Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Land owner called today

we get together and just buy large tracts here, we have one 13,000 acres and another 4500 acres, its ours or whoever we will our share to upon our death. this is eastern wv.

You'd have to know your pards pretty well, a situation like that could get sticky. People can get a bit squirrely when it comes to land and money. Control issues.

And, from what I've seen and experienced, a few end up doing most of the work, which can cause issues, even resentment.

Sometimes a lease with a good set of rules may be the best alternative, easier to get out of than a big capital investment.

But, like anything else, guess it depends on the people involved. I don't think it's something I would want to do.

DF

At $8-10k an acre here or even $3-4k an acre an hour down the road that would be near impossible for most.

Some flood ground will be cheaper but that's best suited for the waterfowl hunters.

I gotta try to get something pulled together before season now. My friend who owned the last bit of land I'd been hunting on for the past several seasons just sold it. Can't say I blame him, $900k for 65 acres... he'd never gonna make that kind of money off me 🤷‍♂️

I've now went from 4 spots to deer hunt to 0 over the past 16 years, all been sold off for development or to big acreage farms consolidating up blocks.

I’ve seen that more times than I have pissed in the toilet. When it comes down to money people don’t care. It’s getting to the point where unless you own land or draw a public hunt, people can’t afford to do it anymore….

Yep. Landowners don’t care about the hunters

Why would they?

Honest question. Not trying to be a smart ass.

If a guy is trying to set himself up for his older years and doesn't want the headaches that could go with owning ground I can see why they want out. Especially if nobody in the family has interest in it.

Some of these landowners may have health issues and this is one way to lighten the load. Get in bad enough shape they need full time med care and the govt will see that land as an asset and take it or deny care because they have too much $$ so to speak.

I never counted on having permission for more than each season on any piece we had permission to hunt.

Even my dad's place could go up for sale at any second if he so desires. He had an offer about 2 months ago for 3x more than he paid 13 years ago. He isn't selling but that could change in the blink of an eye. His choice.

That's what I like about it here. There is no "drawing a public hunt". You buy a license and hunt wherever and whenever you want on public land.

That's the one thing I miss about New York. I had access to thousands of acres of public land to hunt on, much of it within fifteen minutes of home. Several hundred acres of public land I could walk to from my house. Additionally, my brother and I had 220 acres at the farm and an annual lease on the neighboring 400 for $500/year. We had a lease on another 220 acres for the cost of an annual liability insurance policy which, at that time, was about less than $300. When the out of state landowner moved to it and built a house, we were still encouraged to hunt there all we wanted. I had other places there with permission to hunt, but often just didn't get around to them in the course of a year.

Wish we had good public land to hunt, Texas is mostly private

Yeah there's no way I can hunt all the public land within 15 minutes of where I live in a season. Makes me reluctant to ever leave here when I hear all the crap others have to go through in other states just to have a place to hunt.

As I may have posted earlier, our club lease is 2,200 acres that includes some creek bottom ground and quite a bit of hardwoods and some pine reforestation with several small lakes/large ponds. It’s a good group of guys with very little participation on weekdays. Might be 4 hunters during the week and maybe twice that many on Saturday. I don’t usually hunt on Sundays but sometimes on Saturdays if that’s my sons only day off. I hope I can stay in this club for the rest of my hunting years. I’ve got a couple of other clubs and farm that I get invited to during the season. I usually pass on shooting deer as a guest since it’s more about the social time than deer to me. I have seen what happens when a guest shoots a big buck. Always some hurt feelers…. I usually opt for a blind with a nap chair when I’m a guest. Works great to get invited back! If I see a real Booner I might risk not coming back. Most guys are appreciative of shooting a coyote or two and I’m always willing to oblige! LOL

In Mississippi, my brother and I have been on several leases over the years. The one we have now is only 550 acres, but it's ten minutes from the house and our two families are the only people on it. My brother and I are hoping it's the last one we have.

Unlike some states, Mississippi does have good public land hunting on the many wildlife management areas. Within thirty minutes of us are two areas totaling almost thirty thousand acres. We've hunted them quite of bit and could again if we didn't have the lease. Actually, we do hunt them sometimes just for a change.

People around the country that have so little access to hunting land, would be surprised how much is accessible in the New England states. Sure it's hard in the metro areas, but otherwise, finding somewhere to hunt is not really a problem. Land not posted can be hunted and permission can often be gotten by knocking on doors.

Yep, my property borders a National Forest, a year ago someone shot so close to me I almost sharted. After my hunt I went to the typical parking spot for hunters on the forest, met 3 guys that had just come out. I introduced myself, one guy said “yeah, we know where your feeders are and we set up on the deer trail headed to your place”. It looked like his partners were going to kill him for disclosing their “honey hole”, I moved my feeders, yeah, Nimrods!

Cost of deer meat per pound? It's not odd or weird to me that some people look at it that way. But I see where people are coming from. I am a land owner in northwest Oklahoma and a cattle rancher. I have pretty good land for farming and grass for grazing, but I also have some excellent deer hunting. I killed 31 does last year on depredation. My son helped me and we managed to kill a few real good bucks during the general rifle. One in the 180s and one in the 140s. I have this land as my family (dad and I) acquired most of it as a reason to have our own place to hunt through the past 30 years. When I was a kid, I had thousands of acres to hunt and fish, but money started talking. And I can't blame the surrounding landowners. Most people will pay 5 grand to hunt 2 weeks up here. Crazy to me. So I guess if hunting is your passion, do whatever it takes to get out there. And if you do own ground, don't take it for granted.