New leasing trend for whitetail
 

About ten years ago I started losing properties due to owners leasing them out. At first it was slowly but four years ago I had lost everything locally and all was being leased. Prices were anywhere from a couple dollars an acre to $50 an acre. With $30ish being pretty average for this area.

This season there seems to be a new trend. Many properties have done away with the season long leases and are doing weekly leases. Peak weeks are still bringing in $10-15 an acre. That's $1,500 for a 100 acre property. And they seem to be going QUICKLY. I won't say they sell out for the year... I don't know that. But I know peak archery dates, gun week and muzzleloader week all fill up quickly.

I certainly don't blame the landowners for making money. But I'm also saddened by what it seems that hunting is becoming.

Anybody else seeing the weekly lease thing popping up more often in their area?

-Jake

I have not seen any leasing in my area or about hunting camp, or friends , camps for that matter
Most of these camps rely on state lands that are adjacent to what they own that border up to state land .
Typically leasing happens when there is not much public lands near by, or quality of public lands sin;t so hot !
then many folks have the mind set that private lands, means BETTER hunting, when many times its not any better! and can even be worse!

That said, to be honest here, from MY personal; experience hunting a lot of different states for a few decades now
leasing/renting land out for weeks/weekends or l;lkes, over just a ALL yr lease or renting, isn;t anything new to me at all
its what I have done mostly on all my out of state hunts
almost all my hunts, have taken place out of state on lands I rented/or call it a lease, for the amount of days I wanted to be there, typically 10-12 days at a time for me, and I almost always ONLY rented/leased lands that had a house that was on site I could stay in!
I always tried to do it this way, to help LOWER the odds of having unknown people show up where I was hunting and making it harder for me to predict how I would hunt a place!
as I have to admit that is a pet peeve of mine, when you get all set up[ and some JERK(sorry for term) but someone will show up,m see you and STILL set up next to you
Hunters like that just p highly annoy me and ruin my hunting enjoyment
so when ever driving far and having more costs to a hunt, I always try and get lands to myself so not to have my hunts molested by random hunters showing up
I can tell you even with renting/leasing, its has still happened sadly
as trespassing is something I find MANY hunters don't seem to think is WRONG and do so very freely when they FEEL they have the right to do so, due to living near by or having ONCE had permission or???
so renting leasing lands is NOT perfect but does tend to have less walk in's than public lands in SOME PLACES!

some places out west I will also admit, I ONLY hunted public lands, due to size of them and knowing I was willing to go farther in or back than most, so that lowered them walk in/on you hunts incidents!

BUT renting/leasing land by season, or week or weekend isn;t really anything new !

a LOT of times it also comes down to the land owners wishes on HOW they want to use there lands, as I also known a lot of land owners that wouldn;t do year long leases, due to they wan ted opening days or week, for them and there family, so, they would rather rent just a week here or there or the likes!

a little FYI folks, when renting/leasing lands,
keep in mind, HOW many hunters a land owner lets on there land is a a BIG thing to consider, that many don't asks or know
as its real easy to have a property over hunted even in prime locations, making hunting MUCH harder due to all the pressure in the area, can make deer go nocturnal, all the more so the older smarter one's!

That last paragraph is one of the things I just don't understand about all this. A long lease for a hundred acres and four guys makes sense to me.

I like room to roam. But 100 acres in my area of Ohio could support four hunters and allow them to target good bucks and still take a doe or a few each.

But allot of these are saying 4 or 6 guy limit, but they're doing that weekly..
Even if only the best weeks get rented out that's still 20 + hunter's per year on the same land . I just don't see how that's sustainable. But people are paying it.

-Jake

I agree that over hunted lands happen, and many folks that lease or even book guided hunts, don't take that into consideration when paying for things and why I pointed it out!

another thing to consider is, when looking at land, is, how much of the land is actually hunt able, I have been on many lands that a huge amount of the owners acres were useless for hunting, due to safety zones/concerns, or open fields, NO cover no tree's or cover to hunt from
so amount of acres doesn't always mean its all use-able for hunting

and like you said SOME lands can be hunted by several hunters and not be a issue, but IMO< that is rare
as deer learn hunters patterns, and pressure, you take any land for a 5-7 day hunt and stick a hunter in 1 location ALL week, and most won't be happy,( I know I wouldn;t be) most IMO will want change of scenery over there week
and JUST switching stands isn't the best way to hunt a land, yet it does get done often
so a 100 acres even in thick area;s, doesn't leave a ton of room for hunters to move about during the week to make changes in stand locations, just trying to work with the wind on that size of land can be tricky pending terrain of the acres!

this is again why, I always do my homework on renting lands , and I try to get on land before they maybe get pressured by other renters/leaser's
everyone loves the rut, but there is something about early season and NO pressure for a yr on bucks

the RUT, IMO< only helps pressured lands by bucks moving about looking for love, but the DOE< that lure them, once they figure out hunters are on a land, can pull bucks else where! or again, make them more nocturnal, which I feel is a BIG issue las of the last decade or so
deer have figured out that lands with food plots and prime food sources , can wait ALL day and come at night, get there fill on and again hide all day,a s they know the food is there 24/7 and why risk feeding in day time when safer at night on lands that have higher pressure!

Another one popped up here locally.

Fifteen wooded acres with a feeder and ladder stand. No info on what surrounding properties are like. $100/day. Just posted so haven't seen much interest yet, but I'm thinking he'll get some people.
​​​​​​Easy money. Keep the feeder full, $$$$.

-Jake

So far none of that here in Vermont but most bucks don't grow to maturity here so the horn porn isn't relevant.

I agree the only places that lasing is popular is where there are BIG bucks known to be sort of common, or pp;aces that have little public lands

the mind set of sadly many hunters today seems to be , if a place isn't private or made up of food plots and catering to cozy hunting(heated stands and blinds and so on)
many just don't want top hunt much anymore

they all seem to think the grass is greener else where and public lands are poor places to hunt, when in fact many can be awesome places if one puts in the work to find them and learns how to hunt them!

We have big bucks and not much public land. It still gets hammered though.

-Jake

160 acres came up a little south of me. 70%ag field and 30% hardwood.

So about 50ish acres of huntable land.

$6500. It was leased within an hour of it being posted. Or switched over to "pending" anyway.

That's essentially $130/acre.

This really is depressing to me. It really does seem to me that hunting won't exist for my kids. Unless they have deeper pockets than me. Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. But it makes me sad.

-Jake

I've seen several posts recently on leases requiring a hunter to carry their own liability insurance in order to hunt the property.

What is this world coming to