AIRASSAULT
PMA Member
I know this subject pops up every now and then, but I have a potential problem escalating with one of my neighbors.
It all started in 2010 when I bought my house and 10 acres. The neighbor and I share a fence approximately 2100 ft long and I bought this property off of his daughter and son-in-law.
The very first time I ever met him, which was a couple weeks after I bought the place, he walks up to me in my yard while I was outside. I expected a nice greeting as I gave him, but the first words out of his mouth were "I've been meaning to come over and talk to you about the fence. It's old and in bad shape and needs re-built." Notice how he convieniently waited for ownership from his daughter and son-in-law to transfer before he 'all of sudden' had a problem with it, as if the fence just went to crap since the two weeks I bought it.
Anyway, that was a couple years ago and he has since mentioned a couple times about the fence. It's really not even in that bad of shape but I do plan on re-building "my" half anyway. He has about 20 head of cattle that his other daughter owns that run on his property, but he does all the work because she lives a couple hours away. Since I've lived here, not one cow has gotten onto my property, except through his front yard and into my front yard through a non-partition fence, of which I went over and fixed myself for them because they were on vacation.
Late last winter, he started re-building "his" share of "our" fence and is using cattle/hog panels that come up to eye level on me (Everything I've found says that a lawful fence can't be more than 54" high) A few weeks ago, I took some bolt cutters and cut one of the panels down to about lower rib level between two posts that are up by my foodplot because his panels stretch a little over 200 feet so far blocking deer from getting directly to my plot. I then welded up some nice brackets and ran a nice post across the top of what I cut to make the fence stronger and it is still almost chest high. Yesterday, I was showing my dad where I had made a crossing for the deer and then the neighbor pulls up on his 4-wheeler and gets off and says "What are you doing?!" " This is MY fence and you didn't have permission to cut it down like that!" I said " I lowered the fence a little to help deer get across so they can get to my foodplot without going all the way around." He said, "I don't want deer crossing my fence and that's why I put it that high and I'm going to run pipe all the way down the fence up even higher than that so deer wont cross." I then said, "I bought this property for $231000 so I could deer hunt and I don't agree to this type of fence because It's keeping the deer out." He says, " I don't care and you know how I feel about bowhunters." (He has expressed to me and others many times that he pretty much hates bowhunters because he thinks they wound all the deer and just leave them lay. He says "I'm a deer hunter too, but Im in my 60's and I cant keep fixing fence all the time that the deer are wrecking." It's woven wire fence ,by the way, with a strand or two of barbed wire above it. He's also the same person that walks out twice a year during shotgun season with a beaded bird barrel to blast at deer and calls himself a hunter)
At first, I didn't really have a problem with his "high fence", until he told my dad and I specifically it is to keep deer from crossing our fence. All that being said, half of the fence is still mine to do what ever I want, which will most likely become a 5 strand barbed wire fence. I don't know if I will try to bring the law into this or not. Part of me wants to wait it out just to see how much it really affects the deer because it could actually help funnel them toward my stands. Also, if I piss him off, I know he will most likely be in that timber ALL THE TIME messing around even more than he already does (he cut wood back there almost everyday during the prime of the rut (didn't really matter because I tagged out anyway) He has three piles of wood that have been sitting by his shed for two years... I cant prove it, but I guarantee he was back in the timber everyday to try to alter the deer movement. He knows I was out there because I told him I would be and he can see if my truck is home or not from his house. On the other hand, if I wait it out and come next season, the deer don't move through there like they should be I don't want the DNR or whomever to say tough luck because I didn't act on it sooner before it all got put up.
Also, one thing I forgot to mention, he said " I just wish you would have asked my permission first before you cut my fence. I would have still said no anyway." In the laws that I read, it doesn't say which part of the fence is his or mine. It pretty much just says that landowners usually agree to the 'right hand rule'.
What are your thoughts? When highfence operations put up their highfence, couldn't that be considered hunter harassment to neighboring landowners because they are altering the fence to constrict the natural travel of wildlife? Or do they have to have a special permit to put a fence up that high?
(Does the below message mean that I had the right to cut the fence down as if it were wholly mine?)
359A.16 RIGHT TO BUILD FENCE ON LINE.
A person building a fence may lay the same upon the line between
the person and the adjacent owners, so that it may be partly on one
side and partly on the other, and the owner shall have the same right
to remove it as if it were wholly on the owner's own land.
