Another shooting area closed!

wence5 · May 20, 2015

It's getting harder and harder to find a good spot to shoot these days, and last Friday I discovered my favorite shooting area has been closed. The abandon gravel pit on DNR land about three miles south of Trout Lake WA just off hwy. 141 and Glenwood Rd. I was up there about a month ago and it was open, so this has happened within the past couple weeks. I can't figure out why since there wasn't any trash to speak of left behind, and there are no houses near the pit. Most people up there police the area when done shooting, but there is always some slobs. A word to the wise, clean up after yourself or we will see no more public land closed to shooting.

Dreams of Steel · May 20, 2015

Sad to hear this, I always wonder when I am going to see a big gate across the entrances to my favorite spots. One of these days I will be able to buy my own plot of land and build my own shooting range, doubt I'll make it open to the public but who knows!

Lilhigbee · May 20, 2015

It would be worthwhile to check with DNR and see what is up. generally they seem to not care about shooters unless there is a specific problem. Was the road gated, signs posted or?? I have seen DNR used as a handy excuse to close an area when they had nothing to do with it. (Blue Lake in Stevenson)

wence5 · May 20, 2015

I wrote an email to the director of the SW regional office to see what was up. The pit has always had a gate across the entrance, but now they have boulders blocking the parking area with DRN "NO SHOOTING" signs posted. When and if I find out what the reason is I will post it here.

OLDNEWBIE · May 20, 2015

Dreams_of_Steel said:
Sad to hear this, I always wonder when I am going to see a big gate across the entrances to my favorite spots. One of these days I will be able to buy my own plot of land and build my own shooting range, doubt I'll make it open to the public but who knows!

I have to drive a solid 45 minutes to get to my favorite spot. I'm expecting one day to see a no shooting sign too!
Last week a vehicle was blocking the path going to one of my best spots and I thought they were shooting too so I moved on a reasonable distance and found another safe spot.
I was there over 45 minutes and didn't hear a sound from the others as I was blasting targets. I think they were camping or up to no good of some kind. It would be a strange place to camp with all the Target shooting!
A second vehicle had joined them I noticed as I was leaving.

Sucks to be at the mercy of others with shooting areas.
If it starts taking me over an hour to get to a new spot I might just hang it up until I'm able to move.

wence5 · May 21, 2015

UPDATE ON THE KILOWATT PIT CLOSURE......I got a call from Al Lawson, the director of the SW regional district today. He told me there was a couple reasons they closed the "kilowatt" pit. One was the neighbors nearest the pit didn't like people shooting Tannerite, and petitioned the county and DNR to close the pit to shooting, and second, they are in the process of leasing the pit to a construction company and opening it back up to produce gravel. I can see the lease thing.

edslhead · May 21, 2015

Too bad, that looks like it was a handy spot for the area.

fredball · Sep 25, 2015

I make itxa point to fill a garbage bag before I leave from where we go but everytime I go there we see tires and a tv set cans bottles and so on what slobs truly slobs

wence5 · Sep 25, 2015

I bit the bullet and joined a shooting range, so now I always have a place to shoot. No more going into the pucker brush to find a place to shoot.

Capn Jack · Sep 25, 2015

Problem with joining a shooting club is, the ones I've checked say no lead bullets except .22 rimfire and I cast nearly all of my bullets.

TonyG · Oct 22, 2015

wence5 said:
It's getting harder and harder to find a good spot to shoot these days, and last Friday I discovered my favorite shooting area has been closed. The abandon gravel pit on DNR land about three miles south of Trout Lake WA just off hwy. 141 and Glenwood Rd. I was up there about a month ago and it was open, so this has happened within the past couple weeks. I can't figure out why since there wasn't any trash to speak of left behind, and there are no houses near the pit. Most people up there police the area when done shooting, but there is always some slobs. A word to the wise, clean up after yourself or we will see no more public land closed to shooting.

I was just in a local gun store this past week in Vancouver and hear that the pit is open again. Guess they did some work on it.

fredball · Dec 17, 2015

Or you have to buy their ammo at inflated prices unreal prices no magnums yawda yawda yawda

kilimanjaro · Jan 26, 2016

For the record, there is no right of public use or access to State lands in Washington. If they don't want you there, they can gate it off.

Federal lands do have the public access rights, they have to go through a lot of hoops to close parts of it off. The State can just do whatever they want and don't have to answer to anybody.

Ronin Tech · Jan 27, 2016

check these guys out.

https://www.facebook.com/ForestAccessForAll/

they are mostly about keeping the dirt roads open for access, but we've also lost a lot of good pits due to roads being closed, no while not really a shooting group our end goals are more or less mutually beneficial.