Learning from What is Happening in Indiana

And across the midwest and eastern US.

One Indiana Boy's Cautionary Tale to Hunters

Thanks for reading.

Just this Saturday, at a a PLWA annual meeting, one gentlemen expressed his opinion that the attacks on our public lands wasnt serious, they were going to go away. I and others refuted this. I mentioned that I view what is happening, as a death by a thousand cuts, gave H. R. 4751 as an example. Development is certainly one of the goals if our public lands were to be turned over to the states. That would be a major cut.

Indeed. Perhaps to the jugular in certain states. 4751 is an alarming one for sure. Pretty easy to see the end game they're envisioning.

Nice write up hunterconservationist. This is by no means restricted to the East and Midwest. As more people move to the western states, it's happening more and more here too. We just have more alternatives in places to go, for now....

katqanna said:

Just this Saturday, at a a PLWA annual meeting, one gentlemen expressed his opinion that the attacks on our public lands wasnt serious, they were going to go away. I and others refuted this. I mentioned that I view what is happening, as a death by a thousand cuts, gave H. R. 4751 as an example. Development is certainly one of the goals if our public lands were to be turned over to the states. That would be a major cut.

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This lackadaisical attitude is exactly why the anti-public land politicians keep getting voted into office. They are flat out telling us they want to take our land. What part of that is difficult to understand? They are actively working towards that end, as evidenced by myriad bills at all levels of government in multiple states and Washington D.C. The attacks will go away all right, just as soon as there's no more public lands to attack. I don't know if its ignorance or denial, but it astounds me.

Couldn't agree more Hunting Wife and it's happening with more and more regularity. I live in AZ now and have lived in CO as well. My hope is that we can kill hunter apathy before it kills us.

My hometown in Missouri is less crowded than when I was a kid. No public land in the county unless is a little league field inside town. Rather than subdivisions being built, I am seeing homes rot away. Welcome to the "DustBelt" where agriculture was the primary industry and not as many farmers are needed with the more efficient, larger equipment.

Fewer farmers means fewer kids so the school ebbs away and there is less need for grocery stores, gasoline stations and stores. The center of my hometown is a square that used to have a couple of dozen stores, flower shops, pharmacies, banks, etc. My hometown is now 50% of the population it was 40 years ago.

All of my old haunts are still there. Hunters back home are in step with baseball fans in that the average age is about a year older with each passing year. Fewer kids are opting to go out in the cold and endure the bone-chilling winds we get about the time rifle deer season opens. Sure, is not as easy as once was to knock on a stranger's door and be hunting a few minutes later but most of that has to do with liability concerns and not the land being leased by other hunters.

Maybe my hometown is far enough down an undivided roadway from any city with over 50,000 population that a kid can hunt much as I did a few decades ago which is probably similar to a few decades prior. Is bittersweet to drive through town on my infrequent visits and see yet another icon has been razed such as our only movie theater. All my elementary schools are gone. The memories flood back and I feel older than should.

I now live in the largest city in a state out West. Land is being paved. There is still plenty of public land which can be hunted, though, and private forests often allow hunting so there are options. Drawing a quality tag is sometimes tough.

I hope the challenges in Indiana can be solved and solved in other areas of the country. Back home, the reason for fewer kids hunting is not lack of access to land, though.

LopeHunter, thanks for reply. Much appreciated. When smaller farms started to fold back home in Indiana, subdivisions, cattle, hog and hunting leases more than filled the void. Whereabouts in MO do you live? I spent four years as a MO resident and have covered just about every square inch of the state by car.

There are certainly many contributing factors to the decline in hunter numbers, but primary among them is definitely loss of access, and when Dad loses his hunting spot, the kids don't go hunting either. The urbanization of America and disconnection to our role in the food chain are other primary reasons people are hunting less. The people that used to work the farms in your hometown lived lives much closer to the land and their food. When they pack up and move to the city, they lose that connection and so does their offspring.

Getting the word out and getting people to listen has been difficult but I'm still doing what I can.

Yesterday I posted your piece on a statewide hunting and fishing forum with my own added comments and out of 370 views I got 4 responses; 1 positive and supportive, and 3 negative. One responder of rather narrow focus implied that I was paranoid and spreading hysteria. Another suggested that if the state didn't do things the way I like, then I should vote it differently or move out of state. Now there's a real brain trust for you. The third just supported state ownership with no further comment.

I think that our hunting population in NC has ballooned in the last 20-30 years right in step with the increasing deer and turkey populations and all that most of these newer hunters know is hunting the public land we do have which in no way compares to that of the Western states, and buying up leases to hunt on or hunting the dwindling family holdings. The average Eastern hunter has little understanding of the possibilities or implications of turning all the Federal land over the states and the costs associated with administering all those millions of acres.

