I say we individuals all quit hunting for 4 years and start fishing. Then we'll see what effect that has on lease prices. If there's no effect, the corporations or out-of-state hunters are driving. I can't even remember the last time I bought a hunting firearm. I've switched from the walnut stock team to the black rifle team. After 41 years of deer hunting, I don't really care if I ever kill another one even though I still have a lease. I mostly use it for fishing and hunting arrowheads.

LMFAO

Sounds like you two have a love affair in the makes...

Can you please tell me what you are talking about?

I think everyone has been having their say, and the only person I have had a problem with is Kent, because he wants to tret me like I have Alzihmers or something.

This was a simple little poll, not unlike one that was on here about a year or so back asking the same basic question.

I think I remember making a post thanking EVERYONE for there participation and stated that the poll was showing that there had been a change in attitude since the last time it was done.

If that is being pissie I do Apologise.

I know, I know, I know.

HuskerSanta keeps forgetting to bring me a dictionary and I just keep getting older and straying farther off course.

I don't like surveys that take a complex issue and try to make it overly simple. The survey wording does seem unbiased, but having "blame" in the title of the thread doesn't make me want to participate. I'd like to see a lot less of hunters and landowners being pitted against each other. Supply and demand.

dr_pepp could not have said it better. I don't post much, mainly just read, but thought I would put my two cents in. You can't really place the blame on any one thing or group of people. Everybody plays a role in it. I have been on both sides, I have leased and I have been a professional guide. So I don't have an axe to grind. People who think those ranches are making a killing, well most of them are not. It cost a lot of money to run a large ranch. Bottom line, like dr_pepp and other people have said, supply and demand. It pretty much drives all economics in our great nation. If the demand was not there then the prices would not be high or if supply was saturated prices would drop, but land is actually decreasing due to urban development. As long as people want to pay to hunt landowners will charge for it. I don't blame the landowner/outfitter for charging nor to I blame the hunters for paying, especially if it makes them happy.

I did vote and voted for hunters, but I don't really think they are to blame, I just think hunters can change pricing, quit hunting and prices will go down. Easier said then done.

I have to agree with dr pepp.
I feel it is a combination of things that dictate the price of leases. I choose not to lease, but the others that share the property do lease. My sister in law just leased her pasture for at least 10.00 ac. She will make more than I did all last year and not buy a bag of corn, groceries or gas.

I believe in the zen of hunting. I really enjoyed the hunters that came out last year. I hope that their experience regardless of the game taken was one they will remember. That is really what it is all about. The buck on the wall remides us of the experience of the hunt. The best hunts can be in the worst conditions and vice versa. But I do believe you get what you pay for. I just can't offer hunts priced like last year. The game is exeptional and the overhead over the course of the year is substantial. I have priced the hunts according to what I need to maintain the herd, land and lodge etc.

supply and demand

I am not at any point in this trying to blame anyone, I am just using wordage tht has been in use for a long time, and that wordage describes the way most of the population of this country reacts to things that affect them adversely, THEY LOOK FOR SOMEONE TO BLAME.

That is just life, we have all done it in our lives,things are not going our way at work, some one else is to blame, some one else was at fault when we got in trouble as kids.

If you don't like the word blame, use some imagination if you have any and instead of thinking blame, think, "Which group is in the lead position concerning rising lease costs".

Would that make everyone more comfortable.

Whatever wordage anyone cares to use or however they care to interpret the question, the point remains the same, there are 3 major groups involved in determining the prices of deer leases, Hunters/Landowners/Guides-Outfitters-Leasing Agents, and possibly a minor group, TP&W.

The reason I started this poll, was not to piss any one off, lay blame at any one groups feet, encourage english majors and those individuals that deal in semantics as it pertains to the way sentences are worded, but to simply find out if the attitude or feelings of people as to which of the above listed groups was most responsible for the continueing increase in prices of deer leases, had changed.

Yes, it has been quite simply established that it is the law of supply and demand, no need to rehash that again.

As I have tried to point out however, the last time this poll was run, the results were different, because more people felt that landowners and guides/outfitters/leasing agents played a larger part in raising prices than hunters did, and in the earlier poll, TP&W was picked by a larger number of respondents than this time.

If blame seems to be a harsh word, think of a word you like better, but there is definitely one of the groups I listed that has played a larger part in getting the prices to the level they are at than possibly/probably the others listed combined.

How about:

Q: Why have lease prices gone up?

A: Supply and demand.

Pretty simple.

Unfortunately, since you probably have not even looked at the results of the poll or even voted, you would see that while many do agree that hunters are the major players in the situation, both landowners and guides etc. are also getting votes and someone whether for fun of serious voted for TP&W.

Now if you will excuse me I will try to muddle thru the next 15 minutes by myself, Oh Wait Lora is here with me and maybe she can help me, or do I need for her to call you to make I sure I don't do anything more stupid than normal?

You are right. I didn't vote because no one is to "blame"...and that was not an option.

Pricing is set by the landowner and hunter. It would be 50/50 if the hunter knew all the variables of the place they were getting. Most of the time they don't so they have to trust the landowner as to if the place is worth the price.

My buddy has been on his place over 5 years. They had their 2nd or 3rd price increase. They have no choice to either pay it or leave and pay even a high price somewhere else. How did they cause the landowner to raise it?? They didn't for the most part. He swears he will never go up ever again after this increase...

And there is the whole picture in a nut shell.

You did not vote, because you say no one is to blame, yet you admit it is a case of supply and demand.

Now just exactly who places that demand on that supply, Hunters.

