Knock on doors or Trespass????

R

Rock Knocker

Well-known member
Well, I have moved north to an area of the state without much public land, ive been busy and not hunting much the last couple years but now I want to shoot some coyotes up here.

Im trying to find places to hunt but everything public is thick woods or a private farm field besides the woods...

How do you guys go about asking permission and finding locations? I need some motivation to start driving around and knocking on random doors.

Half the issue is that the owner of the land may be nowhere around, there might be farm house beside a field but its not even a 50/50 chance that the homeowner runs or owns the field. Ive worked at a local place helping spread fertilizer on fields and ownership of this area is all over the place, who lives there, who owns it, who works it, who hunts it, all different people.

What do you guys do in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter? I dont want to make people angry, especially not my local neighbors over a coyote but I dont want to sit on the couch all night being afraid of nothing ether. Plenty of people talk about the whole groups of coyote dogs that people run through, those hunters dont ask permission for nothing. One guy stopped at my dads new place and said, "Our dogs will be coming through.."

At least here in MN, trespassing laws say that the property needs to be posted with signs to be considered trespassing and there are no large farm fields posted so as far as i know, legally im OK, i just need to leave if asked..... BUT AGAIN I dont want to be making people angry, I dont want to make farmer Joe wake up at 1am and ask me to leave and start posting trespassing signs in the morning....

Ive asked a few local people for permission, one guy said I could go out in his tree stand but its just in the middle of the woods for deer. Another guy said I should shoot any and all coyotes I see, I asked to hunt his farm and he said "I havent heard them, there are none around" I said "i havent heard a howl in 3 months but theyre everywhere" He said "Nope, havent heard them." That was that.....

I have stopped at a couple random private fields at night over the years but i dont cross fences, dont cross trespassing signs, dont walk into deer woods hunting property and I wont stop by if theres a home attached, if its a farm field with no signs and no one around, i might stop for a call. And overall I just feel uneasy doing it.

Im trying to get some motivation, I told my buddy I would have some new hunting spots by this full moon. What has your experiences been asking for coyote permission, do you have any suggestions? Everyone up here says theres coyote problems, a few years ago my buddy accidently shot me and the sheriff that arrested him was thanking him for hunting coyotes but good luck trying to find somewhere to hunt...
 
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Get the On-X app. It tells you the owner of the property. From there you can find tax information and hopefully either visit the owner of the property or maybe even call. If they say no then theres nothing else to do. I would never recommend you trespass. That's a good way to get yourself hurt. Just imagine if you had property and there was some random dude walking around it with a gun in the middle of the night.
 
Lazer32 said:
Get the On-X app. It tells you the owner of the property. From there you can find tax information and hopefully either visit the owner of the property or maybe even call. If they say no then theres nothing else to do. I would never recommend you trespass. That's a good way to get yourself hurt. Just imagine if you had property and there was some random dude walking around it with a gun in the middle of the night.
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Oh yeah, racoon hunters cruise through my place in the middle of the night with their hounds barking up my 100ft white pines. No one around here is going to shoot at me, if I did that I would have killed one of my neighbors by now, UNLESS they think I AM THE COYOTE.

I have property, I dont post it, come on out....... Thats how I would like to be treated so I dont get hypocritical about it, I dont own the Earth. Lol, that doesnt mean I wont sneak out and scare this piss out of you and your dog with NVG in the dark, me and one hunter surprised each other good one night. Setting up a tree stand and trying to hunt deer every day or parking in my driveway is one thing but cruising through the back of my place for a coyote or racoon is another. I take a what-I-dont-know-wont-hurt-me stance, if youre going to sneak onto my place, do it quietly where I cant see.
 
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I had OnX before, then I threw my tablet into the laundry machine on accident. Ive only got a flip phone and laptop, nothing for apps, i should see if OnX will work with Windows11
 
Most counties have CSI mapping in addition to taxpayer rolls. I used to carry a wifi hotspot and computer in the truck to access when I found a discrepancy between my GPS and BLM Maps and actual situation, like a farm house where it should be public lands.

How is life in MN now, I left there in 81. Scheels was still a hardware store in Moorhead with a firearms corner.
 
i use onx. i knock on doors. we have close to 100 properties or more that allow us to hunt predators on. look for farms with large fields and swamp or thick cover on the property.

knock on doors even if the property is posted. a lot of posted property is to keep people away that want to hunt deer. those are good places to ask because the property owners hunt deer and turkey they dont want the coyotes around. if you have groundhogs in the area offer to get rid of them too.

also offer to help with some farm chores....they really appreciate that.
 
