{QUOTE}I work my butt off on an oil rig to afford my seperate lease.. All people have to do is save for their lease if hunting is a big priority in their life.. To me hunting is huge so if I have to Ill go without other things I dont really need to be able to do something I love... A year is plenty of time for people to come up with much more than they are paying on their leases if managed correctly IMO [/quote]

AMEN, Im a roughneck myself and I have 3 sons 10, 7, & 2. I am 28 yrs old and we love to hunt. I had to budget and save up the only problem is finding a lease opening in my neck of the woods. Im the kind of guy who will sneak in a hunt on a lunch break! So I gotta find somewhere close to hunt. I hunted my last lease for 4 years and paid $0. Got lucky and met a really nice family that allowed me 400 acres all to myself. It was bow only so I let it go this year to find a gun lease so my boys can pull the trigger. They are out there you just have to hunt. I have spent the last 2 days calling every realator within 100 miles of me and you would be surprised at how many hung up on me and were rude, BUT there were a few that took my name and number and even gave me numbers of people that they knew of that owned large amounts of property. No luck yet but there is some potential.

The increasing price of hunting is capitalism at its best or worst, however you really want to look at it. Back in 1998 I got on a great 5000 acre lease for $950 per gun. In the 11 years we were on the lease we had three price increases and when we lost the lease in 2009 we were paying $1900 per gun. The reason we lost the lease is because someone came along and offered to pay the ranch twice what we were paying. From $950 per gun to $3800 per gun in twelve years! Over a 300% price increase, yikes!

That sucks, TxFisher, but it's my opinion that land and leases in Texas were way undervalued for a long time and this is basically water finding its level.

When I was growing up in San Antonio, my dad went and looked at 150 acres about 5 miles off of I10 pretty close to Boerne. The asking price was $320k, which he thought was ridiculous.

"Sure those hills are nice, but the land is basically worthless."

It's worth about $2,000,000 now. This State is no longer wide open and undiscovered.

lots of land owners lease out their places for 10.00 an acre.
most times that won't pay the taxes.

TxFisher, similar thing happend to me in 1999. My dad and I had hunted this place for thirty years. We were paying two dollars an acre for as good a deer and turkey hunting anywhere, soom how some oyher guys found out how good the hunting was and kept badgering the land owner until his wife made him take there offer of ten dollars an acre. My dad never hunted again, died in 2005. Sucks!

The cost of deer hunting has just about reached its max for me. If I have to pay $1 more than I am currently paying I will be shifting gears and focusing on hogs. I can honestly say I enjoy hog hunting more than deer hunting now anyway.

"All deer in the state of Texas belong to the State of Texas," explained Capt. Garry Collins, a spokesman for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

I don't know what the answer is but when you hunt on land worth $2 to $3 million, what is is $1,500 a year for full access?? Not much in my opinion. Thank goodness for landowners for holding onto their land instead of selling out and reducing the amount of lease land available.

Friend of mine has recently bought some land for about $3,800 an acre and the most he is going to get from hunting is $10 to $15 if they want to lease it. That's a steal.

I will just say this. The only way prices will ever start to drop is if people quit paying the higher prices. I saw it happen last year on some leases. The price kept lowering until the lease spot got filled. So you see we as hunters regulate the lease prices, as long as someone is willing to pay their asking price. Then that is the going rate.

Had a friend that loves to hunt harvest a 172 this year as a guest. No cost. Kinda like winning the lotto. It happens.

The price of hunting leases is surely a complicated one. There are many inputs into price as in the end it is just a matter of agreement between two parties.

First, Derrick, thanks for your service in our behalf. Thanks for your concerns for your fellow Texans. Lease prices are outrageous and especially if you want to hunt with your family. I hope that you are able to get all the hunting you can stand. May the Lord bless.

Second, for the father of three sons that wants his boys to have a chance to hunt, please take a look at the Texas Youth Hunting Program. It is not something that is a sure deal to get picked for each year, but it will provide some wonderful times for the boys and you as they grow up.

I have hunted for almost five decades, some on friends and family lands and other times on leases or both at the same time. My favorite lease was $130/year for year round with a cabin on 1100 hill country acres back in the early to mid 70's. The rancher was on the land and made his income from ranching. It was a wonderful place and he was a wonderful guy.

