BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 4, 2025
This spring while turkey hunting on what I thought was unposted land, I got a dismissive email from the landowner advising me to “stay off his land.” And this fall, while bow hunting for deer, I had two different landowner encounters at a patch of unposted woods that I have hunted for 50 years. A woman stopped her car, rolled down the window and advised that it was her land on which I was hunting. “I’d rather that you not hunt my land,” she said matter-of-factly. Maine’s fabled hunting legacy is in dire peril. In Maine, land access is the key to preserving our hunting legacy. So whatever it takes, whether it is more funding or staffing for Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s landowner relations program, and more aggressive outreach to the public and the hunting community, more needs to be done in this regard. We are losing ground. ~ V. Paul Reynolds