Originally Posted By: longspur69
You can't plant your own food plot on public land. You can't gun hunt from Nov 20 thru Jan 31 on public land. You cant ride your atv all over public land. You can't take your buddies out to a food plot to shoot doves, cook out and drink beer on public land. You can't turkey hunt after 12:00. There's a lot of stuff you can't do on public land. It isn't YOUR land. It's a privelage - not an entitlement. Private landowners OWN their land. Of course they have more rights. Why would you think private landowners should only get the same rights as public land hunters? Skinny is exactly right. The state is just giving back a right they took away for no apparent reason.


You have interesting comments, however, I have in no way said that public land hunter should have EVERY right that a private land hunter has, I have even acknowledge that if you read and understand previous posts. The State by virtue of OWNING or HAVING CONTROL of public land has The SAME RIGHTS to control the access and what happens on public land EXACTLY as the person that owns or controls what happens on private land. In other words to use your examples, a private land owner/controller can restrict and make it where "You can't plant your own food plot on public private land" (i.e. some paper company lands as has been discussed on this site before). "You can't gun hunt from Nov 20 thru Jan 31 on public private land" (there have been posts on this site about hunting clubs who lease private land possibly not allowing hunting for certain periods of time or locations). "You cant ride your atv all over public private land" (there are comments made fairly regularly about restricting riding 4 wheelers on hunting clubs to only allow for retrieving dead deer, again on private land) . "You can't take your buddies out to a food plot to shoot doves" (You are mistaken here, some WMA and other public lands do in fact plant foodplots and allow doves to be hunted over them, but to you point, that could be prevented on private land as well), "cook out and drink beer on public private land" (I can only imagine that open flames not supervised as a part of a land management program are prohibited on timber company lands, and the same goes for the beer drinking due to liabilty reasons). "You can't turkey hunt after 12:00" (this can certainly be controlled on private land and maybe should be controlled on some private lands if the private land owner controller determines that the number of birds can't stand all day pressure). So where in any of these instances that you provided does the private or public land Owner/controller not have the exact same privilege or opportunity?? The privilege is there whether it is exercised or not and it is left STRICTLY up to the land owner/contoller.

I hope this answers or addresses the questions of perceived inequality of land rights between private and public land owner/controllers and the exercise there of.

Last edited by Fun4all; 02/26/12 11:41 AM.

"After all, it is not the killing that brings satisfaction; it is the contest of skill and cunning. The true hunter counts his achievement in proportion to the effort involved and the fairness of the sport." Dr. Saxton Pope