Where to Hunt

Rhode Island abolished county government before any other state, back in 1842, more than a century before Connecticut followed the same path. HuntWise's Land Ownership layer, RIDEM's management area maps, and each city or town's own records fill in for the county office that hasn't existed here for nearly 200 years.

Massachusetts splits its record-keeping down the middle: five of its fourteen counties still run county government, while the other eight handle everything, including land records, at the city or town level.

Delaware's hunting trespass rule doesn't wait for a landowner to post anything: entering private land with a gun, dog, or trap to hunt without permission is its own specific offense under state law, posted or not.

Finding property lines for hunting in Connecticut means checking HuntWise's Land Ownership layer against your town's land records, since the state has no county government to check instead, then confirming the boundary against CT DEEP's public hunting area maps.

Finding property lines for hunting in New Jersey means checking HuntWise's Land Ownership layer against your county's tax and deed records, then confirming the boundary against NJDEP Fish & Wildlife's Wildlife Management Area maps, since public and private ground sit close together almost everywhere in the state.

Vermont's constitution has guaranteed the right to hunt, fish, and trap on open private land since 1793, so the property-line question here is really a posting question: has this specific tract been legally closed, and if so, how?

Finding property lines for hunting in New Hampshire means checking three things at once: HuntWise's Land Ownership layer, NHFG's public land maps, and whether a tract has actually been posted, since state law treats unposted land as open to hunters by default.

Maine flips the private-land assumption most states rely on: if a parcel isn't posted with a sign or paint mark, state law treats it as open to enter, not the other way around. Confirming who owns a tract, and whether they've actually closed it, matters more here than spotting a fence line.

Hawaii's property-line question splits in two directions at once: the state's four counties handle parcel and tax records like anywhere else, but none of them record deeds. Every deed, lease, and easement on any island files with a single state office instead, the Bureau of Conveyances in Honolulu.

Alaska breaks the usual property-lines pattern in two ways: the state has no counties to check parcel records against, and public land dominates so heavily that private ground, once you count Alaska Native corporation land, still adds up to well under 15% of the state.

In South Dakota, permission comes before posting: state law requires a landowner's or lessee's consent to hunt, fish, or trap on private ground whether or not that field carries a sign.

North Dakota flips the usual property-line question on its head: private land here is open to hunters by default, so finding a boundary matters mainly for confirming whether that specific field has been posted closed, either with physical signs or through the state's electronic posting database.