I obviously have hit a nerve here, Bawanajim... What I'm seeing is two very different generations of hunters and landowners. I'm guessing I'm quite a bit older than the people making the last few posts here and I'm guessing you all haven't grown up in small rural communites. I've worked all my life and recently retired.

Years ago landowners were farmers (where I grew up). No one bought a chunk of land just for hunting. In the small rural communities everybody knows everybody and hunting was just part of the yearly cycle. There was no posted land. If you were out hunting and happened to see a farmer on a tractor, you walked over and visited for a while. People hunted where they lived......no one went went to another part of the state, out of state, etc. With the completion of the interstate system travel to the small rural communities was much easier. People with money from the cities started buying up land for weekend retreats....not for hunting at first, but for weekend getaways to ski, just enjoy the country, etc. With the influx of the people from the cities came the posting of the land and with the posting of the land came a lot of hard feelings and resentment. Sure, those people paid taxes (like everyone else), but they contributed little else to the community. They didn't buy much there other than a little gas and food when they were there for the weekends or on vacation. In effect, they contributed little of nothing to the local economy. Then there were those who decided to move up from the city and "get away" from it all. Usually what happened was after a year or two they started trying to make things just like it was where they came from....they wanted better roads, better schools, etc. Along with all of
this came higher taxes, higher real estate prices, and more resentment. So, you ad "No trespassing" and "No Hunting" signs on top of all of this and you can see why things became the way they are.

If you understand human nature you will know that lack of control creates anger. Just take a look at some of the things we read about with sporting events when parents, coaches, etc. get upset with a ref, umpire, etc. When a ref makes a bad call, people have absolutely no control over the situation and they sometimes get angry and lose it. Posting land creates a similar situation....people have lost control and become very angry and sometimes do things they normally wouldn't do.

I'm just trying to provide a little understanding here of why posting land creates the problems it does. You also need to understand the type of people you are dealing with. The people who sneak onto posted land, jack deer at night, etc. are not your conscientious sportsmen. These guys are derelicts and to put it mildly they are not very nice guys. I'm not saying they just be allowed to do whatever they want to do because they are how they are.....what I'm saying is that you'd better be prepared to deal with some pretty rough characters.

I don't know what the answer is, but I can assure you that posting land will always create problems..... I'm just trying to shed a little light onhow things have developed over the years and why things are the way they are...