private property dielema

My nephew and I just bought a 40 acre square outside of Tomahawk, WI. Road in front on west side, private property on all other sides. Property was for sale a couple years and was overpriced till it finally came down to a price we could afford. While for sale the north and south neighbors “expanded” their hunting areas onto this parcel. The realtor even hunted it while he listed it. He is no longer an issue, but how do we approach the neighbors. Our goal is to keep stands and hunting on each’s own property, but allow tracking and recovery across property lines. The property we bought has massive runways and funnel points that we find their stands on. It’s a concentration point before the trails start dispersing into large forest primarily to the east. Any advice?

If land goes unused for years neighbors will sometimes start to encroach on it.
After you close introduce yourself to the neighbors but don’t bring up up their use of the land. Build some rapport and feel them them out and see what kind of folks they are. Ask how hunting is, where a good Tavern is etc…
They might say they have been hunting the land but will stop doing so (best case scenario) if not, revisit them them regarding the stands and ask if they know who owns them or if they are old and abandoned, even though you know there theirs.
Give them a chance to do the right thing and if that doesn’t work then have the necessary conversation that it’s your land now and you deserve to hunt it exclusively.

Just be tactful and diplomatic as bad blood can ruin owning real estate.

Keep us posted…just like your land!

So far we found 3 stands, all like neww, one a metal ladder stand and platform​, another that is a new looking hang-on stand with climbing sticks, the last a new ground hub that was snowed and then frozen into the ground. We even found a trail cam with no SD card in it.

Belletaine nailed it on the head. I have experienced encroachment on my small 20 acre plot within 601. Being the land is in a somewhat suburban area, I approached the suspect neighbors and asked if I could access my land from their yard so I would not have to tromp through my entire plot (to give them the hint that the land is solely used for hunting). They told me they preferred I didn’t since they also hunted their land (2.5 acres).

After a couple months, I noticed the suspect who owned the stand began to clear shooting lanes from their stand on my land a hundred feet or so further into my land. At that point I went back and asked if it were theirs and got the “I don’t know, my son hunts it” line. I asked him to talk to his son and if it were theirs, to remove it. Nothing happened. So I set up a trail camera and guess what? It was them…both of them….I put a couple printed trail camera pictures in their newspaper slot and BAM, all gone and hasn’t been back since.

Most people are friendly and courteous, specially in the hunting and outdoors crowd. But sometimes you run into folks who have blatant disregard for others property and it’s frustrating. I hope it gets resolved in a non confronting manner.

…unless the previous owner gave them permission to hunt it they are already trespassing so I would talk to them and tell them you are the new owners and ask them to remove their stands (and soon…) because you want to start hanging some camera’s and let the land “settle down a bit” before next season. You’re not being overly aggressive if you do so, you’re just doing what any new landowner would do and if they don’t understand that then you go to the next step that involves the authorities. It should not come to that if they are good guys. Good luck…RR

I had the same issue in spades. The property I bought 3 years ago had been foreclosed on many years back and had been county tax-forfeit. The neighbors on all sides had used it and had stands, trails, etc on the property.

My advice is don’t delay. As soon as you can, go see or contact the neighbors. Personally, I just did the friendly “introduce myself” thing, how’s the hunting been for you, nice weather, etc. But in the process, I made it clear I own the land and will be hunting it right from the get go.

I agree, give neighbors a chance by asking directly if they are the ones with stands on your property and give them the chance to move them. Personally, I would take the stands down and post a sign saying remove this stand, private property, etc.

I would also take the opportunity to refresh the “No Trespassing” signs on the boundary.

I had one neighbor that I had to get a little more firm with. He had an ATV trail on the far side of the creek and he was using the creek as the boundary even though I own some land on his side of the creek. He kept using the ATV trail after I had approached him, so I finally had to pound posts in the trail marking the property line where the trail entered my land. He didn’t take that too well at first, but I just had to direct and firm. I told him the creek was not the line and while I understand the property used to be public, I owned it now. Things seemed to have settled down and he quit using the trail.

Since you have a public road boundary, I’d say put in some well-hidden cams to see who’s prowling around. The problem is once people get used to using a property that had absentee owners, they’ll keep doing it unless you put your foot down.

If you use trail cams, hide them very well and IMO the best thing to do is put them up very high where they can’t be accessed without a ladder. People don’t tend to look UP for trail cams, they tend to look mainly at eye level.

Congrats, by the way. You’ll enjoy this.
Grouse

agree with all of the above,do your part to try and to get along with them,if they dont want to play ball its on them.
good neighbors are a precious commodity that is in short supply these days.

sadly,there are those who could care less about being neighborly and would rather run you over than get along all in the name of a ‘trophy’ that they think they own.

Thanks for all the input, very good advice. The neighbor to the south once he heard it sold actually cut a narrow path on the lot line and tied ribbons every 10 feet to trees or sticks he pounded into the ground, no signage, just ribbons. He himself is on only 6 acres that he has a mobile house on that he lives year round in and is surrounded by private property. The neighbors to the north and east have much larger acreages and no effort to posting or delineating lot lines. We do have a corner on the backside that touches just by a corner an intersection of lot lines where one is public hunting. We so far have posted “no hunting” on that very corner and along the road that fronts our property, none on the lot lines between private parcels. We will be up a few times in the next several weeks doing work such as food plots, dead wood clearing, and such. Just off the road we park out camper and park our vehicle(s) when up, so we are making our presence known. Not the next time up, but probably the one after we will meet the neighbors for polite conversation, if they don’t come to visit us by chance sooner.

It’s good that at least one neighbor wants to make it clear where the property line is. Saves you from having to be the one that brings it up.

Do you have a good fence and gate along the road side of the property? If not, I’d invest in one. It doesn’t stop anyone, it just sends the message that whoever owns this property is serious about stopping trespassing.

Grouse

Also g the road side we have a locking metal gate and new no trespassing signs. There is a post and 3 strand barb wire fence that needs alot of repair.

I’d try to get to know them somehow. Since you don’t live there you can’t exactly invite them over for a beer, but you certainly could stop by and introduce yourself. Friendly approach as everyone mentioned. Getting off to a good start and sticking to that approach even if they aren’t receptive at first will help you enjoy the land for years to come. Congrats on the purchase and good luck!

The best no trespassing signs I ever saw read “If you can read this you’re in range”.

I’m in Merrill just south of your land and it maybe possible the stands are frozen in the ground yet mine are. Hopefully when it thaws and they know you’re there they get moved. Where abouts in the Tomahawk area are you? I’m hunting just west of Irma.

North east of Tomahawk off of A about 4 miles east of WI River.

You have some good fishing close by on Lake Alice. I might end up fishing there tomorrow.

They were out on the ice with portables off of Horseshoe Rd off of A just east of the WI River bridge. Be careful.

Having been involved in several pretty heated situations of this nature due to my career, I always resorted to telling the new property owner that while face to face communications is great, too many things get “misremembered” about the conversation, and causes more stress later down the road for the land owner. I would explain that it helps even more to then “lay the situation out” in a “politely written letter” to the neighboring property owners. It was to be mailed out “certified mail”, which had to be signed for upon their receipt of the letter. I also left it up to the new owner to leave open the possibility of “hunting with written permission only” if they chose to. By using the letter way of informing the neighbors of the changes, the situation as laid out to them “stays the same”, and is good evidence for future enforcement if needed. This put the kabosh to a lot of trespassing situations, and helped in court for those who trespassed in the future.

Update: We talked to all Neighbors and things went well. The land holds deer ans now the emphasis is on food plots. We placed our fish house on the property and have to shag the deer away in the morning lol.