Even though I feel like Don Quixote tilting windmills from the back of my jackass I'll keep trying to get the message out.

Properties around me are leasing for $40+ per acre. I'm lucky to be able to hunt where I work, otherwise I'd be limited to a 10 and a 25 acre parcel that I share with 2 other guys. It's a totally different world than the west, which I think is why most easterners/Midwest folk don't put a lot of value in public land.

Dad and I used to have hundreds of acres of private land to hunt. Now we have around 40 acres that we can hunt (of a 506 acre farm) and the only reason we are allowed to hunt it is dad watches over it for the owner who lives in Lexington, KY. We can still hunt sheds on many of the farms we used to bow hunt but that is it. Leasing has taken over here.

A few years ago, there were rumors of legislation that would remove the tax-exempt status from any landowner(farmer) who was leasing land and thereby "commercializing" it, but it never went anywhere. I can't say that I am completely opposed to such legislation. It is their land, but I kind of see leasing and still getting everything tax free for farming as double dipping in some sense.

If I lose the 40 acres, I will probably quit hunting whitetail. I mainly just hunt for the freezer stock up now. Trophy hunting is a thing of the past for me at this point without access to prime lands.

LCH said:

Properties around me are leasing for $40+ per acre. I'm lucky to be able to hunt where I work, otherwise I'd be limited to a 10 and a 25 acre parcel that I share with 2 other guys. It's a totally different world than the west, which I think is why most easterners/Midwest folk don't put a lot of value in public land.

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I agree. I don't personally know anyone who hunts the National Forest here but plenty of people who hunt the state forests and I don't think any of them realize the cost of adding more land to the state's budget. When you don't have a lot of federal land to hunt it's real hard to drum up support for it.

Just as an update, since I posted this morning about 4 responses, it seems I've lit off a firestorm as there are now 52 responses and the end is nowhere in sight. Some good support, some against Federal ownership. some uninformed and some seeking understanding with only one minor pissing contest. Maybe this will open some eyes.

tarheel said:

Just as an update, since I posted this morning about 4 responses, it seems I've lit off a firestorm as there are now 52 responses and the end is nowhere in sight. Some good support, some against Federal ownership. some uninformed and some seeking understanding with only one minor pissing contest. Maybe this will open some eyes.

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Maybe a case study would be enlightening for them? I found this article to be interesting.
https://www.hcn.org/articles/an-experiment-in-privatizing-public-land-fails-after-14-years

Here's another one that I think explains very well why this notion of "returning" land to the states is disingenuous, as it never belonged to the states in the first place.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/public-lands-argument-not-rooted-fact

If it wasn't for our Federal government obtaining these lands via wars, treaty, or outright purchase, there wouldn't be any states.

Tarheel, I've been following your thread and it's unfortunate, and a little scary, that so many people are uninformed - or blissfully ignorant. Thank you for sharing it though. Putting facts in front of folks without all of the information, is the first step in bringing them over to the right side of the discussion. When others jump in with facts that strongly oppose their position, every once in a while, a person will do the research and alter their position.

Unfortunately most people don't understand the differences between state owned and federally managed publicly owned land. If you're predisposed to push back against anything and everything "federal" it's seems to be an easy jump to the state bandwagon, and they jump on that bandwagon without taking the time to do their homework.

The other thing that has put me on my heels has been the short view of many responses. Posts elsewhere quickly deteriorated into, "well it doesn't happen that in PA or MI today so it's not an issue" or worse yet, "the good ole days are just that and they're gone". Many people are completely apathetic.

Hunting Wife, that's a good read. Thanks for sharing. I have two posts on my site that dive into the differences between state trust and federally managed public land, "State Trust Land is NOT Public Land: Arizona" and "State Trust Land is NOT Public Land: Colorado".

LCH said:

Properties around me are leasing for $40+ per acre. I'm lucky to be able to hunt where I work, otherwise I'd be limited to a 10 and a 25 acre parcel that I share with 2 other guys. It's a totally different world than the west, which I think is why most easterners/Midwest folk don't put a lot of value in public land.

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Having lived through what is happening in the midwest has made me value public land all the more, and want to fight for it all the harder. On public land I can still find that freedom I had as a kid in Indiana.

I hope we can make this a rallying point to recruit or eastern and midwestern brethren into this fight to protect our public lands. The Tonto National Forest I hunt a short walk from my home here in Arizona belongs just as much to the guy in downtown Manhattan or rural Ohio. It's here for them to come hunt quail, deer, javelina, and to find solitude and adventure.

