Originally Posted by
Bob H in NH
The "open unless posted" philosophy is just that, a belief or philosophy. Howver you are wrong in two aspects:
1) As a landowner you can close down your land in a heart beat, just post it.
2) You don't have to "legally" post it for it to be valid. Someone above pointed out the "legal posting" rules and that is an old belief and no longer true. If the land is private and the owner makes a "good faith" effort to either post, or ask people to leave, then it's closed, period. So if you have a spot where hunters or hikers or anyone else, is using to access it, a simple sign there is enough to have the land closed.
The only exception is public use tax status. If the land if filed under public use tax status, it HAS TO BE OPEN TO ALL.
Much of this is because there is much land, especially up north, that is private, yet owned by companies. If the law was flipped, then you'd need access from a corporation to go on the land.
Bob, this was explained to me by a NH Fish & Game officer 5 years ago so the law must have changed since then. He said, Under the law, the way it was written at that time if a land owner has,
1) Not asked you to not hunt their property in the past.
2) Had limited signs but did not encompass the entire property.
3) Was not posted with a sign every 50 yards for the entire property to include contact information.
the land owner would not have a legal right to bring you up on charges for trespassing. He also said that this was because there would be no way of anyone knowing for sure where the land owners property would start or end and this was the only way to clearly identify that so that a judge could make a fair ruling on the charges. Not knowing if your trespassing "at the time" was an honest mistake on the trespassers part and could be thrown out. That was the loop hole he was taking about. It wouldn't be considered an ignorance of the law but an honest mistake and the courts would side with the defendant.
This also apply's to corporations. Fidelity Investments in my home town has their property posted in this manner and you don't want to be caught there because they will have you arrested. I know someone that was and it cost him dearly.
A friend of mine is a NH Fish & Game officer (or may still be) but I haven't seen him in a while so I will have to ask him if the law was changed.