Howdy. I never thought I would be considering leasing ground to deer hunt but finding private land to hunt in this area is getting to be almost impossible . My buddies son lease's a 88 acre spot about 15min's from my house and it's a pretty good deer hunting property he is going to turn the lease over to us ( 4 people) If the land owner agree's. It's $1000.00 a year four ways $250.00 each. The property has a swampy area and plenty of thickets and backs up to the Northeast River my buddy hunted this year with his son and took four deer there. I can use my four wheeler to get the deer out It has a locking gate for our parking area and It's close . If it works out I think I'm gonna do it. Any of you guy's lease property, have any good or bad experieance's with it.
Joe

i bought 40 acres for myself just to hunt on put my house right smack dab in the middle of it giving me 3 quarters of a mile of woody brush.

its a hunting investment which will last me a lifetime and i never need to worry about deer hunting.

Our club leases 2000 acres from International Paper , costs is $500 per member .. Bunch of a**holes , and I wont be joining next year .. Am looking at something like your scenario , a small area with a handful of close friends ..
Jack

Where has the land that belongs to the people gone to out east...??? We're talkin' National Forests and National Wilderness. You don't have these anymore???

Well in Alabama , most of the Fed's land is under control of the state , as to hunting dates , and they are crazy dates within the states season ..
As in the gun deer season running from Thanksgiving till Jan 31 , and maybe only 8-10 days within that on Fed lands .. Crazy ..
Jack

Bushmaster wrote:

Where has the land that belongs to the people gone to out east...??? We're talkin' National Forests and National Wilderness. You don't have these anymore???

There is state land to hunt and I do hunt some of it but it's so crowded opening day looks like a pumpkin patch orange every where. Ya get set up in a spot and someone comes along and sets up 40yds from ya . Then ya got the guy's that shoot at anything that moves. I won't hunt state land the first few days, later in the season it thins out quite abit and is better.
Joe

Yup.shrpshtrjoe...I understand what you are saying as far as "pumkin patch" is concerned...I don't go out on opening day and pray for the lousiest weather on that day to send the wantabes home never to return. I even prefer to hunt those bad weather days. Tends to thin out the croud.

Jack...I thought that state hunting laws counted on all lands including private land.

The state sets dates within the general season for the state WMA's and Fed land ..
As an example one state WMA about ten minutes from me , only allows gun hunting on Wednesdays and Saturdays of the season .. Tho you can bow hunt the rest of the weekdays .. On private or leased lands there are no date restrictions beyond the state guidelines .. And depending on the area of the state you are in the season may be shorter than the Thanksgiving to Jan31 here in the central part of the state , depends on deer populations , and doe season varies as well ..
Another state area I hunt has four or five Friday-Saturday gun hunts and one week long gun hunt ..
Is crazy ..
Jack

Joe,
One problem with a lease is collecting the money from everyone on time every year when you need it to pay the landowner. I have heard that complaint more than any other. Folks say the checks in the mail and it never arrives an you have to burn up the telephone trying to get the money. It really burns you when a friend does that to ya.

Another problem like we had here in Georgia, the paper companies cancel the leases and sell the land in mass. Seems the timber companies found it is cheaper not owning and planting the timberland themself's.

Sometimes the landowner just decides not to lease any more and you have to bite the bullet on the cost of food plots, mineral licks, and feeders kept filled all year round.

The price you are paying per acre, $11.36, is about normal. The timber companies go up on the lease cost every year down here. Many landowners follow suit. At one time the lease cost was the same as the property taxes on the property. That too is going by the wayside.

Make sure you get a lease agreement that both of you sign. No promisses with a handshake. Regretfully that doesn't work any more. It does not hurt to ask for a multi year lease at a predetermined per acre price or a cap for the term of the lease. You would also want to have it clearly stated that you have permission to drive your ATV, plant food plots, mineral licks, camp and have campfires on the property. Also have the landowner list what he will not allow on the property. It's good to include in the lease that the lease can not be cancelled until after any season that you have planted food plots. That would help protect your investment because food plots are not cheap.

Expect the landowner to require that you obtain liability insurance for your hunting club. The release of liability agreements have proven to not be worth the paper they are written on. The insurance also covers you, as the club president, from claims from members and the landowner.

I agree that the WMA's draw the strangest most trigger happy 'hunters'. I have been shot at on a Georgia WMA, before legal shooting light. I still hunt a WMA near my home, what's left of it after a timber company sell off. The WMA was 26,000 acres until this year when it was reduced to 4,000 acres by the sell off. That pumpkin' patch was compressed a bunch!

Here too the seasons do not run with the statewide seasons during gun & primitive weapons season but do on the archery season. Go figure.

Some clubs, regardless of size, try to get along without written rules. With 4 hunters (members) it might just work. It's true that the president of the club (lease holder) can kick out anyone he wants to but if you have rules you can always point to the reason why. It always helps to decide before hand what your guest policy is, can family members hunt there too, define family member (age, living at home), etc. Be sure to add to your rules everything in the lease agreement that the landowner prohibits.

Buying land is a great idea and today is the best day. I have not seen land get any cheaper than it is today. Tomorrow it will cost more. Hunting land is getting scarce, even public land.

Yeah IP is selling off their land , and is one reason I wont be with this club next year.. Stinkx ..
Jack

say you pay a grand a year for a lease and say your going to hunt at least 20 years. thats 20 grand at least in 20 years of hunting.

my 40 acres cost me $19500 10 years ago.

i have enough woods/brush to hunt 4 people easily.

i personally built my house on my land but if it was used only for hunting i could easily hunt 6 people.

i have permanent foodplots and 2 ponds. no one can ever run me off and i can build semipermanent blinds anyplace i want and anyone i see i can tell "you must leave" instead of being told i cant hunt a special corner where the deer are as well as i dont need to worry about getting permission next year. and no one can take your big buck youve been stalking for 3 years and feeding up for a huge rack.

no arguements on where im going to hunt this year and i dont have to find the sweet spot where the deer "may be" opening day. i know within 15 minutes of what time the deer will be taking what trail.

good land is expensive but trash land {perfect hunting land} is still reasonable.

i only took 4 deer of my property this year. 2 big does and one spike buck and one little 4 point i culled because he didnt look like he would ever become huge.

if you and 3 buddys bought 40 acres for 20 grand and actually hunted the land for 10 years your "lease costs" would be 500 dollars a year and you would still be able to sell the land for at least what you had in it 10 years from now.

for some hunting is a sport

for the rest of us its a life

The only problem with buying property around here is you couldn't buy one acre for $19,500. So Hunting public land or lease private land is my only option, on my salary.
Joe

shrpshtrjoe wrote:

The only problem with buying property around here is you couldn't buy one acre for $19,500. So Hunting public land or lease private land is my only option, on my salary. Joe

Where I grew up hunting its now around $800,000 an acre for the hilltop overlook ground... misc ground is $400,000 an acre.


-DallanC

Spacedone , most of us probably own some land , I do and I dont hunt on it ..
Not all are able for many reasons to buy a piece of land to hunt on .. That doesn't mean that for us it is only " sport " and for you , since you own your land that for you it is " life " ..
If you call it life by the number of head of game , then I'll count coupe against you any day .. If you call it that over where you have hunted , again , I'll count against you any day .. If you call it " life " because you own the land you hunt on , well , thats just funny , and I wish you'd further elaborate your thinking ..
Jack

some people say football is a life.