Needless to say, things have changed.

First, the price of land has sky rocketed. Our old rancher had paid seven dollars per acre for his place and he had to pay for it with the proceeds from the ranch, which was no small task. Today, that area is covered with Ranchettes purchased on easy terms by folks looking for down time from the city. No one could pay for any of that land by ranching anymore.

I need to point out that deer leasing only supplemented our old rancher's income. Some try to show how little income a high dollar hunting lease brings in versus the value of the property. That may not be a fair equation in that the income stream from raw hunting land may never be enough to pay more than a portion of what is needed for a ranch to survive and unless there is tremendous value added, probably never will.

There is also a limit to what families can pay to hunt. The median household income in Texas is about $46,490/ year. That means half of the households bring in more and half bring in less. This is before taxes, tithes, mortgage, insurance, vehicle expense, food, clothing, savings, etc.. After all of these comes the figure for leisure expenses and is something, within the constraints of every other family expense to live, is in the hand of individual discretion. That figure is not high for the majority of Texans. This is the limiting factor on demand.

Yesterday, on another post, I read about budget cuts for TPW. I have always admired TPW and hope they do get all the money generated from the various income streams we fee and license payers,hunters, firearms and sporting goods buyers and users of the parks pay.

One of the concerns mentioned by a proponent of no budget cuts was reduction in Public hunting.

Let me say right here that I do not believe anyone should be forced to pay for my hunting.

Before Texas Parks and Wildlife got into the Type II Public hunting, Timber companies provided maps for free access to many of their lands. There were hundreds of thousands of acres open for free. The National Forests were open to hunting as were the Corp of Engineers land and some Federal lands. East Texas deer leases were very cheap.

I am not sure how TPW pays for the lands they lease for the Public Permit program. Perhaps it is by the acre. It does seem to me that as prices are set in the free market by supply and demand that there is a large chunk of land leased by the state and that money is involved. I wonder if the Public Access Permit covers the expense?

My personal opinion borne out by personal observation is that individuals holding a lease take better care of a lease than anything held in the name of the public. They also tend to enjoy it more freely. We only need to look at the many hunting clubs in East Texas that have done a wonderful job managing their wildlife.

How many here have hunted the permit lands? I have not. I am afraid of hunting with groups of people I do not know or that may be positioned in the woods , inexperienced, where I might walk past on my way back to camp. The areas seem to have a record of safety, but as I am probably a typical Texans with a multi generational hunting tradition/ethic and others feel the same way about it as I do..

Have the permit lands been bright lights of deer management and/or hunter satisfaction? I don't know. I do wonder what might have happened on those lands if the state had not been involved? When the state uses public monies to accomplish something, I always wonder what might have happened freely if the state had not been involved.

I also wonder what the price of a family deer lease might be if there were suddenly 1,000,000 more acres available for deer leases?

Just my two cents and worth what you paid for it.

T hanks Notamtchance,that is exactly what I was getting at,Cameron00 seems to not mind paying alot but capitalism has 2 parts somebody has to spend money for it to be made.WE have the right to join together to save money.

I would like to ask for future posters to please let us know if u r a owner/manager or u lease.Please

everything has a price...If you are not happy with a ranchers price of his land..tell him what you would pay or think its worth..just because he wants one price doesent mean he will take less or ask more...my theory has always been..one off something is better than double of nothing and if you present a plan that you plan to use...and tell him about it..he will work with you..I have leased places all over Texas..and for the most part ranchers will work with you...just dont pee on their leg and tell him its raining..cause they will boot ur azz off and quick..

That is your opinion cameron00,This why I would like to level the playing field.I dont believe just because you dont have money,a person should be forced to hunt public land, because the wealthier will pay more for a good lease and force someone to paymore to hunt.

One of my leases is about 1900 acres and we pay the landowner around $20,000 for access. Split up it is about $1800 per gun. I think that if hunting is your passion then that's a steal. If hunting is not your passion then it's a rip-off. It's all a matter of perspective. For me the $1800 for the land access is just the start. Figure in $200 worth of gas every trip, feed, groceries, and everything else, and the yearly total is closer to $5000.00. But, it's what I love and that's why I still do it year after year. As has been stated several times already, if you're not willing to pay it, someone else is.

