Wolf killer

I am not sure how much you are wilkling to spend? Land is expensive. You might just be better off to put your money towards a hunting trip every fall.

tight360

I was an absentee owner for about 15 years, the plus side is... I'm not anymore, we home 24/7/365. We finally built and moved in!!! Can't do that w/ State land. As far as poachers, encroachments, and the like, we were friends w/ our neighbors. They looked out for us, but I'm sure there were many deer taken w/o my knowledge. That being said, we never come up short any season.

Tracker II

Good question that I should have addressed in my original post. Rather than say how much I am willing to spend, I think that it would be more informative to say that I am looking for around 40-60 acres in central or southern Illinois. I would be open to either all hunting or a combination of woods and tillable soil that could be leased out.

Obviously with such a small parcel, neighbors come much more into play than it would with more acreage. Especially if those small town neighbors view you as an outsider and therefore have no qualms about trespassing, poaching, or using your property as a dumping ground.

As far as using the money for hunting trips, I suppose that's a viable solution. However, land tends to rise in value over the very long term whereas a hunting trip is cash lost forever. Of course if owning the land turns out to be a nightmare, then those hunting trips would be looking pretty good.

Sfury

Owning a parcel of land that small is a crap shoot. My camp had fourteen years of no problems with the 40 acre plot we have. Three years ago the new neighbors moved in, and it's been a struggle.

The real benefit of owning the land we do is not to hunt it during the gun deer season (too many ppl for the land size), but to be near the massive tracts of public land with a really nice place to return to every night.

We have had some nice bucks taken off of our land in the bow season, but the pressure around our land is so great that the deer are typically nocturnal by the gun deer season so we hunt the various tracts of public land for the gun season.

Most of us in the camp live 200 miles away, so we could not hunt the land we do easily without the cabin we have.

Valentine

I knew some dairy farmers when I was younger. I never, ever, looked at acquiring a piece of land as no work. The question sometimes comes down to whether they own the land or the land owns them.
Just because it's in the country, doesn't mean criminality takes a holiday. I knew a woman who said she feared, for years, all the city folks moving into the area. Then she was injured and robbed. By a young man who lived his whole life, a half mile from her home. He knew that she might have some money in the house.

Never got around to owning a big hunting piece of land. And had no desire to become a farmer.

And I well remember the times on public land, where I was the only hiker in a park, the only hunter in a ten inch snow storm, or the only camper in a public campground. In these cases, conditions weren't perfect. A lot of people do look for completely blue sky weather.

Rob in VT

In 2005 I bought 40 acres 2,100 miles away from where I live in Vermont. The land was in southern Colorado and was located on a 17,000 acre ranch. The ranch runs cattle on it in the summer and there are a hand full of people that live there year round. I started hunting the area in 2006 and we have done quite well with mule deer and elk. Even if the hunting dries up, the value has increased 60% in those 5 short years. We even go there in the summer for vacations. I don't post my property so anyone who owns property on the ranch can enjoy it.

No regrets from this long distance land owner

npaden

If you look at Land as a long term investment, it is generally worth it. As mentioned by several, land is generally going to appreciate in value rather than spending money on a lease or anything like that where the money is just gone.

One thing that many folks fail to consider is property taxes though. Land that is designated as agriculture use typically will have MUCH lower property taxes than recreational land. Some states have minimum %'s that have to be tillable vs. timbered to qualify. Depending on the state and the type of land, property taxes can be as low as $2 per acre or as high as $20 or $30 per acre. That can make quite a bit of difference!

I bought land just over 3 years ago and I think it was worth it to me. I'm really looking forward to spending time with my son hunting and in Texas private land is really the only option.

With that said, I ended up hunting in Wyoming and New Mexico more than I hunted my own property this year, but that was just because I got really lucky on my draws this year.