You’ve Got Hunting Ground
By Sam Finden

Growing up in Minnesota, I didn’t think much about private vs. public land. Down around the cities, if I wanted to go hunting, I ran through my mental Rolodex and figured out who I knew that had a chunk of ground worth hanging a stand on. In high school, I had access to a leased parcel with fantastic deer numbers. It was just the way we did things- find a landowner, get permission, and go from there.

Some people, the farm kids, had bean fields and corn fields that attracted deer like crazy.  Whenever I got the chance to hunt on their places, I took it. Occasionally, somebody would have thrown a little clover seed out on the edge of their field, or tossed a salt block off the tractor’s fender in a corner near the woods. Those were prime spots.

Up north, though, we hunted on paper company land or timber company land around our small cabin site, which were open for anyone willing to get out in the woods. It was effectively public ground, and it was a wide world of opportunity. As a kid fresh out of hunter’s safety, taking to a stand of punky Poplar trees with my twenty gauge in hand, looking for ruffed grouse to shoot at (and usually miss) was as close to me being Davy Crockett as I ever thought I’d get. It was wild. It had mystery in it. It had the potential for danger. It was exactly the sort of thing a boy wants.

Of course, I didn’t know anything about the land ownership situation. I just knew that I was allowed to hunt there. To me, those were my woods. Only later on, after moving to Arizona, did I begin to grasp the concept of public ground. I was living in Phoenix, going to a technical school. Eventually, I caught on with a Jungle B hockey club that needed guys, and I moved in with one of my teammates who happened to be a hunter.

Living in the city, we had to travel quite a ways to go after quail, doves, and ducks. It wasn’t uncommon for us to drive a few hours just to find a decent spot. Coach used to look the other way when we showed up late to practice, as long as we brought him a couple of quail. Ducks, especially, were tough because of the lack of open water. With no money to pay trespass fees, we had to hunt public ground. Out there, it wasn’t about competition. It was about effort. We put in the effort and were rewarded.

A few years later, I moved to Colorado and became acquainted with the mountain way of living. Davy Crockett was suddenly alive and well again, with millions of acres of prime elk country available just outside of town. For a single guy with a pickup truck, the world was my oyster. After my first elk camp on horses, I was hooked.

Then I moved to Texas, where there was virtually no public land. All of the hunting in the Lone Star state was done on leases. Deer management was and is in full swing, with the state and land managers taking an active role in the state’s herd health. There were a lot of moving parts in Texas, with high fence/low fence, breeding programs, feeders, etc. Some don’t consider Texas to be a legitimate hunting state because of these factors. I can’t say one way or the other, but I do know that the land ownership situation is relatively similar to the southern half of Minnesota. Find a lease, get permission, and go from there.
Now, I’m back in the mountains. Montana called me west and I’ve made it my home for the past few years. There are horses and cows and elk all over the place. And there’s public ground throughout. Sure, the valley floors are full of private ranches that sell permission to outfitters or keep it for local old-timers. That’s okay. In the mountains above, you can go hunt without say-so from anyone.

I’ve got ponies because they help me get further back into the hills before I start sweating, but it’s not necessary. There are opportunities for access all over the place. Better hunting seems to be found in non-motorized areas (sorry ATV guys), but there is an abundance of game everywhere. This is not specific to Montana, either. Throughout the mountain west, a hunter can match his effort against the elements and go hunting.

I hosted a good friend from Minnesota last year for a bow hunt during the elk rut. It took him a couple of days to understand that we were allowed to go virtually everywhere we wanted to. We hiked for miles and never touched private ground. And we were into bugling elk, belligerent moose, confused mule deer, delicious grouse, and aggravating squirrels every day. We had coffee on mountaintops and looked over hundreds of thousands of acres of country, most of which we could legally hunt without any hassle. Our opportunity was only limited by our effort. Buy a tag, find a mountain, put in the effort to hunt it.

So, if you find yourself lamenting the fact that you don’t have any land to hunt, I urge you to reconsider. The majority of ground that I hunt is owned by the US Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management. As a citizen of the United States, I own it- and so do you. It’s here, where the elk live-where the mountains meet the sky. Davy Crockett is alive and well on your public lands.
About the author: Minnesota Hunting Club contributor Sam Finden is a hunter, horseman, and outdoor storyteller from Montana. His latest book, LONE WOLF, is a young-adult novella about wolf management, doing the right thing, and camping in the mountains. To learn more about Sam and his work, please visit www.SamFinden.com