Especially for those of you who got your panties in a wad over Wisconsin sportsmen/women crossing railroad tracks to access public lands and waters for the purposes of hunting, fishing, and or trapping awhile back here . . . the August issue of Fur-Fish-Game contains a story sure to cause consternation among your group. Please direct your outrage over this public reveal of a trapper breaking the law to https://www.furfishgame.com/contact_us/index.php

Apologies to Hal for the avalanche of emails and letters F-F-G is about to receive from the T-man anti-RR-track-crossing crowd. Hopefully there will be a retraction in an upcoming issue and apologies for exposing his nefarious ways on the beaver trapline.

oh boy anyone but Hal,now RR will go broke trying to get Hal !

Oh my goodness the whole thing needs quickly shut down. How could FFG make such and error? Clearly a failure from top to bottom..
Hal be getting visit from Rail Road Dicks. Probably get swatted middle of night. Lmao.

I wonder if he knows the fine is substantial if you have a camera with you??
Mac

"Never Forget Which Way Is Up!"

Hal better pack his bags and head south for the border pronto. I believe it was railroad dicks that forced Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid south to hide out in Bolivia wasn't it?

Hal has shown us how to adapt to the situation at hand for decades. Railroad tracks and bridges have been part of my trapping,hunting, and fishing experiences my whole life. Still got my scalp but keep my eyes on the skyline and nose to the wind!

That rule closed off thousands of acres of Federal Refuge to walk-in access around here. Have heard idiotic solutions like "use a boat from the River" "have the DNR build specified crossings", etc. None of those provide realistic solutions for a problem that did not exist until Governor Doyle complied with the wishes of the railroad lobbyists and signed the law. Needless to say, there a lot of us folks that are now outlaws, like Hal, but there are also a lot of folks that are intimidated by the railroads and have unnecessarily given up their access to THEIR public lands. Fought this long and hard for many years.

Moosetrot

What is the fine for tresspassing on private property down there.
Here the fine for tresspass on private property is minimum10g and you can be assessed court costs as well.
Tresspassing on private property is serious buisness here.

Apparently Hall doesn't think it's as serious "down there."

Lots of tresspassers think that way.
Criminal tresspass of private property is one of the oldest tort laws on the books.

Boco-You and I went several rounds on this topic a few years back and I am not about to repeat it. The fact is we are dealing with hundreds of miles of very remote areas with very limited public access except the tracks. If there was data substantiating the closure of public access in such areas, I could swallow it. But there is not and the closure is no more than a show of power by the railroad lobbyist supported by our Governor (doing my best to not make this political).

Moosetrot

Private property is private property,I guess its OK for every tom dick and harry to walk across your roadway?Is there something in the law that says it only applies to a certain length of private road?
If enough people ignore a law the law will usually get changed over time if it is the will of the majority.

It just seems odd...to some of us anyway... that the railroads, constructed on public lands owned and accessed by the citizens of the State for about a century, were not deemed private property and/or subject to trespass laws until 2005 when the Governor signed the law.

Moosetrot

They said they would return the
rails to trails land to it's owner.
Sorry boco they are not loved by all.

The railroad land was taken from the Indians and given to investors as payment to build the track.As the track was built settlement followed and the railroads sold the stolen land to settlers.They only kept what they needed to run trains.

"They only kept what they needed to run trains"....and unnecessarily eliminate public access to huge amounts of public lands.

Moosetrot

Not a problem here in northern Maine.

oh no

I wonder if Bill Bill was with him???

Has anyone ever know Grump and Restor to get into any thing too deep for their qualifications !