It's really simple, Derrick.

If you can't afford what the landowner is asking and others can, you don't get to hunt there unless you do so as a guest. That's not "my opinion", it's a fact. You can't "level the playing field" when you're talking about private assets, because landowner can very easily decide that if the money isn't there, they just won't lease their land at all. That in turn reduces supply and prices go back up until an equilibrium is reached. The people that can afford the leases are the ones driving the prices up. The people that think prices are too high aren't part of the equation anymore because they're already not taking part. Clearly there are enough people that can afford the current prices or prices wouldn't keep rising.

Economics 101.

And since you asked, I neither lease land or lease land I own out. I own a small (very small) amount of land, but I'm hardly a rich landowner.

In more simple terms, do you believe a landowner should take less money than he can get for his land for no reason in particular? If he's got twenty people willing to pay $2000 for hunting rights, why do you think he should lease it for less?

u are correct they are not part of the equation.I would like to make them part.I am not attempting to put ranchers out of business.Itseems to me ranchers havent been hit by the recession like builders construction workers.we still drink there milk and eat there beef at high prices.I dont think eliminating a few cogs in the wheel hurts alot we could start by eliminating the so called land managers and the cattle ranchers that lease other land and then release it again to hunters.If the ranchers dont lease the land to hunters there fields will be overrun with deer and in about 2 season the cattle will have about half the grazing pastures.

perspective dosnt matter if your a construction worker and no one is buying houses.If you have a thirteen year old son and your hours have been cut or salary reduced.That is perspective that alot of good families have been impacted by the recession.

I can say on our place, if we decided to have hunters again we would have an asking price that would NOT go down because people thought it was too high.. We simply wouldnt lease it.. Id rather hold it than take less than its worth and really make the guys on the lease mad when it jumped the very next year..

On another note if someone came an offered alot more than the current hunters were paying they would get told to piss off.. That just shows the kind of people they are, to try and buy someone elses fun away from them because they were too late

I stopped reading when you suggested beef prices don't rise and fall, Derrick. A whole bunch of cattle ranchers would be shocked to learn that.

But good luck in your endeavor.

I heard construction prices were dropping so lease prices need to drop... It is 'their' btw. I have never heard of a cattle leasor subleasing out hunting rights unless they let them do it. My friend subleases out to deer hunters on their place 5 hours from Dallas for less than I pay and they kill bigger deer than I ever have a chance at since I lease less than 2 hours from home. He has been friends with the landowner for 40 years.... For less than $1,500 they can kill 135+ every year but I pay for convenience.

I am a landowner, and I used to also lease a place until a few years back so I have been on both sides of the issue. One lease prices are not going to come down, they will continue to rise. The older population owns a lot of the land that is leased, as we die off the land then is split between our heirs. At that time some of the land is sold, some of the heirs just split it up between themselves. Usually the land is now owned by absentee owners since the heirs moved away years ago. Some will sell and and some wil lease out the ag rights. But most will not lease for what an oldtimer will. They know what "return on investment" means, and they want a fair return. That covers the passing of the owners.

Now for the developers, there used to be some good deer hunting within 30 minutes of downtown Abilene. Today quite a few of these ranches are now "ranchitos" little 5 to 20 acre places that are so close that shooting a rifle is not allowed. The area I am talking about is about 30 miles by 20 miles, you do the math on how many sections that now are basically rural suburbs with little hunting areas left. Every year millions of acres of hunting land are developed into homes and "suburbs".

Next, the population of Texas is increasing, which in turn cause more demand for housing, and "ranchito" houses. The increase should also be reflected in the amount of hunters. More hunters and less land that is available for hunting leases leaves some people out of the hunting circle.

If you want to remain in that circle, you had better either make more money or manage it better than the next guy. I got where I am, by driving vehicles for 10 years, not taking a vacation every year, not going out to eat or even getting fast food take out. Making do with less so that the land payment could be made. Vacations were fixing fences, cleaning out fence lines, sitting on a tractor or some other job that had to be done.

Some of us are married dogcatcher! I couldn't even try that economic model. But I would own a giant ranch if I could and cows made money!