I Cleaned up Your Mess Today, Slob!

[hrob]

This afternoon I drove out to to the Prescott National Forest to enjoy a little shooting. The area I prefer, while not exactly pristine, is normally pretty nice. Usually, with the exception of a few fired cases glittering in the sun, it is very well maintained by most shooters.

But not today.

Today, when I drove up, my eyes were assaulted by a pile of wooden pallets, bags of squashed beverage cans (presumably targets of opportunity) a cardboard box, paper plate targets and sundry other items of litter. Who does this? WTF were you thinking? You obviously had the means to get those huge pallets out there so why in God's name did you leave them? Did you think you were somehow doing me a favor by leaving your trash behind? Did you think I could use your pallets as some kind of makeshift target stand? I don't need to shoot at your garbage, it shows me nothing about the accuracy of my loads or anything else for that matter. I don't shoot at old trash cans, washing machines, junky furniture or computer monitors. And if I DID, I'd clean it up! I bring my own targets and I TAKE THEM WITH ME WHEN I LEAVE!

At any rate I enjoyed shooting at my steel plates and paper targets for a few enjoyable hours and when I packed everything up to go home I loaded your crap into my truck too. Now I have to cut up these pallets, take up valuable space in my garbage bins and generally bust my ass because of you.

You're welcome, 'tard!

Oh, and by the way, Do you know what happens to shooting areas when the Forest Service gets tired of these never ending messes? They get closed down... permanently.

So remember that the next time you decide to screw responsible shooters by crapping in your own nest - our nest, that is.

 

[Crippledtrigger]

Welcome to AZ for the last 60 years.

We all pack out our own trash and everyone else's. Your bitching at the wrong folks here. Leaving your sheit after shooting would get you black balled faster than working for the atf. I've been on the variants of this site a long time, 15 plus years, and not even the biggest ars holes, a group some call me a proud member of, would leave trash about.

Most of us have been shooting in places that are now neighborhoods in and around cities and have slowly been pushed out farther and farther.

Do as these folks have done for decades. Host clean ups or shoot and clean ups. They Pay for roll off. Put thousands of their own dollars into trash cans bags food and sometime raffles all to clean up shooting areas you probably never saw without asphalt on or visited decades ago.

https://youtu.be/9OpIbiFmY60

This is why when noobs ask for places to shoot they are lucky if they get laughed at, told to find one themselves. No one is going to hasten the closure of shooting areas by giving out location info.

I live part time in Texas now, at least as long as I'm still alive which may not be very long. This damn cancer may get me. There is no place to shoot on public land here cause there is none. It's at the range or a buddies place. Everything is privately owned. Trying to hunt is even harder. It's the future AZ is headed to.

Turn your ire into something other than the proverbial yelling at the clouds. Take that area you were just disgusted at and post some flyers and get on a fer forums and host a clean up.

Again welcome to the AZ shooting scene for the last 60 years.

 

[Razai]

What CrippledTrigger said. My buddies and I budget “haul away” room in our vehicles every trip out, and we are having to drive about 90 minutes each way now to find decent spots.
I feel your pain, but my beloved AZ is no longer just full of Arizonans.

 

[Tenring]

The trash is terrible, there should be a rule or a law............

 

[samnev]

Had the same problem when I lived in Prescott. Fo over 29 years we had a great shooting site at the end of Dosie Pits. With 2 huge Ponderosa Pines where we could sit in the shade. Over the years some A holes shot them down. Trash started appearing on the trail and in our shooting spot. Long story short the our ability to shoot at long distance , ~450 yards , was closed down and we were left with only a 75 yard shooting spot. It just got worse when the ATV riders discovered the 3+ mile lead in to our shooting spot. Shooting paradise gone. :angry-cussing:

 

[XJThrottle]

What CrippledTrigger said. My buddies and I budget “haul away” room in our vehicles every trip out, and we are having to drive about 90 minutes each way now to find decent spots.
I feel your pain, but my beloved AZ is no longer just full of Arizonans.

Natives of Az couldn't agree more.

 

[rockbronco]

What CrippledTrigger said. My buddies and I budget “haul away” room in our vehicles every trip out, and we are having to drive about 90 minutes each way now to find decent spots.
I feel your pain, but my beloved AZ is no longer just full of Arizonans.

Natives of Az couldn't agree more.

:clap:

 

[campinginaz]

I was raised with a simple rule on this, leave it better than you found it. I pick up extra shells and trash as I'm sure many of us on here do.

 

[Abbey]

I live part time in Texas now, at least as long as I'm still alive which may not be very long. This damn cancer may get me. There is no place to shoot on public land here cause there is none. It's at the range or a buddies place. Everything is privately owned. Trying to hunt is even harder. It's the future AZ is headed to.

I 100% agree with the rest of your post, but there is more nuance to AZ vs TX. AZ will never be all private land because so much of it is federal (BLM & FS & NPS) in addition to state trust lands, that will never become private (with the exception of state lands that periodically get sold off). I was shocked when I spent time in Texas and realized that there were hardly any public lands. I quickly realized how much I valued public lands in AZ and other western states. That doesn't mean we don't have to worry about stupid fed policies on our public lands, but that is a different debate.

https://www.backcountrychronicles.com/public-hunting-land/

This table isn't completely accurate (focused on "hunting" land, so doesn't include NPS areas that aren't open to hunting but still available for other recreation), but that 1% for Texas is mind blowing to me.

Back on OP's topic, I think we all agree that we need to take care of our public lands like it's our own property, because it is.

 

[Crippledtrigger]

The point is, regardless of who owns or operates it, FAFO. Keep trashing and you will find it all closed.

As an AZ native I miss all the open space, public access to camping and hunting and shooting.

It's usually noobs to shooting and AZ who do this. Add to that all the places in southern AZ we used to camp hunt and shoot in that are now so coverd in backpacks and trash from illegals or over run with drug mules to the point it's not safe anymore and the trajectory is to the same point in the end. No where to shoot in wild places. How fast we get there is the question.

 

[hrob]

I was raised with a simple rule on this, leave it better than you found it. I pick up extra shells and trash as I'm sure many of us on here do.

It's as simple as that. But, like common sense, common decency ain't so common.

 

[campinginaz]

I was raised with a simple rule on this, leave it better than you found it. I pick up extra shells and trash as I'm sure many of us on here do.

It's as simple as that. But, like common sense, common decency ain't so common.

You are not wrong.....

 

[xerts1191]

Good on you Hrob for taking the time and effort to clean up. Reminds me of the same topic we had on the old AZ site, someone labeled them Dirt Shooters.

 

[omegaman]

You were on Mingus?

 

[omegaman]

I hauled some thick chunks of Steele up the hill there and left them so everyone would have a target that didn't leave a bunch of trash up there and some tweeker took them, you could only get a dollar or two for the scrap. Hauled several TV's of back out of there. They had locked it off at one point. It will get closed down sooner or later all the California people moving in the area. I know they botch about the nose in their home owner association meetings.

 

[hrob]

You were on Mingus?

No, this was off Iron Springs Road.

 

[MTURBO]

Thank you for a job well done.

 

[BigNate]

Some percentage of people simply suck. The rest of us can choose to make up for it - or not. I was raised with the idea of "leave no trace" - and any more, when I'm out shooting I've tried to go past that and intentionally leave it better than I found it. I take a large heavy garbage bag with me when I shoot - and when we are done we pack up our mess, and then keep picking stuff up until the bag is full - or the ground is clean.

Rather than whore this thread - I just started a new thread seeing if folks know of a spot that is really bad - with "big stuff" (appliances etc.) and if there is interest in doing a cleanup day.