Not just a western thing. I live near 260 land-locked acres of National Forest. It is only hunted by Illinois first-season shotgun hunters (3 days), out-of-town friends/family of the landowners. The rest of the seasons, it's all mine. I don't have permission to access, never asked, don't need it. The reason it's all to myself is because I put out the effort to paddle 1/4 mile up a narrow creek in a 10' inflatable canoe, fiberglass canoe is too big and displaces too much water for the small creek. One of the landowners saw my campfire one night at the edge of the forest and thought he had a trespasser. He rode to the creek on his four-wheeler the next day to investigate while I was paddling back downstream with a bow, climbing stand, and camping gear. He discovered that I was, indeed, not trespassing. He was friendly, but could hardly believe anyone would go through the effort of paddling upstream through the nearly un-navigable creek.
Another land-locked public area (kind of an oxymoron?) I tried to find access to. A public lane once went to it, now it's all grown up and blocked off by a pay-per-hunt landowner. I asked at the DNR office if N.F. could be land-locked. They gave me a vague answer along the lines of "well I guess you can't access it without permission from the landowner, but there maybe a private access open only to the forest service." (???) Okaaaay. I asked a woman at the county road service to look up records and see if there was still a public access to it. She took down my number and never got ahold of me. I'm not out to defy surrounding landowners, just looking to explore and hunt, but it looks like they win.