On our lease...the land owner does not allow the use of ATVs for any reason. That seems strange to me, but I wondered if anyone else has this rule on their lease also? It's fine with me really...we have an old Toyota 4-Runner that we use and it works great, but I would also use my ATV if allowed to do so. I have a great camo Yamaha Grizzly, but I can't use it on the lease.

What kills me is...I could bring a jacked up 85 Chevy truck on 38" bogger tires with a V8 engine and no mufflers out there and this would be allowed, but my ATV is NOT...just seems strange to me.

It was a must when we are looking for a lease, my uncle who is a disable vet, who can't do much walking, this way he can drive right up to his stand. Plus these old timers who lease out some land don't like change, probably still driving his first tractor and P/U.

Probably more of an insurance and liability issue.

But I've been on a lease where a couple guys lost every ounce of common sense they had when they got on one. So I can understand why some folks dont want them around.

most rancher dont like them because in years past somebody that they leased to or a fried leased to had some yahoo that claimed to be a hunter take his atv and make all kinds of new roads. on our place the landowner doesnt care about atvs but he did state that if we used one we had to stay on the roads, he did give us the right to go into a field if we were getting a deer but that was it.

The lease I am on now is the first one I've been on that did allow them. As mentioned above, I think the land owners that don't allow them have had problems in the past. I don't drive my truck into my "hunting area" after season opens. I haul my corn on the atv. I dread ever having to hunt without it.

Things have changed up since last year on the place I hunt, but the landowner was never real happy when we used 4 wheelers up on the place.

The real question is, not whether you could use something, but whether you should. Most folks do not have any real idea about how thin topsoil is in some places, and how long it takes to replace topsoil once it has been damaged.

We did not have anybody doing anything but going from the pasture road down to a feeder with a load of corn, and 2 years later, you can still see where the 4 wheeler made a total of 6 trips, and in dry weather.

Also, people have a tendency to take 4 wheelers places where they shouldn't, simply because they can.

We had one guy bring a 4 wheeler out to the ranch we Javelina hunt, for 2 or 3 years, and because of the size of the place, and the number of flats because of the mesquites, he was having to trailer that thing all over the place, and spend an hour or so daily fixing flats, and the bad part was, he wasn't killing any Javelina.

4 wheelers do make things easier, and if used properly, are an assett on a lease. It is just one of those things that has to be watched real closely and clear rules have to be made and obeyed in regards to their useage on any property.

We have had mutiple fights ammong the hunters on our lease over ATV's. our Landowner does not care about ATV use, but our hunters do. Basically we have about a dosen hunters and less then half have ATV's. The real problem that we have with these ATV's is that people think cause they are there they need to ride the hell out of them. We have serious problems with some of our hunters being bone heads and driving around all night long going from blind to blind stopping and chatting having a beer and smoking a cig or two, then onto the next then back to camp. Then the following day everyone wonders why they see no deer.

Last, and not least. The deer KNOW to associate Hunter with ATV. We see it all the time, ATV goes down a trail deer run like hell. Truck goes down a trail deer pay no attention or go cross the path the truck just went over looking for corn (cause we corn up the roads in the off season).

I personally find that a ATV is handy very rarely and 9 times out of 10 I would rather just take my truck somewhere even though it's slower.

I will likely be loking for a lease with no ATV's allowed in the near future with some of my other hunters. Or a lease where they are allowed and we will set lease rules to not allow them.

At my age [73]I wont lease if I cannt have mine. I have the same one since 1985 and it is still just fine. I use it for transpotetion and to recover game . If they are used correctly they do not cause a problem.If I could trade off 40 years I might agree with you. Good hunting

The main reason our old access roads to the river were cut off was because of ATV abuse. They literally plowed the ground wherever they went, cut deep gashes into the hills causing massive erosion and even destroyed some low-level berms (or levees) by seeing who could climb them...I guess. These hame-headed "road warriors" would fly into an area and open fire, completey oblivious to the fact that someone might be hunting just a few feet away. And this was a popular event. These wannabe-hunters would ride around searching for easy targets to plug...illegally I mind ya', and never give it a second thought. Talking about unethical - this was a it on 4 wheels.

...another example of how a few idiots ruin it for the rest of us. No wonder landowners don't want to hear or see an ATV on their land.