I'm waiting for someone to start posting bible quotes

Yep. And what us old timers also have to do is provide all those listed amenities at the ranches we have to "overcharge" for... Lmfao.

Bingo. I choose what is important to me and I pay for it. Hunting is important to me. Although the OP is right...it sure seems to be more important to a lot of other folks.

All the leases I have been on, the only thing the land owner did was provide a key to the gate. Its not the land owners, its the hunters that drive up the cost. Had a guy on our lease shoot a 153" deer, at the meat locker he talked to some guy about the deer & the ranch we hunted, guess who leased that ranch the next year for 5 dollars an acre more than we where paying. A landowner is going to lease his land for the highest amount the hunters are willing to pay. We just have too many rich hunters. Wish I was one of them.

If you don't like the prices then don't buy it. There are alternatives to a high dollar lease. I choose not to pay for a high dollar lease and yet I fill my freezer with Texas deer almost every year. Even had a few respectable bucks in the process.

A landowner that continually operates that way will eventually have nothing left to offer a hunter. Think there is an old nursery rhyme about a Goose and a Golden Egg.

great point

You should sanction everyone.

Hate to bust the bubble.... There is always someone to scoop the poop. Reason deer leases are so high. The Goose keep's a laying

we offered our land owner an increase last year, he would have it. he said after all the work we do on the place fixing roads, fences, mowing, planting plots, and shooting every hog we see. he said he did not want anymore more money from us and we would hunt the place as long as we liked it and kept taking care of it. We have not had an increase in the 11 years we have been on the place. He came and ate supper with us last time we were down this year mowing gave me his 2506 to take home and sight in for him and brought his tractor down for us to use so we did not have to unhook from the brushhog to hook our rototiller up. putting in work on your lease usually endears your self to the land owner.

I always let my buddies kids come out and shoot does and managment deer on my lease only catch was they had to help fill feeders and work on the place a few weekends every year. They have all since discovered girls and could care less about hunting.

I don't see one thing on your list that is an absolute neccessity today. If you wanted to save some money for a hunt you could use dial up for internet, buy a phone without a data plan, cut out the cable tv, and eat at home. You don't have to buy a new high end gun to hunt. It is all about priorities.

And if people want to spend money on POOP, why would you be upset...assuming you recognize poop!

I am not rich by no means but I will have a lease as long as my kids want to hunt. I am a fireman and don't even make $10 an hour but I also have three side jobs.

But last year I paid $2000 for 190 acres and before deer season was over I had made about $1800 off the hogs that I trapped off that lease and sold and also it was over run with doe so I asked land owner and she let me run 4 doe hunts. At $200 per doe I was up to $2600 so I paid for lease and most of the corn by doing that, so basically I hunted for free!!!

aeb

Maybe I need to type slower. "Some" landowner's lease over hunted properties. Their leasee's change every year. Yet the Golden Goose keeps on laying because of high demand the next sucker pays $$$$$ for poop.

Just a comment nothing personal!

Yeah, that's my point. We have all these things we pay for these days that we don't need. That money could easily go to a hunting lease and it wouldn't seem so expensive.

On another note, I wonder how much the internet has influenced the price of leases.

when I said landowners will lease for what hunters are willing to pay, I was not bashing landowners. you have to remember, to the hunter this is a hobby-sport, to the landowner its a business. If you are selling truck and asking $10,000 and two guys come up, one offers $9500 the other $10,000 who gets the truck? when oil starting going through the roof & gas prices went up it hit us all hard, but think about how much it increased the cost to run a ranch.

Look at it from a landowners point of view. FYI I am not a landowner yet. But he leases to a group of guys for a good price. Then the show up in their $40-60k trucks pulling their $25-60k 5th wheels. To go sit in their $2k blinds over looking their $500-1000 feeders to shoot a deer with their $1000+ rifle.
Landowner usually drives a older vehicle living in a older home struggling to make their loans to the bank for farm equipment, buy cattle, buy feed, buy seed, buy fertilizer and then they have to pray for rain. Hopefully he makes just enough to feed his family and keep the banks off his back. Yet his hunters go back to their nice homes in the city where their paychecks are dposited into the bank and it is a guarantee they will get payed even if it doesn't rain.

Now that is your average situation most Texas landowners deal with every year.

THIS STATEMENT DOESN'T INCLUDE THE LANDOWNERS THAT ARE INVESTORS OR TRUST FUND BABIES.

Oh yeah I am one of these hunters I speak about. I don't complain about the prices I pay to hunt it is just part of it. I also do side jobs to pay for hunting and any other hobbies I enjoy.

Landowner just wants his piece of the pie.

I also know my landowner owns 55000 acres and he leases it for $8-10 an acre

Jeep, well said..As a recent landowner and prior leasor, I know both sides of the coin now...

That reminds me of the morning that the lease captains and I were sitting around my breakfast table negotiating the terms of the next long term lease. At one stage, one of the principals pushed back his chair and stated, “You have to understand that we are not rich!” Now this was coming from a fellow who had just flown in from a consultation with the contractor who was building his Colorado villa and had a new 4x4 diesel ¾ ton truck (his hunting truck) parked in my driveway. It had a sticker price in excess of both my wife’s car and my truck combined. My thought was that maybe you are not rich because that term has different meanings to different people but we definitely have different lifestyles. What I am selling you is a continuation of your lifestyle. If what I am selling is not of sufficient value, you are free to walk. Bottom line is that we eventually agreed on terms that included several items other then dollars.

I will be the first to admit that there are leases, even in my area, that are cheaper and I certainly do not have a monopoly on the deer but I attempt to provide a service and experience for my hunters and their families that justify the cost. Some of the changes we are making have worked; some have not been as successful. An example is my attempt to create a trophy bass experience for my leasers that was sabotaged by two years of no run off water and a massive fish kill. I am now pulling my horns back in and rethinking that project but you can not sit still in any business. Bottom line is that I have to continually improve the experience that I am marketing in order for the land to generate the income that I need. There is another way but to do so would turn the land that has been in my family for a century into a war zone and “poop” hunting would be the eventual result. Not going to happen in my lifetime.

There is no need to "type" slower. Contrary to popular opinion, I did get past Ned and the First Reader. Admittedly, my typing and grammar ability has suffered somewhat since I added various pieces of parchment to my "curriculum vitae" over a half-century ago but I am still able to carry on a reasonably intelligent conversation. Something that is occasionally lacking on a few of the THF threads.

My FIL leases 200 acres near canyon lake. 3 paying hunters plus guests,(me) for 1 thousand dollars a year TOTAL. $333 a piece. He's been on this place for 20 years and the landowner, an old German fellow, has never gone up on price... No, I will not tell you "Who nor where".

And you probably see more deer on the 200 acres than some see on 2000