CHEYENNE – As hunting season approaches, Game and Fish is receiving many inquiries from hunters looking for public access in their hunting areas.

About half of Wyoming is private land and, under Wyoming law, hunters must obtain permission from the landowner to hunt private lands or lands for which there is no public access. To help make the task of finding a place to hunt easier, the Game and Fish has implemented two public access programs in which hunters are able to access private lands.

The access programs are funded in part through hunter and angler contributions to the Game and Fish AccessYes program. Donations are usually made at the time of license purchase, but can be made anytime. Each dollar donated to the program provides nearly four acres of private land access.

Wyoming Walk-in areas allow hunters to access these private areas during certain times of year and for certain species. The Walk-in area program provides some 700,000 acres of access in different hunt areas in 22 of Wyoming 23 counties. Hunters can find Walk-in Area locations on the Game and Fish website wgfd.wyo.gov. Game and Fish reminds hunters that that the Walk-in Area atlas is no longer being printed and that printed atlases from previous years should not be used.

Southwest Wyoming Access coordinator Jason Sherwood said the online maps not only save on printing costs but provide much more detail than the printed version of previous years. “There is some change to Walk- in areas every year, Sherwood said. “This makes it important that hunters look up current information on the website and not assume that the information in printed Walk-in atlases from previous years is still valid.”

Public access in HMAs requires a permission slip

Also providing a tremendous amount of access is the Hunter Management Area (HMA) program which provides an additional 1.3 million acres of access. The Hunter management program differs from walk-in areas in that a physical permission slip must be obtained to hunt.

Hunter management areas are parcels of land where the Wyoming Game and Fish Department facilitates management of hunters for access to hunt. The area may refer solely to private lands or a combination of private, state trust land and federal land within ranch boundaries. All hunters who wish to hunt these access areas must obtain a printed permission slip. The hunter pays no fee for receiving permission for access for the specific times only. Ranch rules for each Hunter Management area, including species, hunting dates and number of permission slips available is on the Game and Fish website under Hunter Management Areas.

To use one of the 61 hunter management areas, a physical permission slip can be obtained online or at Game and Fish offices. Details on obtaining hunter management permits and accessing the acreage available through that program can be obtained online or by calling (307) 777-4600.