if you can't pay to play, you better get in a different game. land is expensive, and taxes are high. cows can't even think about payin for a place that has any recreational use now days. tell the truth, we don't even lease our places cuz we couldn't get enough to make up for the babysittin, pickin up after hunters, and loss of our own use. unless you've been handed a paid for ranch(which still has property taxes), u need everything you can get. and if a guy can pay top dollar for a big lease he's making more than most ranchers

My dad always said, "It is better to be "pizzed off" rather than be "pizzed on"."

PHishtx you ruined my whole day! now i know im in the poverty level. LOL.

The landowners didn't make the deer leases expensive, the hunters have.

If no one would pay over X amount of dollars for a lease then thats all landowners would charge, but people will pay high prices.

Can't blame the landowners. If you were trying to sell a car and someone offered you $1500 and someone else offered you $3000, who would you sell the car to? You know darn good and well you'd take the $3000. Same thing.

Bill

Its an ugly cycle.....let gas prices get back up around $5 a gallon with a poor economy and see what happens to lease prices...especially on leases that are 3+ hours from major cities.

Of course then there will be another problem...the economy will knock down lease prices, grain prices, beef prices, etc, etc and the small landowner will have to sell out to the "other" guys who are more elastic to economic impact and also keep the hunting for their personal use........eventually more and more of the land is gobbled up by the "other" guys and less is available to the general public....supply and demand so when the economy swings again the prices are even higher because there is more demand but less land to lease....but there will be a few more guided hunts available at a premium by the "other" guys.

The contrarian option is to not play the game.....hunt your does and "culls" at a bargain on ranches that need someoen to harvest them and only hunt a "trophy" once every few years and pay for a guided hunt and/or put in for the drawing on public lands.

Hunting isn't expensive....the higher the success rate the higher the cost....its that simple.

I think 50% of it is the " sue now ask questions later" mentality of a lot of folks now, definately a huge liability. The landowners have every right to try and recoup some money as they see fit, however you wouldn't buy the land if you couldn't afford to pay for it without having to lease it out. IMO prices are ridiculous especially for just a seasonal hunting lease, this is why i hunt public land and honestly after some of the animals we've seen & harvested i wouldn't lease to hunt. I don't think hunting over a corn feeder is hunting more like ambushing after the dinner bell rings.

Ok I re phrase the getting rich part. And yes I have many friends who run ranches and I know the cost it takes to keep it going. My point is the price you have to pay to take a 100% wild animal is high. Not everyone who loves hunting makes 100-250 k a year. And they might not have public land close by. Me and my dad hunt for free on my buddies 11 acres. Laugh 11 acres but I have killed 150 B&C on this place and its free. Hunting is becoming a rich man sport. I know times change and theres nothing we can do about it but it suck for these hunters with families who wont be able to go. This kinda can lead to the cost of liscense, corn, gas, etc. Thank all ya for the comments. Its nice to hear what everyone thinks. Sorry again if I stepped on any toes.

We no longer lease because of the witchin we always heard. We may start leasing again when we get free rent in town, the guy at the gas station let's us fill up for nothing, the grocery store sends out a load of groceries every so often. Neiman Marcus and Cabelas offers me free camo underwear.

Nothing is free, supply and demand controls the prices. Whizzing and moaning only whizzes you off, doesn't affect the landowners pocket book. If you cannot afford a lease, get a better job, make lifestyle changes. Do you really need that vacation or new pickup? Do you really need 2400 square feet of house? Or wait for the liberals to give it to you like health care?

born2hunt, I think we are looking at it from 2 different sides of the equation. You see it as landowners charging you to hunt a wild animal. You are correct, it seems wrong to charge you to kill the animal that is not mine to sell anyway.

My argument is that the landowner is not selling you animals. They generally couldn't give a rats butt whether or not you killed an animal on their place, and they sure as heck are not selling you the animal (guaranteed kill?)

They selling you the right to go onto their place and give them all of the potential headaches that lease hunters may or may not cause.

Of the places we manage, all came to us as a result directly or indirectly of negligent or worse hunters. We have managed each place so the landowner is not directly dealing with the hunters, and have kept the price the same as it was, so the landowner actually took a cut in pay, not to have to deal with it. Basically they're paying us, to deal with the hunters.

