...but I do have a problem with giant commercial leases coming in and displacing local hunters. It's an ever growing cancer in the sport.
I don't, and I do not see it that way at all.
Landowners have the right to do as they see fit. They paid the freight to own it and they pay the taxes.
I just don't want to see every state end up like Texas. Southern Iowa is pretty much all locked up by outfitters these days, and I consider that a shame. Like I said, imo it's the commercial leases that do the most damage.
True story. I hunt turkeys in SE Minnesota on land that is right next to a fairly large deer leasing operation. A couple of hired goons from the lease drove their pick-up right into my hunt one morning, telling me I had to 'get the [bleep] outta there'. I had to go back to my truck and get the platt book to 'PROVE' to them I was legally hunting on land not part of the lease. Of course I was legal, I've been hunting there for 20 years. But the goons didn't even know the boundary of the lease property or we're trying to bully me off land that I had a legal right to be on.
That kind of schit sticks in my craw. Ruined my hunt and soured me forever.
