Originally Posted by
MudderChuck
A lease is a contract and you had better read it carefully. Around here a hunting lease is a contract with a private land owner and in effect all wild game is your property. Though you are regulated by a government agency.
But that isn't how it works everywhere. In MT, WY, ID, UT, CO, AZ, NM, ID etc... many outfitters lease the hunting rights from the Forest Service or BLM. That lease gives them exclusive rights to outfit in that area but it does not give them exclusive rights to all the hunting. I or any other legally licensed hunter can legally hunt those areas without hiring the outfitter. Many outfitters don't like that and try to run off the regular hunters so they can "reserve" the game for their paying clients.
Point in fact, I once had an outfitter try to run me and my brother off of National Forest land south of Silt, CO. He didn't like the fact that we had 2 of "his elk" hanging from our game pole and his paying clients had been skunked. Bottom line, we had us a talk with the Sheriff of Garfield County and the local Forest Service office and they told the outfitter to back off because we were legally hunting ON PUBLIC LAND!