Check out this article.. it will make you long for the good old days
Deer hunting in 1973

I was just a little one then, but it would be great to have a season lease for $125 or a day hunt for $10. All you need to bring is a hunting license, gun, bullets and a sharp knife.

In 1980 when I first got to buy in on a lease it was in fact $125.00. We had a cabin, running water, hot water heater, two refrigs, one cook stove and 7 beds. 1100 acres and every increase was initiated by the lease members. Someone had to die for me to get in! To this day the land owner is like my second dad. I'm a land owner also and still go back there in Marble Falls to hunt by invitation. The memories are unforgettable. Thanks for the post, Benny.

To put that into perspective, the average consumer price index in 1973 was 44.4. Today it is 203.9. That means that $125 in 1973 would be equivalent to $574 today. How many hill country leases could you find for that? Apparently, lease prices has risen a little faster than inflation.

Many Thanks for posting that. It is fun to think and look back to a time when the most important part of hunting, was being able to go, and not the size of what you killed. Pity, that we will never be able to recapture that part of the total outdoor experience. JMO.

hear hear to the days of the kill not the trophy.

Most of my hunting days have been during the surge of "trophy" hunters and this bothers me a little. I wish there was a way to get back to the days when hunting was not just an "activity" or "hobby" but was part of life. It has become and industry and is commercialized so much that a lot of the enjoyment has been taken out of it. Don't get me wrong, I am a hunter for life and I will pass the tradition on to my children, I just hope we don't have to move somewhere remote to carry on the traition.

I dread the day when you will be able to walk into your local WALLYWORLD and pick up a 130 class buck hunt off the shelf and take it to the register to complete your transaction. You may laugh, but we are not far off. You can already pick a hunt off the internet and in some instances even pick the actual animal you wish to harvest.

I don't want to sidetrack the post as I intended it to bring back good memories and help us remember why we do the things we do. Keep posting the good thoughts and good luck this weekend to all those stick flingers. I will be making yet another attempt to harvest a doe with my bow. I have been bow hunting for the last 3-4 years with no success, but it sure is fun!

Indeed, those were the good ole days. The year that article was written I was 11 years old. That was also the first year that Dad took me on the family hunting trip in Sonora. We had 11,000 acres that 25 of us hunted on for 20.00 per day during the first week of the season. Dad had gave me my Christmas gift early, a Rem mod 788 .243 w/ a Weaver 4x. I had worked all summer hauling hay, mowing grass, raking leaves, and whatever else I could do to get the money for the trip. I wanted to pay my on way. I ended up getting two bucks, a 4pt and an 8 pt. You would've thought I had killed 2 of the biggest bucks ever by the reaction of everybody. I got to drink a beer around the camp fire with my Dad, granddad, uncles, and cousins and tell and re-tell my story. That was one of the best hunts I have ever been on. After that time and age began taking it's toll and approx 4 years later those hunting trips stopped. But every year, when it begins to cool off, I think of that hunt and the times I had. I just hope and pray that I will be able to share some time with my son like my Dad did with me.

I shot my first deer in 1974 and the cost was $10.00. My dad had a lease near Natural Bridge Caverns in Comal County. We hunted the 'house' pasture and it was a season lease that cost my dad a bottle of whiskey to the land owner. He paid $15.00 per buck and $10.00 per doe until we lost that lease in 1976. He hunted there over 20 years and the land owner actually had tears in his eyes when he told my dad that he could not lease it to him anymore as he had grandchildren that were now wanting to hunt!

Those days are gone forever now. Great memories for sure. Thanks for the post.

When you talk about how much lease prices have increased, I still believe it has to do with rate at which real estate prices have increased. That is why we lease instead of buy the land. Otherwise, we would all own our own hunting land. At about $1,800 to $2,200 an acre for where I hunt, it would cost me about $480,000 to buy my land. I think $1,500 is a bargain to do what I want with it. I don't have to pay taxes on it or fix anything. Only downfall is we have cows but that is Texas so does every lease.

Copperhead,

That was an excellent post, thanks for sharing!

Great post, That's what it's all about. Thanks for sharing.

Mike

I go along with the concept that real estate prices have nothing to do with the increase in lease prices. Taxes have gone up, the value of the land has gone up, but the price of leases has gone up a lot more than the taxes or the value of the land. Simple economics, you put a value on the recreational use of the land, in line with what is being charged in the general area your land is located. Stop and take the state in geographic areas, and see what the average lease price is in the Hill Country, South Texas, the Rolling Plains, West Texas, the Piney Woods, you name it, it has nothing to do with the price of real estate, it has to do with what Hunters are willing to pay.

To each his own opinion luckily. Mine stands as is in that lease prices have trended upward about the same rate as real estate give or take a little. If real estate only went up at the same levels as gas prices have since '73, I would own a 100,000 acres and ranchers would sell all of their cattle and move to the city and get a regular job. They would have no equity and nothing to leverage borrowed money with. Probably more like 500 acres but it would be cheaper to flat out buy it instead of leasing it and leases would be cheap cause you getting the right to access land that would not be worth much relative to other things. Owning real estate gives you the right to access the land and do as you wish. Most leases give you the same rights so long as you don't make it worse than the shape it already is in and don't kill any livestock. And if the rancher has a property that is superior habitat, it is worth more and therefore going to lease for more and sell for more. If the land is worthless, then the price it sells for will be low and the price it leases for will be too. In fact, there are studies that show how lease prices actually can push up land value becuase the person who might want to invest in it can get some return from hunters leasing it.

http://agnews.tamu.edu/stories/WFSC/Mar0801a.htm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3750/is_199701/ai_n8755315