Poll - Would you pay a tax/fee to allow use of spurs/bolts/screw in steps?

[Jammintree]

@Topdog
Would you open the land that you make harvest on to public access with no restrictions on how hunters climb trees?

 

[Topdog]

@Topdog
Would you open the land that you make harvest on to public access with no restrictions on how hunters climb trees?

Absolutely not.. That is a big no..

 

[kyler1945]

@Topdog
Would you open the land that you make harvest on to public access with no restrictions on how hunters climb trees?

One caveat - only .0001% can be members of saddle hunter. And only 5% can be “mobile hunters”. This would more appropriately mimic the general huntjng public

 

[Jammintree]

As someone who just watched 400+ middle class workers lose their jobs when a paper mill closed 30 min from me and knowing literally dozens foresters, loggers and a few saw mill owners who make low middle class wages I can assure you that the vast majority of the people in the industry are struggling to get by. But you already knew that

I’m not sure the exact number, but MD has about 220,000 acres of state owned forest. I’m guessing they aren’t really focused on extracting valuable timber. From what I see on the states website they use grants and taxpayer money to for TSI and habit creation. They have so little land and S0 many people they get the tax payers to foot the bill. So let the hunters have at it…. Very few states have land to population ratios like MD.

 

[Topdog]

If your land had been open for unrestricted hunting for the past 20 years, what percentage of your recent sale would you guess COULD have been lost ?

Would you say the potential for any possible loss is unacceptable?

Yes the potential for any possible loss is always unacceptable to a private land owner. There is absolutely zero way to put a number on something like that, about a million different variables go into timber value, what I can tell you is that timber is never worth what people think, much less usually, some is completely worthless, very little has the high numbers people often talk about. I really like bolts, they have their place in my pack, but I’m not drilling a veneer quality tree and can tell the difference unlike most. I honestly have no opinion of how people climb trees on public land, or any knowledge of the long term side effects after being drilled.

 

[Topdog]

I want to make it clear that I am not anti bolts, it’s my favorite way to hunt, it’s basically all I use, do I want the general public walking around drilling all my trees on my wood lot, no I don’t, but I can tell you that if I let someone else hunt there and could give them about a 15 minute pep talk on what trees to not drill then I wouldn‘t care, if that makes any sense..

 

[MNFarmHunter]

I have no opinion on the matter except that mandating a fee/tax requires enforcement of that fee/tax.

I laugh at states that require the hunter to pin their tag to their back but how would you regulate this? Would you have an ECP for every piece of public land and force hunters to declare their climbing method plus a physical search?


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[Jammintree]

Nut busters point is a good one; and I agree the lands we all hunt are all under such different circumstances. Up here in the northeast we don’t have alot of large parcels owned by big corporations, northern maine being an exception. We have some state forests, but most of our public hunting lands are actually small - medium parcels owned by private citizens and some owned by small companies that harvest timber. Those properties are increasingly put into various types of state programs that provide tax incentives in exchange for forestry and public access agreements. For these kinds of land owners any loss is unacceptable. The margins are simply too small.

 

[Jammintree]

I want to make it clear that I am not anti bolts, it’s my favorite way to hunt, it’s basically all I use, do I want the general public walking around drilling all my trees on my wood lot, no I don’t, but I can tell you that if I let someone else hunt there and could give them about a 15 minute pep talk on what trees to not drill then I wouldn‘t care, if that makes any sense..

I feel exactly the same way.

 

[GCTerpfan]

The vast majority of the state owned land is in the two counties with the largest area and lowest population. I don’t know how much the state manages timber for value versus habitat but I do know they have a robust timbering program.

I am not a Forester but I have a timber management plan on my 100 acres, I have walked several hundred more acres with foresters when I was a consultant in the land development business. I am currently a Resource Manager for for a large company that owns thousands of acres in WV and MD and I work with foresters to manage all of our timber in a manner to increase value. This topic has never come up in my 20 yr career.

I’m not debating there is the potential for some loss in value. I just think we are drastically overestimating how many people would actually drill a tree to climb it and how much value would actually be lost in timber. I understand in a situation like @Topdog’s were he’s trying to extract every dollar out of a small parcel but the loss from a handful of hunters across 220,000 acres (or more in many States) of public land wouldn’t even move the needle for the State.

