As a landowner or leaseholder, you have the right to the peaceful enjoyment of your property. You have worked hard on your land and you have the right to invite or keep out anyone you wish, within the limits of the law.
But there are some people in this world who think they are owed the right to take game whenever and wherever they choose. They will go to great lengths to encroach upon your land and to steal the game that is on it.
For whatever reason, be it the thrill of the hunt, the obsession with trophy animals, the psychological game of cat and mouse or their misguided belief that they are a modern-day Robin Hood, they will invade your property and use it as their own. Even worse, they will sometimes treat it much worse than they would their own property.
These people have no respect for the rights of others or the law. They are the common, everyday, household poacher, the game thief. A can of Raid will not help get rid of them, but following some of the tips below might.
Posted signs
By law, all land in Mississippi is posted against trespassing, signage or not. Just because you don’t have posted or no-trespassing signs on your property doesn’t mean it is wide open to the public. 97-17-93 of the Mississippi Code of 1972 states that “any person who knowingly enters the lands of another without the permission of or without being accompanied by the landowner or the lessee of such land, or the agent of such landowner or lessee, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor….”.
So you see that the law says that if you knowingly enter the land of another without permission, you are guilty of trespassing.
But key in on the word “knowingly.” So it would behoove a landowner to put up signs to further reinforce the fact that his land is posted. This is especially important in areas such as mature timber or tree plantations where it is nearly impossible to tell one property from the next. This gives the landowner and law enforcement more leverage when enforcing the law, including the law (97-17-91) that says you cannot deface, remove, alter or destroy and notice (posted sign) placed on private land, and the law (97-17-85) that says if any person shall go upon the enclosed land of another without his consent, after having been notified by such person or his agent not to do so, either personally or by published or posted notice, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. So you can post it, put a notice in the paper or tell someone your land is posted, but you don’t have to do any of that. It just solidifies the case against the trespasser should you go to court.
Gates
Gates are like padlocks; they really only keep honest folks out. However, putting up gates at the entrance points to your property may save you some grief down the road. I can think of one particular instance where a landowner reported a trespassing angler on his property.
When the officer arrived, he found the very polite angler who stated that he had come to fish on this lake bank after being told by a friend that the fish were biting. Whether or not this angler thought he was trespassing is beside the point because he did not have permission from the landowner to access his land.
The access point was gained off of a public road via a ramp that crossed a ditch onto the private land. It was not the first time that this landowner had trespassing issues and a simple gate or barricade across this access ramp would’ve kept all of the honest folks out, and probably a few of the dishonest ones that could not have driven their vehicles off of the road and hidden them in the bushes on the private property.
Your barriers don’t have to be the moat and drawbridge style to be effective. Just something simple like a length of cable between two posts is all it takes to get the message across to some folks. If you do use cable, make sure you mark it well with flagging or by sliding PVC pipe over it so that it is highly visible. This will help others, as well as yourself, see the cable clearly when entering the property.
Editor’s note: This article is part of the Poacher Proof feature in the August issue of Mississippi Sportsman. Digital editions can be downloaded right to your computer or smartphone.
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