While in Wyoming, I was driving home from town after dark when I saw a light in a place where there should not have been one. I drove in to investigate and found a hunting camp, tent and all, set up on our irrigated hay meadow. I drove up and asked what they were doing. Well of course, it was obvious, they were HUNTING. And they proceeded to tell me that was BLM ground they were on. "Sorry", I told em, "this is not BLM ground, this is private ground." They got their precious maps out and proceeded to prove to me they were on BLM. Well, the maps were wrong, but I could not convince them otherwise. They told me they weren't going anywhere, because that land belonged to THEM. They had trespassed into our land further when they walked down and shot some deer right in the middle of our cows. That too, was BLM ground they told me.
Not only was this piece deeded, it belonged to a neighbor that we swapped use for some of ours (not ours, really, because we leased this place). So I went to the house, and since my husband was not home at the time, I called the Game Warden, who was a good friend of ours. He was coming by, so he stopped in to visit with the camped-out hunters. He couldn't convince them to leave either, and he is a pretty convincing fellow. When my husband got home, he went down to try to talk to them and they still wouldn't listen. By now, they are really getting on the defensive and there are quite a few of them. It is turning into a bit of a scary situation. So now we have a BIG problem. We had to call the neighbor and he had to go to town and sign a complaint since it was his land. The Game Warden had to go back out and serve the papers. The hunters (who were NOT out-of-state hunters, but residents from Casper, Wyoming) had to appear in court late that evening. It was way past midnight when everyone got to bed. They had no money, had to put their guns up to get out of jail. They were STILL adamant that they were right and they went back to Casper to get more maps to PROVE they were right. Well, as it turned out the maps were wrong and they wound up apologizing about a week later. But what an ordeal to go through.
I had a guy tell me once, when we denied him the right to hunt, that he could hunt on our state ground without our permission. I said, "How are ya gonna get there? It is all surrounded by deeded ground." He said he planned to get a helicopter to drop him in. There is no rhyme or reason to these guys.
On another note, I must tell you about some friends we made when Jack (my husband) was guiding hunters in 1964. Jack was 19 at the time, and so were the hunters. They remain friends to this day, and it is 42 years later. Great people and good folks. So not all are bad, but too many are.
