Public Land - Count Yourself Fortunate!

[Colorado Cowboy]

I've lived in the west all my life except for few a foreign countries when I was wearing a military uniform. The local WY news this week, just stated about 5900 plus people, left the state in 2017. It was probably due to the loss of jobs in the oil & gas field and coal industry. A lot times people have a hard time finding a good paying job. Also some people don't care for the weather. Living out west is good if you pick the right state.

Great place to retire!!!

[Maxhunter]

Great place to retire!!!

Yes it is! Please keep that a secret

[WapitiBob]

There's a discussion going on, on another board. Some don't quite understand why transferring Federal land is a bad idea so I posted a few thoughts.

State Land isn't Public Land in ANY western state. Your ability to hunt, camp, hike, or otherwise recreate is controlled by a states Land Board (one guy in NM). They can and do limit your ability to access. You don't hunt on State Land in CO unless the CPW has paid to lease the hunting rights. UDWR is currently paying 800K/year to their land board for hunting and the latest renewal numbers I've seen are 1-3 million. Their land board has already floated the idea of turning all the transferred lands into CWMU's. Only residents can apply for hunts in CWMU's, nr need to buy or be given a tag. NMDFG is paying 1 million, negotiated down from 2, and you don't camp on state land. Any NM State land that's been leased has access being controlled by the lessee.

Seems odd that anyone who recreates on Federal land would think it's a good idea to transfer all our National Forests and BLM land to these Land Boards. Selling the land is only one part of what's so disturbing about the transfer movement; land boards can, and will, shut us out.

Randy Newberg has a public lands series on his youtube channel, link provided. It's worth the time.

https://tinyurl.com/ybg82zxg

[shootbrownelk]

I've lived in the west all my life except for a few foreign countries when I was wearing a military uniform. The local WY news this week, just stated about 5900 plus people, left the state in 2017. It was probably due to the loss of jobs in the oil & gas field and coal industry. A lot times people have a hard time finding a good paying job. Also some people don't care for the weather. Living out west is good if you pick the right state.

The non-stop wind drives lots of Midwesterners back home within a year or so of moving here. Now the high paying coal/gas/oil jobs are gone. I think the real numbers of folks packing up and hitting the bricks back to their home states is higher than 6,000 though.

[WapitiBob]

from the NM State Land Office..

Recreational Access to Trust Land

Recreational access to State Trust Land is facilitated through a permit system determined by the specific type of use. Please keep in mind that permission is required to legally access Trust Land. Some activities are Prohibited or restricted on State Trust Land. Travel on trust land is restricted to public highways and established roads; off road activities are not permitted. The disturbance, damaging, or removal or resources is strictly prohibited. Please see the following link for a complete list of prohibited activities. Additional information on the types of access permitted on Trust Land can be found below or by following these links: Hiking; Camping; Hunting; and Educational Access.

Hunting on State Trust Lands

There are approximately 9 million state trust surface acres in New Mexico. In addition to U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, the State Game Commission has purchased an easement on state trust land for fishermen, hunters and trappers to use. Most are open to public hunting and other recreation; there are some lands withdrawn for hunting access. It is the individual’s responsibility to get all pertinent information from each agency and to know the regulations that each agency has on its managed lands. Much of New Mexico’s public land is mixed with privately owned property. The private landowner has the right to control the use of private land. Sportsmen must get written landowner permission to cross private land where no public access exists to get to the public land. It is unlawful to post or otherwise restrict lawful uses of public land.

http://www.nmstatelands.org/Recreational_Access.aspx

[JM77]

State Land isn't Public Land in ANY western state.

https://tinyurl.com/ybg82zxg

Not quite right Bob. What would be more correct would be to say state land isn't managed like BLM or USFS land. I assure you state land is public land in Wyoming. Under Wyoming Statutes, Title 36, which deals with state owned lands, is headed "Public Land".

Call it any name you want; school trust, state, state trust, or pain in the a$$, but it is public land.

[hoshour]

from the NM State Land Office..