Landowners are as vastly different as hunters, some want to be directly involved and help with the hunters, some just want to meet them and know them, some don't, and some are even long range absentee landowners that wouldn't allow hunting at all unless we were taking care of it.

I know we used to hunt and fish for free when we were kids. But the morons leaving gates open, trash on the places, and generally being a pain ruined that once and for all.

I actually know some landowners and some fisherman that have lease agreements for fishing rights to small lakes and ponds. Now that's scary.

i cant remember my grandpa ever sayin he let anyone hunt on his land for free, or his fathers land for that matter. and right now he doesnt lease any of it out just so that i can keep all to myself lol! as for lease prices being high, well go to a place that ur not going to shoot a 150 class buck every year, go to pieces of land similiar to mine, where a 120 is a monster, then u wont pay as much, as for goin on our land for free...... surely u joke.

not to high for me. i pay 600 and usually do just fine. it aint south texas or anything but i enjoy my lease.

now i do spend a ton of money hunting places but my lease is fairly cheap. not gunna find many for that price even in east texas.

I guess you could be thankfull they dont finance it

I used to let some boys from town bow hunt my place. They would bring a pickup load of split firewood every now and then. It was a good arrangement until they started bringing friends with them too frequently. The day I found beer cans in the ditch and my new feeder timer missing I put a stop to it.

It is a shame, when I was growing up, we dove hunted all over NE Texas for free. We never paid a dime. Bad behavior has spoiled it for everyone.

lol...was on a place that actually had a payment plan. Had to make a payment every 3 months w/ a $250 late payment fine and a $50 reduction for paying in full on the first installment date. Kind of liked the arrangement.

damn that would be nice. easy on the walllet too.

Thank god my dad owns land, cause it has already gotten out of my price range.

And having to sacrifice how you live so you can afford to hunt, that's just stupid. People lose their leases that are affordable to other peoples greediness all the time.

It's easy on the wallet until you realize you are still hunting yet already making a payment for next season. It wasn't too awful bad, but was still a whole lot of money to be spending on an East Tx lease. (I think it's a good idea b/c it allows the lease managers to know real early who is staying or getting off)

I loved to hunt here in Texas but due to the rising cost of leasing land that is but a memory now. I do put in for the draw hunts and I got one this year but I just can't afford the leases. Instead, myself and 8 others go out west every year. We have 200 sq miles of hunting lands that are not over run with hunters as it's regulated. We stay out for 10 days and we get the hunting itch scratched and the best thing is, total cost of the hunt is 700.00 including license, food, gas, and misc. I saw some posts for people said move, be kind of selfish of me to do that. I have 15 yrs on the job, don't want to throw that away. Kids like the school, don't want to make them mad. Moving doesn't justify pulling up roots just so I can hunt a few days a year and maybe get a deer. It's hard to justify paying 2000.00 for a lease. I see alot of people here put years and dollars into a lease just to have it taken away by greedy heirs or high paying clients. Just frustrating.

Greed? Or good business practice? Seems to me you think everybody else can charge what they can get away with except the landowners leasing to hunters. Why should the landowner sacrifice luxuries for his family when he can get more from a hunter that is willing to pay more for the hunting rights on his land. All the people that I know will go for the highest salary and best benefits of a job, same thing for the landowner, these lease payments are his "salary".

So if you got a call that great aunt Sally passed away and left you some land. Would you renew a lease that was held by a group of hunters? Or would you be "greedy" and hunt it yourself?

Better yet, would you increase the price of the lease to the current hunters? I have seen this happen more often than I care to comment on....greed is what it is called.

I think this topic is really simple.

If you own the land, you own the right to do whatever is legal on that peice of property. If you own the land and want to make some money by leasing then do it.

As a hunter/non land owner, you can do one of 2 things. Pay and hunt or not.

That simple. If you have a problem with the cost of the lease or feel you are getting screwed then get off or don't get on in the first place. Don't post on here crying like a little baby that LANDOWNERS are getting you and charging too much. That is there choice, you still have your choice too. That is how it is with anything you plan on purchasing.

We are through with the leasing route, it would be leased until the contract is up. At that time it would not be leased.

I cant see the landowners making a killing by leasing their land, now for a high fence leases where the heard is managed I can understand it.

I have a couple of farmer friends that lease their places after the grain is harvested but they do not live like kings, sure their kids have everything they want but they are not burning money in the fireplace....