again, look at Texas
almost ALL lands there are already private and about the only hunting going on is, on private land,s in which most folks PAY to access to hunt, and been this way for d decades!
if any state should be complaining about what land owners do, it should be there, as what is the game dept doing for the public??
very little, as there isn;'t much lands for the public to hunt!
free access is MAYBE only offered to close friends or family members!
other wise the rest pretty much pay
and pending where your hunting, prices can be insanely HIGH to kill a deer!
all them land owners in TX would be up a creek without a paddle if the state stepped in and didn;t let them have tags or sell hunt, lease lands, unless they opened them up to the public!
and like it or not, all things in life keep costing more and more
I have said this many times, I feel very bad for the average kid today, as everything costs so much $$ to get into, and there are so few places left to just roam freely!
I am not a big fan of leases , but I understand them and again at times sort of used things to my advantage, like renting land for my week or two hunt in states far away, this saves me aggravation on worries about hunters showing up walking in on me, or being on heavy pressured lands while I am there!
and having a house.cabin on lands, saves me a lot of time and added driving, as driving a 1000-2000 miles to get some place, is long enough, and I don;t have endless time to be out there, to find better places where less folks go, or just the fact I am getting older and cannot wander as far as I like and Carry game out like I used to
so,
I gather like many in things, as we get older have more means, we PAY for more things to make our lives easier, i
think about it, as we got older, we bought better higher costing guns, ammo, gear, vehicles, homes, and about everything!
its life!
and this is including hunts, to many many more!
Now, I no longer care about a kill, but I still want to enjoy my hunt, and not many things ruin my hunts anymore, than when I go in early, set up and then first hour of day light some jerk shows up, wandering about chasing everything out of the area, and worse many times wants to hang out near me>
so, I will gladly pay some extra $$to try to avoid this on hunts anymore! and this many times means paying for lands!
worth the added costs to have more peaceful and enjoyable hunts IMO!
with human population growing higher and higher, less lands to hunt, this is the future of hunting sadly, untill there is a way to start making more land !