Several years ago the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources began a program in which they pay landowners in exchange for the right of the public to trespass for the purpose of wildlife related activities, like hunting, fishing, trapping or just plain sight seeing.  In my opinion it is a wonderful program and I’d like to see more landowners join in the program.

As with any program, there are kinks that must be ironed out along the way and most of those kinks are “people” related.  Not observing the fact that they are “guests” on this piece of land and destroying the property in various ways.  In so doing, the landowner pulls the land out of the program and it becomes a No Trespassing area once again.

The program is called “The Walkin Program” and I have used several of them over the years to hunt turkeys especially and for that same number of years I have sent emails to the DWR asking them to create a map showing me where these walk in areas are located.  Well, they finally did it!  A state wide map that shows where the walk in lands are located.  It goes much farther than I had suggested to them, in that you can click on the outline of the land and it shows you the name of the owner and what can be done on that land (i.e. fishing, hunting, trapping) and what types of animals you can hunt, fish for or trap.  Way cool!

On this site, you can also narrow your search down to specific animals and whether you are just sight seeing or hunting/fishing.  Once you make your choices up pops those properties in the program that meet your specifics.  It’s cool!  Go check it out!

http://dwrapps.utah.gov/ram/start2

Bears Butt

April 5, 2014