I use an app called hunt stand. It shows property lines and also shows where you are at with blue don't gps moving. I use it when I hunt especially squirrel hunt. Shows current weather and gives charts with wind direction. I pay 29.99 a year.

I always have written permission to hunt someone else's land. I don't want to deal with game warden late at night trying to explain I have only verbal permission and them waking property owner up late at night upsetting them
 
Yeahh. Signs are a kinda like locks. They’re made to keep honest people out. You should never consider trespassing as an option just because you might can get away with it once. Knock on doors, use your counties qpublic/map/tax assessor site to gather owner info and go from there. Me and you are in the same boat with not being able to find any permissions, thus I’ve been hunting public land/wma only. I try and think of it as I’m hunting more difficult, likely educated, critters. It’s practice if nothing else for when I do get an ok on a private property 😁
 
I really can’t believe this is even a topic of discussion, lol. My advice is to stay up North with the nonsense of trespassing.
It’s really frowned upon down here and you’re liable to wake up with nothing but skivvies on and no idea where you are. If you’re gonna play stupid games then they’ll leave you with stupid prizes. Sorta hard to tell police you don’t know where your truck, clothes, and gun are, lol.
And if ever caught and the person who catches you gives you the opportunity to either call the law on yourself or fight them for the opportunity to leave…call the law cause that joker didn’t get put in charge of keeping critters and trespassers off the property unless he was absolutely certain he could do the job, lol.
People put a lot of time and effort into their properties and don’t take kindly to those who want to mooch off of it. There’s also the liability issue. Too many sue happy folks running around these days, not counting the fact someone else with permission may be hunting that property.
Just don’t do it…
 
Since you dont have onx find your county assessors site to determine ownership and call the owners. If you cant get ahold of them, dont hunt it. Period.
Tobs of public where i live, no need to hunt private, but still now and then theres a piece of private id really like to hunt, or at least pass through. Usually something adjacent to public that i hunt. Ive cold called quite a few people and almost always get permission to hunt predators. I tell them im looking to call cougars and coyotes and bobcat, not hunt deer or elk. And the response is usually along the lines of, "okay, go ahead, but dont let me catch you in here during deer or elk season."
 
AWS said:
Most counties have CSI mapping in addition to taxpayer rolls. I used to carry a wifi hotspot and computer in the truck to access when I found a discrepancy between my GPS and BLM Maps and actual situation, like a farm house where it should be public lands.

How is life in MN now, I left there in 81. Scheels was still a hardware store in Moorhead with a firearms corner.
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I have checked the county maps, online maps have the property boundary marked but no owner info that I have found, just the property ID. The county soil service I worked at this spring had a huge good plat map, at least half the farm fields are owned by trusts, corp. etc... owner info is a P.O. Box an hour away... I was born '86 so im sure its changed a lot, I just keep moving further and farther from the cities.

To be CLEAR, at least to MN laws, I HAVE BROKE NO LAWS. Ive never been asked to leave, confronted, crossed signs or fences. I dont even want to push the limits of those laws, up here if Ive ever walked onto private land without permission its a farm field owned by a company and Ive talked to locals who say no one is hunting. And heck, the only time people were angry I was coyote hunting was public land, one time including a sheriff call. Before I moved up here I used to hunt an abandoned golf course, overgrown for 6 years, the sheriffs would park there for a break, no signs up, no one around really knew who owned it, I would stop and talk to the sheriffs and they didnt care one bit that I was hunting there.

Like I said, people are running packs of dogs often for coyotes with no regard. And the dogs arent running open empty corn fields or reading your signs like I would do, they will go right through your back yard and all through your forest kicking up every animal, ive seen it. Down south you can do whatever you want to each other in the woods but up here we are all hunters and neighbors and get along well, my place was bank owned when i bought it and my neighbor was hunting my place without permission when I bought it, my place still has coon hunters come through. My parents have coyote dogs in their back yard. The Rum River goes through my neighbors place 40ft from mine and we have people floating, drinking and walking around plenty in the summer.

I had the Hunt Stand app before but it was not accurate, my property was correct but not my neighbors property or some other spots, it was free then, maybe its updated now. OnX was great, I just need to get it for a computer instead of a phone. The fact that so many of the places im looking into have P.O. Boxes as my only contact is the biggest pain.

Where is all this new Chinese farm land here in America? Then I wont care one bit what the owner thinks.
 
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