unethical but thats my 2 cents.still this last fall i passed on some good looking cover because the map showed state on one side and private on the other.it may be the polite and responsible thing but it isn't against the law i can't see it as unethical.

[bonasabuster]

a little further explanation i beleive is needed yes there are things that are perfectly legal that i or others beleive to be unethical.i do have a problem with the farmer who leaves corn up to harvest during gun season with a man riding and shooting off the combine.(legal in ohio)but this law (mich recreational tresspass) seems to have it's merits i live in a county without 1 acer of public land.i own 56 acers and have two leases on land of 218 and 158 acers.we all know that trespassing during deer season is very much a pet peeve of mine.but the main irritation of this is safety.when people trespass i have no idea they are on the property where they are and niether do they of me.so with this law in place i could simply post the land i was hunting on that day the night before. and the other two could be open to whoever wanted to hunt it.and i wouldn't see that as unethical if they were to hunt it.i can only be in one of those places.now this law would not save me any frustration as all the land i hunt is posted and it doen't stop them nor does it have to be in ohio.written permission is the law in ohio.but it does give a person the chance to say im hunting here but when im not come on in!

[boehr]

You have a right to your opinon on what is ethical or not. My opinion is that it's unethical to use anything that belongs to someone else unless the owner tells me I can use it. It doesn't matter if it's their car, gun, coat, hat or their hunting property. They own it and unless they give me permission I will not use it. If I do use it without permission, it is unethical in my opinion.

There are a lot of things not against the law and that is when laws get made that sometimes wreck it for many of us that didn't take advantage of others to begin with.

That's my 2 cents.

[Mr. 16 gauge]

I'm afriad that I have to agree with Boehr on this one; bonasabuster, I think that you may be overly generous when it comes to just letting anyone hunt your property. My Uncle would give people permission to hunt his property if they asked, (and if they were hunting something that he didn't really hunt), but with crazy lawsuits, ect, today, he wanted to know who was on his property and when. Seems a few years before, several of the farmers in the area had a problem with dopers growing marijuana in their corn fields. They would sneak in at night and plant thier "crop", and then the farmers pestacides, fertilizers, and irrigation would help it to grow. Later, these jerks would sneak in and "harvest" thier crop. If the crop was discovered prior by law enforcement, then the farmer was in hot water, not the ones who originally planted the weed.
Now, some things may be legal, like shooting at a duck that is 100 yards up, but I think that we would all agree that just because it is "legal", it isn't necessarily "ethical".
Even though it may be legal to hunt unposted property, it might be wiser for us as hunters to ask permission and get a "no", than to just go ahead because the law allows it. I think that this kind of behavior fosters a bad image on all hunters, whether the person who was tresspassing was a hunter or not.
Several years ago I was out grouse hunting on the Lapeer SGA. Nothing much was moving, so I decided to call it quits and head home. On the way, I passed a farm and noticed that there were cows out on the road. I stopped at the farmhouse (still wearing my orange jacket and hat) and knocked on the door. A well dressed older lady opened the door and before I could say a word, she laid into me:"I know what YOU want, and the answer is NO-YOU can't HUNT here! I am tired of all you guys just walking all over my property whenever you feel like it!" I said "well, ma'am, that is not the reason I stopped. I saw a few cows out on the road back there, and I didn't know if they were yours, but if they are you might want to round them up, and if they aren't, maybe you can call who they belong to before one gets hit." She got a shocked look on her face, and then said "oh, they don't belong to me, but the guy down the road is leasing my property, they belong to him". She slammed the door in my face--didn't even bother to say "thanks". I can only imagine that maybe she would not have had such a negative image of hunters if I few of those guys who just walked her property without asking would have just had the decency to ask permission.

[bonasabuster]

i just want to say no i do not and no i will not hunt land where i do not have permission to be there.but i could not call a person who did unethical when the law has put the responsibility squarely in the lap of the landowner on the steps he must take to show that his/her land is not open to anyone who wishes to hunt it.your point on not using his car his gun coat or hat dosen't hold to this law to me because as a hunter i am wishing to harvest wildlife to which the state holds the title of ownership not the landowner. i know we will not ever agree on this and we do agree yes a person should ask permission.i have for forty years why change now.but my prior post was to try and show at least some of the good that is in this law. as all laws are both good and detremental to our freedoms.mr 16 ga to you i say show me one person sued by a hunter?succesfully?thats one of those story's everybody knows someone who knows someone who has been sued. and the pot growers and the people that were hunting on the old ladies farm are breaking the law. period and there is no excuse for that.last point if boehr you think it best to delete this post for ethical reasons as to not spread the word that it is legal to hunt in this manner i will understand.in my wildest dreams when i posted this i didn't beleive you would come back with yes that is true.that truely shocked me but so did your unethical evaluation.

[Mtnman198]

boehr,
what about the horton trespass law,I thought it stated you are not to trespass on anothers land without permission .posted or unposted!

[boehr]

Thre Horton Trespass Law has long since been repealed and no longer exists.

[bonasabuster]

old dog new tricks my i please have my above mentioned 2 cents back. no it is not right to take advantage of a landowner by trespassing on his land without his permission and there is my new two pennies. maybe i said that in a way above but just wish to clarify it in case it got lost in what turned out to be a lenthy arguement to a issue that i really don't stand in support of.

[This message has been edited by bonasabuster (edited 02-09-2001).]