A safe and successful hunting season begins with hunters and rural landowners understanding Wisconsin’s trespass law. According to the law, individuals who wish to hunt on land owned by someone else must obtain written or verbal permission.
“When it comes to hunting on private land, always remember: permission is your golden ticket to a safe and enjoyable season,” said Jason Mugnaini, Executive Director of Government Relations.
Hunters are required to make a reasonable effort to retrieve the game they killed or injured, but hunters may not trespass to retrieve such game.
There are two exceptions when permission is not needed to enter private land:
- Land enrolled as ‘open’ in the Managed Forest Law program; however, land enrolled in the ‘closed’ Managed Forest Law program does require permission.
- Land considered ‘inholdings’, which is private land that is surrounded by public land. Landowners must post a sign to prevent hunting by the public on such land. This is primarily found in northern Wisconsin.
“This deer hunting season, I hope all our hunters are safe, successful and do their part to have a fantastic hunting experience to remember,” said Mugnaini.
Camille Tess says
This site has been very informational. I own 30 acres in WI and my nephew has been hunting it for 50 years with my now deceased husband since he was 10 (he’s 65 now) and he disregards me as owner and hunts my land for the last 3 years stating that he has the right to do it! There has been a lot of issues in the family and they (my deceased husband’s family) have ousted me from the family but he still hunts my property. I live in Illinois so I’m not there to enforce my authority which he wouldn’t listen to me anyway and I just found out the he took his grandson hunting with him (which is ok with me) but his grandsons girlfriend was also there appropriately dressed but I’m upset because she is not family and my husband would NEVER let any family members bring an outsider to hunt our land… what am I to do?