I was a member of bha for a year and lobbied hard for the ND chapter NOT to adhere themselves to the national organization and to keep some distance from them and their agenda. They chose to ignore my advice. The national organization is NOT something I support. Their leadership, membership, who, and what they support, are NOT good for hunters or fishermen. The national organization is all about shutting off access to public lands and waters to "protect" them. They say they are for keeping public lands open to the public while lobbying for closing down roads and accesses or uses for the public on those same public lands. They say one thing and do another. Their national publication is full of articles on how they shut down or are lobbying to shut down road accesses, bike accesses, camping accesses, and boating accesses to lands and rivers all across this nation and when they succeed, they try to tell the public that closing off road or boat access to public lands and waters was for their own good. THAT in my book is HYPOCRITICAL!! It's a back door method to make hunting and fishing more difficult in the name of "protection". Much like that abomination called the trespass bill here in ND will do. Just pick up a copy of bha's publication and you will see what I mean. The local group here in ND seemed to be a good group of guys trying to address public land issues to ensure hunters and fishermen can do their thing. Unfortunately, one of the first things the local chapter did was to help put up ROAD CLOSED signs in the badlands. I would have thought that lobbying to keep at least some of those roads open for public use would have been more in line with their charter to keep public lands OPEN to the public for their use and enjoyment. The jist of the matter is this, I couldn't watch my money and support go to an organization that makes hunting and fishing more difficult for the public to enjoy, so I opted out of bha.
