hardcorehunter

Landowners didn't want anybody else on them; their choice, not mine. I didn't demand it that way. On an IA forum there are only two guys that approve of leasing; others agree it is bad deal for hunting. It is a geographical opinion from what I see.

buttonbuckmaster

I live east of the Mississippi River, and I don't know anyone personally that leases. I have ground that I own and hunt on, but if I didn't hunt....I'd be open to taking some $$ to allow sole permission. Call me crazy.[&:]

hardcorehunter

You beat me to my edit. 23 million acres of public hunting land in NM and 11 big game species to hunt, you know that as I told you before. And your opinion on leasing or you just typing to be typing?

bloodcrick

I agree with you on ALOT of this but speaking from the other side of the fence this is what i had to deal with. I live in an area that is litteraly thousands upon thousands of acres, of prime hunting fishing /ground and water ,its huge. It was all free range for years and you could hunt anywhere on it. about 6 or 7 years ago i started seeing no tresspassing signs on the farthest properties from my house, well it kept creaping toward my area and i found out it was now going to be leased [:@]i was hot under the gills for awhile knowing that the area around my house was going to get it because it was ownedby the (same land owners) some big corporation, thatownes an ungodly amount of acreage and is leasing it all.it was them that had looked around and seen everyone else making money by leasing and wanted some of the gravy. Well you guesed it my area soon came up for lease. My neighbor does some excavating for the owners of this property and was offered a shot at this property first because they wanted locals to police it. He asked me and some friends if we wanted in, we boarder three sides of it. i was atoment at first, but if i did not, i was not going to be able to hunt it at all, and have to watch others enjoy what i once had at my back door. I got in as expected because everything in the area was already leased and the public land was swamped. There was a list of people a page and a half long wanting this lease, so if i did not get in it was going to happen anyway. so thats where im at now. it will probably slip away from us when some rich city slickers offer them big dollars to lease it [:@]With that said here are some good points that came from it. When it was free range you never seen any bucksover 2.5 years, the area was totally swamped with mainly gun hunters that shot everything, i was one of them and shot my share of dinks. Im not kidding you, there would be 50 trucks on one road opening day of gun season. The one buck rule and the leasing came along about the same time. excluding the young generation on the lease we got real picky about what we were shooting and starting to see some brutes about three years later. Since all of this i now have a 160" and two 120's bucks on the wall, and hardly see a hunter all season on the 800 acres we lease. if i get off of it someone will take my place, so what do i do?? not take it and fight the crowds on the public land. it happened, i cant do anything about it, what is,is.
Dink

MC Bowhunter

I agree that leases are hurting the average hunter from having a good place to hunt. But it's not going to stop unless everyone decides to quit paying for a lease and we all know that isn't going to happen. I have leased some and now I hunt on property of some people I have gotten to know and they don't charge me a dime. No I don't have a good chance to kill a big buck. But I have a place to go hunting with my kids. And it's a good place to shoot a deer.

Not all ranches plant crops so that kinda throws out your grain theory. I have hunted on a lot of ranches that were struggling to get by. But they sure had some great deer hunting.

Darrall Dougherty

Sylvan

Leasing seems likea pretty reasonable arrangement to me. Many hunters want exclusive access to prime hunting land and either can't afford or are unwilling to pay to purchase such land. Leasing offers a low cost solution for the hunter and puts some cash in the landowners pocket. Both parties benefit and its really nobodies business besides theirs. Like it or not, leasing isn't going away. We all have the choice to do it or not but whether we like the fact that others do it is pretty much irrelevant.

hardcorehunter

It hasn't ever hit anywhere I hunt yet. It had started in southern IA when I moved last year, but I lived in central IA. What happens when you can't afford the lease and only the deep pockets are leasing it? What happens tommorrow if a guy knocks on your lease and wants to lease your ground for 10 years and pay5 times the rate you are paying now?

5575gb

Leasing stinks, wish there was some way to outlaw it as well. If folks are making big bucks off of a hunting lease then the government better be informed for tax purposes.If you know someone who leases I suggest you let your local government tax agent know about it. There were some guys getting 25K a year near us and thought it was awesome for a couple years, that was until the feds showed up at thier door! LOLoh and the NRguys leasing it were subleasing it "guiding" and they got busted as well, couldn't have worked out better I thought!
The land may be yours but the wildlife on it isn't thats for sure.

hardcorehunter

Farmers in IA were protected from hunters suing if they got hurt from hunting on their land. When money is exchanged though, the landowner now becomes liable for the safety of his hunter.

Raxxmaster

yeah, WOW, NM, I guess it's a good thing your wife got transfered to NM.