Kudos for recognizing the work that both TNC and NICHES has done in that part of the state. My college professor was a founding member of NICHES. However, I do disagree to your position on Pence signing the law regarding rifles. The DNR proposed that as part of the rule change process last year. Yes, there was some vocal opposition, but I'm not sure I would put it even close to being considered "overwhelming" opposition. I know it wasn't among the hunters I know here...

I think you are selling IN a bit short as to the state governments stance on public land. This press release is a great example of what I am talking about:
http://www.in.gov/activecalendar_dn...nformation_id=19006&type=&syndicate=syndicate

This press release points to the state taking on what I see as two of the biggest problem facing hunters here: 1. conversion of lands and 2. access. As stated in the article, the state has added over 12K acres to the total of lands open to the public. Those are lands that we can visit and most can be hunted one. The bigger thing the Initiative has done, IMO, is the amount of conservation easements! Those acres total even more than the acres open to the public. Indiana loses about 60K ac of farm ground/wild lands to suburban and urban development each year. Those easements will help stave off some of that.

So while I understand your disappointment with how things are now where you grew up near the Kankakee, things are not totally bleak in Indiana. That said, I'd move tomorrow...

PS- Where are the BLM lands in Indiana?

As a young hunter in Illinois who lives but 10 miles from the Indiana boarder, I feel your pain. I'll tell you what, I am definitely prepared to help you fight this. I want involved. You tell me what you would like to do, and we can work on something and get it started. I'm very serious. I sat in awe and watched as these lunatics in the west tried their hardest to make everyone believe that they were doing what they were doing "for Americans", they weren't. Far from it. I get into these discussions all the time with people. Most of these people aren't even from the west, and they live as we do with little to no public land. They honestly think the states can control those lands better than the government. It is so hard to find good land around here for hunting and fishing, and when you do, you hold onto it, which usually means the next guy loses out. We need to take a stand and create opportunities for the next generation. Let's do it, and stop whining about it.

A lot of this article really hits home as I lived in Kankakee, IL for a few years out of college just across the border. I don't want to bring down the article because I'm on board with everything it represents in increasing public opportunity and maintaining public land in the East and West. I just think the article needs a little more context.

NW Indiana, like it or not, is one large continous exburb to the greater Chicagoland area. At worst its a bedroom community and at best its a convenient and desireable recreational area for Chicagoland residents with $$$$$ to spend. That part of the world was once a blue collar haven that benefitted from the hundreds of thousands of high paying manufacturing jobs and all the related industries supporting steel mills, refineries that today only supports a fraction of those jobs. Many of the cities not far north have crumbled to the ground and anyone and everyone with the means leap frogged their way south in a vigorous game of white flight in varying degrees of suburban density from 1/2 acre lots to 20 acre hobby farms as they went. While this was happening, viable farming went from a few hundred acres to few thousand acres just to support a single family. Equipment got more efficient and man power demands plummeted. Bigger equipment and fertile ground increased the incentive to bulldoze every treeline and hedge and you ended up left with fields only limited in size by the square mile grid roads surrounding them. Good ag land around that area is worth 6-10k/acre with cash rents 5 times more than any CRP program might be paying. There is tremendous economic demand to invest in good ground that is profitable year over year for farming that might be worth even more as a development in 20 years.



What I'm trying to say is the area mentioned in this article was hit by seas of change from every angle and represents one of the most dramatic instances of the loss of the 80 acre family plot of ground anywhere in the country. Yes public lands in this area tie into this, but that's really a fraction of whats going on at least in this area.

At this point the things that need to be addressed are things like requiring developers to set aside a certain percentage of acres into green space or conservation easements. We need to be taxing hunting leases the same as equipment under pittman-robertson and using that money to lease private land access. We need to open existing green space within the suburbs for limited hunting like what McHenry Country does in Illinois. Chicagoland isn't short on green space, its short on green space where you can hunt even if that only 1 weekend a year instead of hiring "sharpshooters" to shoot deer over bait. In Illinois the state needs to add waterways to the public access trust and make an effort to have more access to those waterways. We need to not provide crop insurance and fat subsidies to farmers that plow under every piece of vegetation that isn't corn or soybeans.

Flatland, your assessment of what's gone on in NW Indiana and suburbs of IL is of course right on the mark, but the intent of the article was to use my experience to highlight that without action by hunters things will not just stay the same. Keeping what we have, creating new public access to private land, etc. - those things require effort and forward planning. Addressing bad ag subsidy programs, working at the county level to increase hunting access in green spaces, etc. - hunters have not engaged in the processes. The specifics of course will vary from place to place but my experience in NW IN is by no means unique, from the perspective of the end result in regards to loss of access to private land, across the east and midwest. As the US population grows this trend is going to continue moving west of the Rockies with increased frequency. Now imagine if public lands were transferred to states and privatized on a large scale.

Your suggestions around how to open new private lands to hunting are great. What we need is action.