Funny thing how "love thy neighbor" these days often involves somebody who isn't your neighbor who just wants to use your land to hunt, fish, and 4 wheel, relationships that are not symbiotic, but parasitic.

Hopefully you stay on the place you have permission but if you dont all you can do is get your dog and get out.

On the other hand, the sounds of a hunt are beautiful music to a trained ear. It always amazed me how a hunter could give a Howard Cosell running commentary on the hunt from the music his dogs were making.

I don't mind coon hunters.

I dislike trespassers very much.

I do not condone trespassing but it is frustrating to be kept off land that was previously permitted because someone moves in and buys 25acres and there's no trespassing/access through his "ranch" Just another product of the times and the population growth. The whole state is getting broken up into small properties with huge entry gates. Ridiculous how many gates and fences can be in one little place and how two neighbors with ten acres couldn't imagine stepping foot on their neighbors property or not having it fenced up. Loving thy neighbor is a forgotten practice especially when everybody is trying to be a harda** rancher. Today it's a whole different reason to keep people off your property.

That plus everybody is a deer farmer these days and apparently the deer are as sensitive as their children. Any other hunting, gun shots, unruly children, farts, frog rabbits, dog barking, or tractors humming will cause them to immediately leave your property and is the number one cause for "why I din't shoot a buck dis year".

okay, so whats the official view on coon hunters, gots tree ov's thems eaten me corn, i'm postaddic

" No way a person is going to run dogs and not get on land they dont have permission to be on. " Well then, don't run your dogs ! Because when you go get your dogs, you are TRESPASSING. Your doing what you didn't want this thread to turn into. Most of us do not want you on our land.

For the record, I have people run dogs across my place all the time and I've never made the first effort to press charges. Just hacks me off that they seem to believe it's their right to do so because they happen to be chasing a hog/coon/elf.

My family owns a large ranch in Matagorda County. 20 or so years ago there was a family (old man and woman with their 2 young grandkids, i pressume) that met us at the gate one day and asked if it was ok for them to come fish in the creek thst runs through our place. We gladly let them in and later that evening they showed up with a ziplock of fillets and thanked us. After this happened a few more times we gave them the combination and said they could come fish whenever they wanted. Went great for years. They even planted a large garden on our place (with our permission) and would bring us preserves. From time to time there would be a new person there with them but nothing crazy. we trusted them with full run of the place. They kind of became the unofficial ranch hands and never asked for a thing out of the relationship other than fish and vegetables from their garden. Well after about 10 years the old man died.

After a while we noticed trash accumulating at their fishing spot and the garden went untended. The trash got worse and one day we showed up and there was 15 or so people fishing in their spot. Had never met one of them. That was the end of it. When we confronted them about it they yelled and cursed us as if we were in the wrong. We told everyone to get out and changed the locks. We told the old lady what happened and she apologized and was almost in tears over it. Said it was her sons and all of his fruends and kids and they had no respect for no one. We told her that if we were there she could call us and come over, but she was too ashamed of what had happened and declined.

After that we would constantly catch people trespassing , four wheeling, and even hunting without our permission. Had to send many of them to jail over it.

The point of my story is that if things would have stayed the way they were this family basically had 600 acres to do as they pleased, but because a few if them had 0 respect for anything or anyone, no strangers will ever be allowed to come fish again.

I think this is what has happened over the years all over. A few too many bad experiences has given us landowners a bad taste for people coming on our land. Its a shame but thats the way it is.

I dont think its the landowners attitudes that have ruined coon hunting, dog hunting, and general friendliness between landowners and non-owners. Its that people just arnt as respectful as they used to be and it will never go back to the good ole days.