silent assassin wrote:
With all the stuff that goes on in this world with folks(notice that I didn't say hunters)shooting at the first thing that moves and people drinking and hunting and taking unsafe shots etc., if you think I am going to apologize for being willing to lay out my hard earned cash for me and my family to be able to hunt ground that we know is safe and that we are the only ones on. Well you are SO wrong. So folks like me like to be able to control access to the land they are hunting and they like to be able to control what animals are taken off the property and the nutrition that is put into the property etc. and the only way to do that is to buy it or lease. If you aren't able to do that or you aren't willing to do that then be prepared to hunt public ground. That's what it's there for. If you can cut it hunting private ground with lots of pressure then you can cut it hunting public ground with lots of pressure, right? I went to college and got a degree and sent my wife back to get her masters sowe could get jobs that would allow us toafford to go on hunts or lease ground if I so choose. So I fail to see where the landowners or I are doing anything wrong. They have land that is being under utilized and they want to maximize their profits and I have money to spend on hunting and I try to maximize my time by hunting quality areas. Hunting means enough to me that I don't mind spending money to do it. You may not like it but that's the way it is.
first off there Silent, I didn't ask for an apology from you or say you were doing anything wrongfor leasing land to hunt on---sounds like you have some kind of chip on your shoulder.
secondly, Your reply to me has overtones that assume I might be jealous of your little lease(s). My family and I actually own about 500 acres back where I grew up (WV) and I have access to thousands more thru friends and extended family members. Meanwhile, here in the west, there is more good public land then you could hunt in 20 lifetimes. So, I personally am fine. I just didn't think that was relevant since I was just making a general statement about how the alleged "greed" of the landowner might actually have been initiated by fellow hunters instead of the landowner himself.
Thirdly, although safety is a consideration, I don't believe it is ever the primary reason for people to lease. In fact most incidents where someone is hurt while hunting is either a pure accident or results from someone else already breaking the law in the first place, like poaching, tresspassing, or drinking. (take that Vang case in WI last year). By the way in my exampleI mentioned that the hunters were respectful. I also meant (although I didn't state) that they were safe. So if you want to lease, it is your right.But the main reason to lease is either to access land that you could'nt have otherwise and/or control the access of others to that same land. I can remember a time when hunting wasn't about maximizing profits and time etc.
btw--your first sentence sounds like an ad for peta.