It all started in 2010 when I bought my house and 10 acres. The neighbor and I share a fence approximately 2100 ft long and I bought this property off of his daughter and son-in-law.
The very first time I ever met him, which was a couple weeks after I bought the place, he walks up to me in my yard while I was outside. I expected a nice greeting as I gave him, but the first words out of his mouth were "I've been meaning to come over and talk to you about the fence. It's old and in bad shape and needs re-built." Notice how he convieniently waited for ownership from his daughter and son-in-law to transfer before he 'all of sudden' had a problem with it, as if the fence just went to crap since the two weeks I bought it.
Anyway, that was a couple years ago and he has since mentioned a couple times about the fence. It's really not even in that bad of shape but I do plan on re-building "my" half anyway. He has about 20 head of cattle that his other daughter owns that run on his property, but he does all the work because she lives a couple hours away. Since I've lived here, not one cow has gotten onto my property, except through his front yard and into my front yard through a non-partition fence, of which I went over and fixed myself for them because they were on vacation.
Late last winter, he started re-building "his" share of "our" fence and is using cattle/hog panels that come up to eye level on me (Everything I've found says that a lawful fence can't be more than 54" high) A few weeks ago, I took some bolt cutters and cut one of the panels down to about lower rib level between two posts that are up by my foodplot because his panels stretch a little over 200 feet so far blocking deer from getting directly to my plot. I then welded up some nice brackets and ran a nice post across the top of what I cut to make the fence stronger and it is still almost chest high. Yesterday, I was showing my dad where I had made a crossing for the deer and then the neighbor pulls up on his 4-wheeler and gets off and says "What are you doing?!" " This is MY fence and you didn't have permission to cut it down like that!" I said " I lowered the fence a little to help deer get across so they can get to my foodplot without going all the way around." He said, "I don't want deer crossing my fence and that's why I put it that high and I'm going to run pipe all the way down the fence up even higher than that so deer wont cross." I then said, "I bought this property for $231000 so I could deer hunt and I don't agree to this type of fence because It's keeping the deer out." He says, " I don't care and you know how I feel about bowhunters." (He has expressed to me and others many times that he pretty much hates bowhunters because he thinks they wound all the deer and just leave them lay. He says "I'm a deer hunter too, but Im in my 60's and I cant keep fixing fence all the time that the deer are wrecking." It's woven wire fence ,by the way, with a strand or two of barbed wire above it. He's also the same person that walks out twice a year during shotgun season with a beaded bird barrel to blast at deer and calls himself a hunter)
At first, I didn't really have a problem with his "high fence", until he told my dad and I specifically it is to keep deer from crossing our fence. All that being said, half of the fence is still mine to do what ever I want, which will most likely become a 5 strand barbed wire fence. I don't know if I will try to bring the law into this or not. Part of me wants to wait it out just to see how much it really affects the deer because it could actually help funnel them toward my stands. Also, if I piss him off, I know he will most likely be in that timber ALL THE TIME messing around even more than he already does (he cut wood back there almost everyday during the prime of the rut (didn't really matter because I tagged out anyway) He has three piles of wood that have been sitting by his shed for two years... I cant prove it, but I guarantee he was back in the timber everyday to try to alter the deer movement. He knows I was out there because I told him I would be and he can see if my truck is home or not from his house. On the other hand, if I wait it out and come next season, the deer don't move through there like they should be I don't want the DNR or whomever to say tough luck because I didn't act on it sooner before it all got put up.
Also, one thing I forgot to mention, he said " I just wish you would have asked my permission first before you cut my fence. I would have still said no anyway." In the laws that I read, it doesn't say which part of the fence is his or mine. It pretty much just says that landowners usually agree to the 'right hand rule'.
What are your thoughts? When highfence operations put up their highfence, couldn't that be considered hunter harassment to neighboring landowners because they are altering the fence to constrict the natural travel of wildlife? Or do they have to have a special permit to put a fence up that high?
(Does the below message mean that I had the right to cut the fence down as if it were wholly mine?)
359A.16 RIGHT TO BUILD FENCE ON LINE.
A person building a fence may lay the same upon the line between
the person and the adjacent owners, so that it may be partly on one
side and partly on the other, and the owner shall have the same right
to remove it as if it were wholly on the owner's own land.
