Arshamomaque Preserve - WARNING!!!

[Sep]

Everyone should be careful walking Arshamomaque Preserve on Chapel Ln.  I was walking there this afternoon and ended up in a confrontation with a deer hunter who was set up right along the vernal pond trail and well out of the area designated for the deer hunting program.  I contacted the police and they are investigating.  To make matters worse as I looped around to get back to the parking area to meet with the police I encountered another hunter also set up right along the vernal pond trail and well out of the hunting area.

As a reminder there are special trails at this location set up for the hunters to use that hikers are not allowed to use and the hunters are not supposed to be set up along the public hiking trails.

[Margaret Lauber]

Thanks for the heads up, John!   I was confused as to how it is supposed to work, with the signs that say trails are closed to hikers crossed out with a black marker, and "open" written over.   I walked there this morning and no hunters yet, thank goodness.

Peggy

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 9, 2013, at 4:08 PM, Sep <joh...@optonline.net> wrote:

Everyone should be careful walking Arshamomaque Preserve on Chapel Ln.  I was walking there this afternoon and ended up in a confrontation with a deer hunter who was set up right along the vernal pond trail and well out of the area designated for the deer hunting program.  I contacted the police and they are investigating.  To make matters worse as I looped around to get back to the parking area to meet with the police I encountered another hunter also set up right along the vernal pond trail and well out of the hunting area.

As a reminder there are special trails at this location set up for the hunters to use that hikers are not allowed to use and the hunters are not supposed to be set up along the public hiking trails.

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[John Wittenberg]

Haven't been out recently. How do you tell which trails are open to hikers only, are they marked .

Thanks 

John 

jwitt...@invsol.com

[Sep]

The trails for the hunters are marked with special signs that say something like "this is not a hiking trail, it is for the deer management program only".  These trails are "new", that is they were mowed and marked in late September and are noticeably different from the well worn trails here.  One of these begins right where the entrance trail connects to the main loop, the other is roughly half way between the parking area and the irrigation pond along the north section of the main loop trail.  These lead hunters to areas that are well off the hiking trails so that they would not be shooting arrows anywhere near where hikers would be.

The trails that regular visitors are familiar with (vernal pond trail, tower trail, main loop from entrance to irrigation pond) are the ones that are open for hiking.  As long as you don't see the special signs and stay on trail you will be fine, or at least following the rules, obviously you should watch out in case hunters are set up where they aren't supposed to be.

It's rather creepy thinking about my encounter after the fact because someone was not only watching me but actually speaking to me without me realizing it because I assumed it was someone up in front of me walking the trail.

[Sep]

I notified the Town about the confusing signs weeks ago, in this case based on confusion at Ruth Oliva Preserve after a local school teacher asked me for help since she was confused about the magic marker updates made to the signs.

I will bring this up again with them next week.

If you check the online map on the deer management page of the Town's website you can get information about the various properties and for AP it clearly says that it's open to both hunters and hikers and shows on the map where the hunters are supposed to be.  Here's the link in case you have any difficulties navigating the Town's site: http://tos.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basicviewer/index.html?appid=e9aeb243715740f0a55024a739304fbf.

You can pan and zoom the map to see all of the locations and should note that some of these are in fact closed to hikers.

[Rick & Linda Kedenburg]

The recently opened Soundview Dunes Preserve ( Bittner's ) also has hunters. In fact the parking lot was packed today with hunters and one parked out on Soundview Ave. 

Be careful out there everyone.

Rick

[Sep]

Please notify the Town about this.  Bittner does not open for hunting until November 15th.