How To Find Ontario Crown Land to Shoot On

I have never understood why people have a hard time figuring out what is crown or county forests vs private land. I guess maybe it's just intuition.
 
his is a very misleading map of crown land, looking at it the whole town of Pembroke is crown land or the area of my cousins 400 acre farm is crown land, this does not show private ownership land at all. every bit of private land that i know of is yellow, be very careful using this map to go shoot somewhere, its very likely you will be on private property. there are way better maps to show you exactly where crown land is. but you have to pay for them. this map could get you into trouble. just picking a spot thats yellow near a town is very likely not crown at all.
 
You are right Enfieldfan: Something is wrong with the Crown Land Use Policy Atlas web site. It was working fine in early November. I rechecked some areas I looked at and now everything is showing as Crown, even private land. Must be a glitch. Hope it is temporary.
 
Enfieldfan said:
his is a very misleading map of crown land, looking at it the whole town of Pembroke is crown land or the area of my cousins 400 acre farm is crown land, this does not show private ownership land at all. every bit of private land that i know of is yellow, be very careful using this map to go shoot somewhere, its very likely you will be on private property. there are way better maps to show you exactly where crown land is. but you have to pay for them. this map could get you into trouble. just picking a spot thats yellow near a town is very likely not crown at all.
Click to expand...

Fair enough.

Can you suggest which pay per use maps are good to use?
 
tinmandan said:
You are right Enfieldfan: Something is wrong with the Crown Land Use Policy Atlas web site. It was working fine in early November. I rechecked some areas I looked at and now everything is showing as Crown, even private land. Must be a glitch. Hope it is temporary.
Click to expand...

I too used the CLUPA in the past and found cross referencing with the topo map and google maps showed good continuity in the land descriptions. Today just for practice I was using these maps to look at "crown land" and the type of terrain only to find that the google satellite view clearly shows farms or residences in the area. There was a slight tip off on the topographic map because there appeared to be some small "gridding" of tree line areas. Those grids of tree line, when viewed on the satellite view, turned out to be the divisions between the farmers fields for various crops. Google maps satellite views themselves can be a few years out of date as well, but I would think that once land is handed over as private, from crown, the land would either continue to change hands as private or become owned by the municipality, still not crown?

Over all my point is just to echo other's posts...do your homework and cover your self to reduce the chances of a big let down once you get to your, highly anticipated, shooting spot.

Also agree on keeping the spot secret theory. If someone else does their homework and finds your spot then it's nice to have a peer to talk to but somehow my gut tells me the "hey I'm in (x area) anyone find land to shoot on near me. Call me.." crowd might fall into the category of people who like to take short cuts rather than properly prepare and/or respect the whole process of entering and leaving the land for the next use?
 
I wrote to MNRF on Dec. 1 about the problem with the Ontario CLUPA web site showing everything as Crown Land, and received this nice reply today. It was broken and is now fixed....

"Good morning Dan,
Thank you very much for your email.
At the same time I got your email, I also got a phone call from Southern district letting me know about the issue.
Looks like the private land layer is not drawing properly in the application.
I’ve passed it on to the Atlas developers, and they are looking into fixing the issue ASAP.
Thank you again very much for alerting us to the issue."
 
I have been following the instructions and have found a potentially good place to shoot but there are some things I am a bit confused about.


Here is the lat/long to the place
 45.281027, -78.096316
And also link to google maps https://www.google.com/maps/place/4...!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d45.2809531!4d-78.0963309

So, I see it is on the crown land, that hunting is permitted and that the land configuration suggests that there are good backdrops. What I am not sure about are the potential by-laws that might restrict or prohibit firearms discharge. I now that I have to get in touch with the local municipality but I am not 100% sure which? When I drop the lat/long in google it says Hastings Highlands. On Atlas I see a border saying Hastings - Hastings Highlands. I reached out to the municipality of Hastings Highlands and asked them about bylaws to which they responded saying that they have no bylaws preventing firearms discharge.
attachment

However, in policy report for this area (ID: G340) I see that there are several districts listed. I also see that this area is subject to additional policies some of which prohibit hunting. 


Unfortunately, Atlas doesn't offer links to share the specific location so I am sharing screenshot and link to policy report.
fxmD1RD

https://ibb.co/fxmD1RD
Policy report 
https://www.gisapplication.lrc.gov....b-primary.xsl&type=primary&POLICY_IDENT=G340


Is there any other municipality or township I should check with? Am I doing this right?
I am fairly new to firearm ownership and I am just trying to be cautious. I don't care how much I have to drive from Toronto as long as I am on the safe and legal side of our hobby.

Also, I see that there is some private land with what appears to be house/cottage some 300-400m below the location I have chosen. I was wondering is there an etiquacy on how far you should stay away from houses/ppl to reduce noise. I am planning to use 50-70 12ga shells and I don't want to cause a too much nuisance.

Thanks!!!
 
Note that the original post has been edited to now include a link at the end of the post to a PDF version of the article (since I am no longer seeing the inline images myself for some reason! ...the images show in the PDF).
 
In my experience a lot of crown land is land locked. Until you get up around north Bay and North from there. Also in my experience bring a case of beer and ask farmers LOL. Works great
 
Lots of crown around Ottawa and East side of Algonquin also around Arnpiror and west.

SwifTst said:
In my experience a lot of crown land is land locked. Until you get up around north Bay and North from there. Also in my experience bring a case of beer and ask farmers LOL. Works great
Click to expand...
 
Cool thread. I have been into Crown Land exploration for the purposes of camping for quite some time now (just got back from hot tenting 60kms from Bancroft) and another really great tool to help are the Backroad Map Books. They are worth their weight in gold, and include not just crown land info, but hunting, fishing, hiking, snowmobiling, etc. use and trail areas as well.

Going to start exploring for some areas that I can shoot on, as usually I am just looking for sites that are far enough away from others to camp on my own little slice of heaven.

Anyways, just a heads up for those who are trying to add another tool to their arsenal to locate spots....When most ranges have years long wait lists and require you to be sponsored by an already registered member, it makes it nearly impossible for new shooters to actually use their guns.
 
good morning, Can you help me finding suitable crown land near GTA where I can take my sons ( teenagers ) for day of shooting and perhaps camping? please I cant figure this out for shats. lol. Can even recognize colours on this maps properly.

Please help. I want to take them for .22 LR shooting and if nice area for camping.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom