How To Find Ontario Crown Land to Shoot On

Ravuus said:
To answer one of your concerns, yes the by-laws of a specific region/township apply to crown land. Call the district office and ask, so two examples.

1) I called the Aurora district office for the ministry that pertains to the GTA, and not surprisingly NO target shooting is allowed anywhere, on any crown land at all.
2) I called the Peterborough district office and the nice lady there asked me to choose and area and she'd have the CO call me back. I chose area 74A, which pertains to Buckhorn, Curve/Pigeon lake area...while I haven't received a call back, it's been over 10 days, I'll call and get an answer.

The reason she made me choose an area is the because the CO will know the by-laws for that specific region which can allow hunting, but NOT allow target shooting. There are many many areas that this happens in.

But that is the safest way to go about it. Call the district office, pick an area of land off of the map shown above and ask about.

P.S. Hunting != Target shooting. If an area is legal for hunting that DOES NOT mean it is available for target shooting necessarily, ask to be sure.

Considering the difficultly of getting this information it would be amazing if we could compile a database of crown land available for both hunting or target shooting.
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That is really good to know, thanks. I didn't realize the local MNR people would answer these kinds of questions.
(Although probably still good to try to investigate the laws yourself via the township website or a call to the township office ... it wouldn't hurt at least.)

Did you just tell the MNR person the WMU? Its not clear from your post exactly how specific your area identification was to the MNR person. There could be several different crown land policy areas within the WMU, so I would have thought they would want something more specific and associated with just one policy ID area. Anyways, let us know if/when they get back to you.
 
I wish it showed crown land areas around Owen Sound. There are several spots that I want to know if I can shoot on.
 
strathglass said:
That is really good to know, thanks. I didn't realize the local MNR people would answer these kinds of questions.
(Although probably still good to try to investigate the laws yourself via the township website or a call to the township office ... it wouldn't hurt at least.)

Did you just tell the MNR person the WMU? Its not clear from your post exactly how specific your area identification was to the MNR person. There could be several different crown land policy areas within the WMU, so I would have thought they would want something more specific and associated with just one policy ID area. Anyways, let us know if/when they get back to you.
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I'm unsure actually. I told her the area I was interested in, she gave me the "74A" code. I'm not sure what that means or what it refers to internally or otherwise, but it was for the area I suggested I was looking for information in.

I will certainly post when I get back to nagging the person, I figure I won't hear anything until after the holidays/new years, but it's pretty cold to go running around out there anyhow.
 
Ravuus said:
I'm unsure actually. I told her the area I was interested in, she gave me the "74A" code. I'm not sure what that means or what it refers to internally or otherwise, but it was for the area I suggested I was looking for information in.

I will certainly post when I get back to nagging the person, I figure I won't hear anything until after the holidays/new years, but it's pretty cold to go running around out there anyhow.
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Ok, would be interesting to hear how helpful they are.

The 74A number is the WMU - Wildlife Management Unit (hunters need to know what WMU they are hunting in since each each WMU can have different hunting season start and end dates and different regulations); the MNR has detailed maps of each of the WMUs here:
http://www.ontario.ca/environment-an...t-unit-wmu-map
(Short link: http://goo.gl/jLI44g)
There is also a small map in the annual guide that the MNR publishes...here is a link to that: Ontario Hunting Regulations Summary (see pages 12-17 in the 2014 guide).
The Ontario Hunter Education program covers this, FYI.
 
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I was looking at crown land near calabogie and it looks within the crown land there are small lines like a grid of private land running through the crown land does this mean I am not allowed to access these plots of crown land also just small boarders around lakes of grey .
 
kevmac05 said:
I was looking at crown land near calabogie and it looks within the crown land there are small lines like a grid of private land running through the crown land does this mean I am not allowed to access these plots of crown land also just small boarders around lakes of grey .
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Remember you can see the legend for the map by clicking the "Map Layers" tab above the map, and then click on the "Legend" button above the map.

First: the gray areas - gray means private land and hence this is not available for your use, generally speaking (e.g. unless you arrange it with the land owner). Whether or not it has the overlay grid lines does not matter, it is still private land.

Second: the grid lines: these diagonal lines mark an overlay area, which means additional crown land policies may apply. As long as it is on top of a suitable color (e.g. the light yellow general use crown land areas), you are still OK to use it - as long as the policies allow it.
You have to look at the applicable policies. So for example for the crown land just west of Calabogie Lake and south of Calabogie road (just west of the private land that has the ski resort), you will see the yellow general use crown land area labelled as G407, and a bit further west you get inside the overlay area marked by the gridlines and it is labelled G407/DY1.
To see the applicable policies, click on the "Find Information" tab and then select the "Get Land Use Information" button and then select (click on) an area of the map: this displays summary information on that area (at the left side of the map). So if you click near this area, you will see it says Policy ID: G407 under a heading of "Primary Land Use Area", but also below that, under a heading of "Overlay Area", it says Policy ID: G407/DY1. If you click the blue text labelled "English" for each of these areas (beside where it says "Report:"), you can get the details (in a new tab).

In the case of G407, it says hunting is allowed. For the G407/DY1 overlay, it simply indicates it is a deer yard and they want to manage it in a way that helps the deer survive through the winter (hunting would still be allowed). (Any hunting must of course be in compliance with the regulations for the applicable WMU.) So shooting should also be allowed. Of course you would still need to check the local bylaws to confirm about any restrictions.

Hope that helps.
 
I was just looking to camp on one of the lakes so I guess I'll have to camp on one of the lakes that doesn't have the grey boarder around it ?
 
Yes, one of the lakes without the gray border (I admit the gray borders around Crutch and Burn lakes are a bit unusal - it is a uniform width and doesn't look like a collection of plots, so I am not sure what that is supposed to mean - but I think you need to avoid the shoreline areas there to be safe). (By the way, I had to look at the same area in google maps to get the lake names).

So it looks like you could use Bucky Pond or Eleanor Lake, or - farther up - Hardwood Lake (CLUPA map doesn't show the road going that far, but it does on google maps).

If you don't want a small lake, you could go farther in on that road and jump up north to Hardwood Lake which is bigger than the above three lakes I just mentioned. (This one is near the end of the road per google maps, http://goo.gl/wFzp2e.)
 
if you want to have some fun...lake ontario is crown land and you can shoot as much as you want on there. however...unless you go out 3-5 miles I wouldn't do it.
 
Thanks a lot you been a lot of help. I'll look more into those lakes with the boarder around them and let you know what it means.
 
hi
thank you very strathglass!

I really appreciate your topic! That was amazing!
I am a new gun owner and was looking to find crown lands for target shooting. Been few time to the gov site but didn't know how to use it. You helped me a lot with this thread!

Thank you very much!
 
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