Or maybe I’m wrong and in other states a bunch hunters would trade in their climbers and ladder stands and start using bolts of it was made legal. But It just doesn’t happen in here.

 

[GCTerpfan]

but most of our public hunting lands are actually small - medium parcels owned by private citizens and some owned by small companies that harvest timber.

this is likely were our disconnect is. I can see the point in regulating small private owned parcels, managed for timber but open to the public.

All of our public land here that I am aware of is State owned. Restricting taxpayers use of their own public land to save the State a few thousand dollars in Timber value when they have a $43 billion budget doesn’t make as much sense.

 

[Jammintree]

All of our public land here that I am aware of is State owned. Restricting taxpayers use of their own public land to save the State a few thousand dollars in Timber value when they have a $43 billion budget doesn’t make as much sense.

$43 billion to manage 220,000 acres!!! I’m gonna need a lifetime to let that sink in.

 

[Bigfoot522]

The tree assessor is called a game warden.
The way it works around these parts, you can poach deer, catch fish over and under size, shoot before shooting hour and on and on.
Your free to break any and all laws game or otherwise until you get caught.
Then the assessment is made and you pay your penalties and you are free to continue breaking as many laws as you see fit.
Least wise thats how we roll in the Northwoods.

 

[kyler1945]

I’ve learned a lot in this thread.

thanks for the members with experience in some of these fields sharing.

Sorry for not going with the flow and asking dumb questions.

 

[GCTerpfan]

$43 billion to manage 220,000 acres!!! I’m gonna need a lifetime to let that sink in.

lol, that’s the total State budget. Our little rural corner gets very little of that.

 

[Jammintree]

I’ve learned a lot in this thread.

thanks for the members with experience in some of these fields sharing.

Sorry for not going with the flow and asking dumb questions.

And forgive my insistence on this matter. With 8 billion people on the planet, “leave no trace” seems like an increasingly important thing to consider.

 

[Nutterbuster]

Next week on saddlehunter.com....

"Would you pay an annual permit fee to hunt with anectine pods, with the money earmarked towards research and management of anectine-harvested deer?"

 

[ThereWillBeSpuds]

Good way to get timber investors to stop participating in WMA access programs.

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[raisins]

Anybody here aware of what carbon credits are? This my opinion, and maybe mine only, but a couple years ago I noticed a disturbing trend on some large tracts of land owned by big timber companies, when being cut they were just hammering places, I mean flat… basically a one time cut, which didn’t make any sense to me, if your a timber company and own land for the purpose of managing timber, why trash it, one would think you would manage it for future production, well they’re not and I believe I know the answer. Large companies attempting to meet EPA standards can avoid the hassle of reducing their carbon emissions profile by purchasing large tracts of property which give them carbon credits, so they want big tracts of land that are cheap, the more acreage they own, the more pollution they can get away with, imagine that… Timber companies own big tracts of land, it’s my belief these timber companies have did the math and are confident that clear cutting a property and then dumping it to another big company for the sole purpose of carbon credits is a better plan than managing it for future growth of timber. How ironic that government regulated pollution standards may be in fact leading to the destruction of forests, hmmm imagine that.. I hope I’m wrong and in fact I may be, but that is exactly what happened 30 minutes from where I live, a large piece of timber company owned land was flattened and then promptly sold off to a company in California for carbon credits, now I know my grammar sucks, and I don’t have a college degree, but something tells me those trees were absorbing carbon long before the new owner to possession of that land..

No matter how smart a gov't bureaucrat thinks they are, there's someone that runs a company that is smarter and will figure out an angle that creates an unintended consequence like this.

WV came up with their own state lottery a few years ago and had some multiplier thingie. Anyways, a buddy's dad was a gambler and a math guy. He figured out that the multiplier was a ridiculous odds increase given pay out and cost. He bought something like a few thousand tickets and hit and won over a million. He used the proceeds to do the same for both his kids. They actually had to change the rule and maybe even ended that lotto because of this...I don't know exactly because it was like 20 years ago and I didn't care enough to keep close track.

 

[Jammintree]

Good way to get timber investors to stop participating in WMA access programs.

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At least In my area if lumber companies didnt participate in WMAs we’d lose half our public access hunting grounds. They make us ideal deer habitat and welcome us to hunt it.