Recreational Access to Trust Land

Recreational access to State Trust Land is facilitated through a permit system determined by the specific type of use. Please keep in mind that permission is required to legally access Trust Land. Some activities are Prohibited or restricted on State Trust Land. Travel on trust land is restricted to public highways and established roads; off road activities are not permitted. The disturbance, damaging, or removal or resources is strictly prohibited. Please see the following link for a complete list of prohibited activities. Additional information on the types of access permitted on Trust Land can be found below or by following these links: Hiking; Camping; Hunting; and Educational Access.

Hunting on State Trust Lands

There are approximately 9 million state trust surface acres in New Mexico. In addition to U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, the State Game Commission has purchased an easement on state trust land for fishermen, hunters and trappers to use. Most are open to public hunting and other recreation; there are some lands withdrawn for hunting access. It is the individual?s responsibility to get all pertinent information from each agency and to know the regulations that each agency has on its managed lands. Much of New Mexico?s public land is mixed with privately owned property. The private landowner has the right to control the use of private land. Sportsmen must get written landowner permission to cross private land where no public access exists to get to the public land. It is unlawful to post or otherwise restrict lawful uses of public land.

http://www.nmstatelands.org/Recreational_Access.aspx

Arizona and New Mexico require a permit to hunt on state trust lands. In California, it varies by the individual property, so you need to check there before hunting.

I couldn't find anything in Nevada on a quick search but the feds practically own the whole state anyway. Utah you covered well in your post.

In the other western states it seems that hunting is generally allowed on state trust lands, although Oregon and Washington noted that there can be exceptions.

City and county land are often not available for hunting and if they are, they may restrict the use of weapon choice.

[go_deep]

My dad owns what use to be Wisconsin public land. Great hunting, fair amount of people use to hunt it, but the DNR decided they didn't need it, for whatever reason. He bought it in the early 2000's, so fairly recent.

[Slugz]

"In the other western states it seems that hunting is generally allowed on state trust lands, although Oregon and Washington noted that there can be exceptions."

I may miss or mis-speak on a some details but for the most part.
Colorado has a fair amount of state trust lands that are leased out and the money/taxes paid for the lease goes into the local or close by school district. The major flaw with that process IMO is....

Its a sealed bid process run by a local good ole boy network......and the current lessee always has the last bid and or counter by law. So even if you beat the current bid by 5 cents per acre.......the current lessee gets the info from the local network on what he has to bid.....and raises his price per acre by 1cent and gets it for another 3/4 years. Just would like it to be fair is all.

Most if not all of those lessees wont let you even get on the land.

I get it though and its part of their business plan and as long as people pay 15,000$ for a canned walk 300 yard elk hunt, shoot em and winch em into a truck.....the demand will still be there. Oh well.

The large land company's/cattle company's have a lot of this locked up in key areas that are adjacent to private ranches/ranching for wildlife farms.

[rammont]

There's a discussion going on, on another board. Some don't quite understand why transferring Federal land is a bad idea so I posted a few thoughts.

State Land isn't Public Land in ANY western state. Your ability to hunt, camp, hike, or otherwise recreate is controlled by a states Land Board (one guy in NM). They can and do limit your ability to access. You don't hunt on State Land in CO unless the CPW has paid to lease the hunting rights. UDWR is currently paying 800K/year to their land board for hunting and the latest renewal numbers I've seen are 1-3 million. Their land board has already floated the idea of turning all the transferred lands into CWMU's. Only residents can apply for hunts in CWMU's, nr need to buy or be given a tag. NMDFG is paying 1 million, negotiated down from 2, and you don't camp on state land. Any NM State land that's been leased has access being controlled by the lessee.

Seems odd that anyone who recreates on Federal land would think it's a good idea to transfer all our National Forests and BLM land to these Land Boards. Selling the land is only one part of what's so disturbing about the transfer movement; land boards can, and will, shut us out.

Randy Newberg has a public lands series on his youtube channel, link provided. It's worth the time.

https://tinyurl.com/ybg82zxg

I don't know if the video you mentioned is wrong or if you misinterpreted the information but it looks like you're wrong about state public land. If you don't like the way your state lands are being managed then do something about it, it's a lot easier to make changes at the state level than at the federal level. Personally I think that the puppeteers behind the fed keeping control of public land are the big eastern conglomerates that want access to nontaxable land for grazing cattle. The truth is that the fed has disposed of more public land than all of the states combined.