Private land that has to allow access?
New Mexico
I know that there are some land owners that have to allow public access to their land. How do we get info and maps for our units?
Good luck! Read the EPlus thread. (look for my posts as I detailed how I went about it. A couple other guys had some good pointers as well but the thread goes in several directions.) I did it this year for the area I'm hunting and it took about 3 weeks. If you are just now starting, you likely are too late. Maybe if you are local you can get it done quicker.
Haha the million dollar question
Well I've been outta the loop having not drawn in an unfamiliar unit in years. Has anyone had any success getting maps by just showing up at a G&F office and asking?
I was interested in this too until I saw the quality of maps they give you. May as well be a crayon drawing from a kid.
Dyjack,
Yes its a pain and the quality is good on some maps, non-existent on some properties and pathetic on others. However, by looking at the maps they gave me and the county treasurer maps I was able to identify at least two properties I will at least check out if not hunt in a couple of weeks.
If you have a subscription to onx or similar you can check unit wide tags list. Then just go browse and click the properties to match names. Then you can see a solid property line for it. It takes some time, but is a lot better mapping and doesn't require waiting for them to mail it.
Some of them purposely dodge this by having a different person as the contact though.
Jack, 99% of them don't have the names .
All the units I've went over had names on most of them. Even back country land with no access. Maybe it changed I haven't had my subscription for a while. Lol
Catron county is notorious for NOT reporting ownership haha
Is the private land for everyone or just those people that bought landowner permit.
Dyjack: I believe what Split was referring to is OnX may list "Fred & Wilma Flintstone" but the ranch name listed at G&F is "Hardrock Ranch". Often the names aren't the same so it's difficult to cross-reference them.
Rocky D: the private that has UW Unit Wide tags is legally open to all hunters that hold the same draw tag. That is why landowners make it difficult to determine where they are and that they are UW, because they legally have to allow all hunters access. It's only for the hunters with same hunt code, though (e.g. early season elk hunters), not bear hunters or deer hunters for instance.
The ranch lists have contact info with the name of a person to contact too. But sometimes the contact isn't the same as the taxed owner for obvious reasons. On smaller properties its usually the same person.
Another problem you run into is someone may own multiple tracks of land and only one of them is the UW land. If you are on one of their other properties you are trespassing. The system is definitely 99% in the landowner's favor. However, with effort, detective skills and persistence, you can find some nuggets. With that said, I'm glad I started the process early as it took me about a month from the time I sent in my request before I felt confident I knew any of the properties.
Darrell: to piggyback on that, in one unit I hunted several years ago the LO had sequential small parcels that blocked road access to a huge swath of public land. As you indicated, not all of those parcels were enrolled, so there was always at least 1 parcel that blocked access to the public without a brutally steep hike around. And I guarantee they planned it that way.
Their hunters had an easy walk, or more likely an easy ATV ride.
Smarba,
And likely a road on the forest service side also that wasn't legal to use but that they did regularly.
