Littering or marking trails?

[KDB]

If hunters are going to use flagging to mark blood trails or whatever they should take it down when they are done.  As a retired forester working on private land all the extra flagging that people leave in the woods adds confusion for the people that work and make their living in timber country.

[pope]

There's a trail I know off a highway that gets me to where I want to go quickly....not too many people know about it, so I generally don't park right at the trail head, but last year I parked there once on the day I got my buck. One week later, some goofball went up the trail, cut a bunch of limbs and ....get this....hatchet chopped a blaze in a tree where the trail comes out on a FS road. Who does that anymore?  I thought I'd learned my lesson about parking near where I walk in, but in the future I'll have to be more cautious.

[grade-creek-rd]

Using TP for the blood trail marking is a good idea (yes, I use this too, have for years) as with the first rain it's gone. I don't care for flagging but also realize that if this is an area that could be surveyed that the flagging might have a different purpose than some trail markings...but in the backcountry I will often snoop around the flagging and find a cache...which is why it's another bad idea.

Now, for rivers...if you are floating or fishing a river and see flagging on an overhanding branch DO NOT wade out and take it off..these are placed by biologist for the redds of salmon and they use different ribbon for different kinds of fish. Often I float rivers and see this and know how healthy a river is by the amount of redds I see! Kind of liking "scouting" for future runs of fish!

Grade