Hello Everyone,

Let me start by saying that this is far and away the best online hunting community that I have ever seen, To all the mod's great job.

Now on to the real point of this post. I have lived in Maryland for quite some time, and have regularly hunted on public land (Ft. Meade etc) however in recent years my life has taken a change. I am now married to a wonderful young lady whom I love very much. The marriage was a package deal, it came with a 12 year old son and an 8 year old daughter. Both children are greatly interested in the outdoors and regularly go fishing with me. Zack and Noel both boated their first rockfish this last year while we fished with friends on a small charter in the bay. Zack (the 12 year old) has expressed an interest in joining me hunting, and I would dearly love to take him.

However, with the congestion that I have seen in public hunting area's in Maryland I am not sure that I comfortable having a young child on a public area.

Therefore I am looking for some private land to hunt on in either Baltimore, Anne Arundel, Harford (or any other counties within reasonable driving distance of Baltimore)

Does anyone know of any clubs with high ethical standards, that have spaces available? Or does anyone know of any landowners which may be willing to lease hunting rights to a small patch of land for a small group of hunters.

Both my new wife and I are regular working folks, Neither of us make a boatload of money, so cost effectiveness is definetly an issue in this.
Her family lives near us and her father, uncle, a friend of mine, and I have been working to try to locate a small patch of good deer hunting land for us to lease hunting rights on.

Any ideas, suggestions, tips, etc. are much appreciated.

Thanks and Best of Hunting to all of you.

Alex

Jeez guys! almost 40 views and no responses?

Did I put on my deodorant today "sniff, sniff" yup can't be that![8D]... hmmm...

In all seriousness, if anyone has any tips / information they can share about what area's I could have success with this in, or best practices for acquiring a lease, I am all ears!

Try putting an ad in the local papers in the areas you are interested. Maybe put up a flyer at the local feed stores and farmers co-ops where the farmers do business.

I don't have any experience with leasing hunting property....and hope I never do. Seems like a common sense approach would be best.

Land is tough to find in the areas you want. Over on the Eastern Shore clubs or group leases are rampant but for the most part are very expensive, thats why I stopped hunting over there years ago. Best bet in the areas you list is look in residental areas where deer are a problem, you will find people more understanding of your plight but it is still hard to come by. I hunt one little piece in a residental area in Montgomery Co but am not happy with it and all that comes with it. In this kind of enviorment gun hunting is out of the question. Still am looking for some quite bowhunting myself without paying for it, at least not a lot .

Steve, Mdbohuntr,

Thanks for the responses, I definetly like the posting flyers in feed /co-op stores. Am going to have to try that.

Here is the plan that I have come up with so far. I was going to print up a simple letter introducing myself and the other members of my family who are interested in hunting property. Said letter would state who we are, what we believe in, and some information on what type/size property we are looking to lease. Additionally the letter would advise that we are willing to pay a reasonable fee for hunting property rights. Also we would indicate in the letter that we would be willing to assist the landowner with farm chores etc on weekend days in the spring and summer months. (I was thinking that each of the hunters would contribute 1 or 2 weekend days of work). From the research I have done I have seen that hunting leases in maryland are running 3 to 11 dollars an acre depending on the terrain, location, and whether the land has been improved to be better for hunting (clover / food plots, shooting blinds etc) Am hoping to be able to lease somewhere around 100-200 acres for what is within our budget to lease. (we would like to keep the yearly cost to around 1500-2000)

Have been looking at some of the agricultural communites on 70 going out towards frederick. Lots of areas out there with mid sized farms on them. As soon as hunting season ends this year planed on making 200-300 copies of the letter and driving around out there and stuffing mailboxes of likely looking places. Even if only 1% of people respond with interest that will likely leave 2-3 places to check out.

I am definetly going to use the idea of posting this up in feed/coop stores, might get lucky as there will be greater exposure with that. In addition I will definetly keep an eye out for some smaller residential stuff that may be promising.

Thanks for the tips guys, Please keep them coming if you have any other good ones.

Thinking about this, does anyone know of any internet discussion boards that farmers landowners read regularly and or have exposure to? That might be another good place to look for something.

Just out of curiosity, any idea what some of the eastern shore clubs run on average? Whats a reasonable cost for a 100 - 150 acre lease on the eastern shore?

Back when I hunted the Shore we always looked in the $2,000 range. That would usually get us 100-150 acres only of which half was wooded as the goose hunting is a big draw over there and there are a lot of fields. That would include all hunting. I stopped leasing over there when the goose bag limits were reduced to one a day from 3 and then closed all together. The prices for the leases never dropped though so I decided to try to hunt without paying for the right to hunt. It's a never ending search for a decent place without paying, you need to know someone or have the property in the family. If you lease you try to keep the numbers down but have to bring in more people to keep it affordable to everyone and therein lies the problem, more people, more problems. I could write a book on it.

Bowbender another option is to check West Virginia to buy some property and have a small week end retreat and vacation spot, land is reasonable in WVA and the deer hunting is good in most places. Getting over there is all interstates and you could be building equity if you purchased, you can still find acreage with a small camp[ for under 30 grand. just shop around on the net.. good luck..

Ron,

Land is really that cheap in WVA? Email me.

Scott

Alex,

I live in Catonsville and own property in Frederick County you are welcome to join me. e-mail me with your phone #.

Cameron.