Bocajnala

Who here is in a lease, or has group owned property? What do you pay a year and what's it get you? Is this the future of hunting( in the Midwest at least?) if you want "private" property? I didn't think I'd see the day, but I know multiple local farmers who now lease their land to a group of guys... I guess it makes sense, someone comes and offers you $1,000/year for what you used to let people do for free. I don't blame them I suppose. But I see land access disappearing here in North East Ohio. Unless you join one of these clubs and lease property.
-Jake

alleyyooper

I bought my own deer camp had a bunch of friends I invited to spend two weeks there with me. I am the last person alive of the group and last hunted there in 2007.


Just finished reading a E mail from a friend this morning. He is in SE Ohio, we had been talking about all the farms we coyote hunt on and have gotten permission from many to hunt other things over the last few years.


"Beef cattle guy behind us has an arrangement that sounds similar. Years ago, these young guys came and hunted coyote on his 100 acres and he gave them exclusive deer hunting rights in season. Fast forward a couple decades - 'his hunters' come whenever he reports coyote to them, but they also come help him in other situations. He's 80+ and they've become a good team, each contributing what they have and making the whole great. We always smile when we see 'a hunter's' truck across the way. We know he's being helped and they know they get 100 acres of plentiful deer."



I also under stand the leasing of hunting rights. Taxes keep rising, cost of equipment, maintain and repairing going up. Seed and fertilizer also. Leasing the hunting rights is another way to get the land to pay for it's self.




Al

WVDanimal

It can be a pretty bad situation in my experience and what I've seen. No matter who you include in the group, no matter what rules or expectations you lay down ahead of time, there will be one or more slobs who seem to do everything the opposite of the agreement. Most common around here are the guys who shoot every spike/fawn that comes by, usually from the truck window or atv while you sit in a tree freezing your nads off. Not to mention the welfare scum on "disability" who gets to hunt every single day while you're at work all week ensuring that he gets his check! Yeah, been there done that, the leases aren't for me.

MudderChuck

I've been part of three leases so far. All have worked out well. IMO it is better to have a large lease and fewer people part of it.

One of the better ones, we combined three leases as we all enjoyed different kinds of hunting. I enjoyed small game and Bird hunting, another guy liked Ducks, a third was a Deer hunter. We all swapped on occasion. I was part of that lease for ten years, only had one issue, I shot a Deer the Duck guy thought was his, he got upset. It was a Buck that only came onto the lease form a neighboring lease during the rut. No matter how well you get along, there are bound to be some issues. The biggest we had were guests, some seemed incapable of following simple instructions.

On another lease the only real issue we had was poachers. Or when we'd make an improvement the land owner would try to raise the price and make us pay for it. We put up a few wooden shooting towers, he tried to charge us for them.

The one I have now there are two of us, we've been buddies for decades. He Hunts Deer and I hunt small game and hogs, mostly.

Hunter numbers are down around here, it is a buyers market, more farmers looking to lease than takers. Prices were going up for awhile, the farmers mostly priced themselves out of the market and now the prices are low.

Something I learned quick, have a lawyer write the lease contract. They usually run for 7 or 10 years here. You don't want to get stuck with some property owner who tries to change the rules continuously. Most are happy to have someone around on a regular basis to keep the predator numbers down to a tolerable level.

I'm usually pretty popular with the land owners, I weld, have a nice set of tools and did refrigeration for most of my working years.

Hatfield Hunter

Years ago belonged to a group lease---320 acres-- guys---only other people can hunt is children---one gut had 7 kids !!! I bow hunt mainly but enjoy group for rifle hunt---every time I found a promising place to bowhunt somebody else said they wanted to hunt that spot---after a couple of years of me finding good places and others whining about it I gave up between 6 other guys wives it became a zoo I finally bought some land and now have some peace and quiet ! always seems to turn into an argument like owning a business with a relative never seems to work

mthusker

I have a lease here in Montana, Just for myself and family and a few friends. It is a sizeable lease, elk, deer, bear, turkey all call it home, along with some pretty decent trout fishing. Been leasing it for 5 years. It is not cheap, but I don't smoke, chew , drink or play golf...LOL, it is all what a person enjoys doing and what it is worth to that person.

coolbrze0

What he said! I've got a lot of friends that lease land here in VA & it goes anywhere from $7 - $30/acre depending on location & the property itself. With that being said, a "large" lease here would be 4,000 acres which is pretty small compared to what's out West. Lot of sm. farms just a few hundred acres close to large cities are bringing in big $$$ from guys willing to lease hunting rights...

rockport

I lease to several groups and they seem to do pretty good

Topgun 3006

Your leases aren't on your own property though are they Rockport, or do you have property along with other people's lands that you are outfitting on? As I recall you said you were probably losing the one place where you were trying to take that big buck this year.

Bocajnala

Seem to be going for about $20/acre/year here.
-Jake