So even though "Blame may not be yours or some others choice of wording, and maybe I could have tried different phrasiology, your statement about supply and demand, clearly demonstrates that you do feel that hunters, creating the demand on the limit supply of available leases, did in fact contribute or cause the rise in lease prices.

Yes, there are other factors at work, but if the demand from hunters was not present prices would probably not be at the point they are today.

Earlier, and I believe it was Brother-in-Law that mentioned it, TTHA played a signifigant role in helping to create the demand for bigger bucks, Buck Masters was also involved.

While interest in the sport of deer hunting increased which is a good thing in many ways, placing total importance on B&C scores in judging the quality of the animal or the skill/prowess of the hunter, was not good in my opinion.

My two cents nothing more nothing less.

1st it hunters, 2nd is a lack of land.
There is far less land available to hunters then their was 10 years ago. The days of the huge tracts of ranch land are almost gone. As a generation passes you see more and more land being divided up and sold in small parcels. Just look at the Hill Coutry and North Texas.

So in a nut sell its a combination of price of realestate and numbers of hunters. It has nothing to do with TTHA or Buckmaster or BC or contests.

People have always had the hunger for big animals and the bigger the better. Look even at the native american culture, Boy never became man by shooting a doe.

I would like to see how Guides have made the price of hunting go up, and land owners can only charge fair market value, if they didn't then no body would lease it. So wear does the blame lie us, and what we will pay for our passions. If you think any differntly then why would you sell a 30k car for 1k or 200k house for 5k... You wouldn't. Nothing more nothing less

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People have always had the hunger for big animals and the bigger the better. Look even at the native american culture, Boy never became man by shooting a doe.

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Thanks for your 2 cents, but that statement is not worth ANY cents.

Too many folks have some really screwed up ideas about Indians and their way of life.

All Indian tribes were extremely notorious for just shooting the females and young of the year.

The killing of animals simply for a trophy is purely European in orgin.

Indians live by subsistance hunting and a big/smelly/tough male, is the last thing they wanted to mess with.

Most indian males acheived man hood by killing an enemy.

but they did take pride in the killing of an animal with big horns or antlers. even though the antlers were not edible they were usefull as tools and such. and in some culture's it was a sign of who was the dominant hunter.

I think I should have taken tx_phantom's advice

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This is a HUGE waste of time. Reminds me of that old Monty Python skit... "I'd like to have an argument, please."

Why ask for others' opinions if you are just going to put them down if they don't agree with yours? (rhetorical question... for answer, see sign above).

CH: no need to get youself all worked up. You and I agree on the "factors" that have contributied to higher prices. If we have a disagreement, it is semantics. Permit me to attempt to explain.

yes, we can blame:

1) hunters for wanting an opportunity to hunt
2) landowners for charging what the market will bear
3) TTHA and others for hyping trophy hunting
4) developers for dividing up former rural land and building houses
5) suburbanites for buying the houses
6) hordes of city dwellers who want a place in the country but can't afford hundreds or thousands of acres so they buy five or 10 acres
7)real estate brokers who sell 5 or 10 acres tracts
8) ranchers who sell their large ranches to real estate agents who sell these tracts to city dwellers
9) maybe the Good Lord for only creating a finite amount of huntable land?

So we can assign "blame" in varying amounts, to any or all of these factors which contribute to the result.

But IMO, blame connotes some sort of fault. And IMO, none of these folks have done anything wrong. So, in my view, no one is to blame. It's just a matter of increasing demand and stable or declining supply which results in higher prices.

If you, or other feel more comfortable assigning blame, that's fine with me. You have your view and I have mine.

You have read a different history of indians than I have.

Usually if hunting prowess was to be displayed for any glory it was against a bear, much like the Masai in Africa kill lions with only a spear.

Too much of the history of indians that folks read are romanticised versions that were written by individuals with little real knowledge of how life on the plains and in the forests actually was.

As you said, the antlers and horns were cut up and made into useable tools.

Because nearly all indians lived in small villages, 30 to 50 people, sometimes maybe 100, and since they did not have refrigeration, and the only way they had of preserving meat was either as jerky or pemican, they killed a lot of game.

The concept of hunting the physically best specimens of animals originated with European nobility.

The reason zoos were built was for the Roman Emperors to show off to the populace the strange and wonderful animals from the far reaches of their kingdoms.

This is a good conversation, but is off topic, as the indians definitely have nothing to do with the way things are today with hunting.

i didn't say they started the whole hunting for horns. and your right that is off topic.

but we the hunters are the driving force behind the demand. and we created the market were we are the reason these landowners can get the price's they do. and the more that get interested in the sport the less land available. i don't feel as if i'm to blame for better use of a word. but we have created a demand for the product as well we have created a retail market for all the products involved in the sport of hunting,fishing,and the outdoors in general.and not to mention all the jobs are sport create's and entire industries geared toward producing product soley for hunting,fishing,and the outdoors. and a good majority of those little ranchettes are purchased by hunters who want to be out of the city, not all but a good number of them are purchased by people that love hunting or the outdoors. were i sit now used to be part of a big ranch until about 10 years ago and i grew up a little down the road from here on another piece of land that used to be part of a big ranch. and little by little more of the useable hunting land will be developed and so on and so on. the price's will rise accordingly. as somthing gets popular and the supply is limited the price goes up. 20 years ago i would of never believed someone would pay money to hunt javelina or hogs. now they have both become another avenue for people to have an affordable hunting opportunity. but when everybody starts going that direction more often then those hunts will rise in price accordingly. so book your javi and hog hunts now or we will be wondering who to blame for the rising price in javelina and feral hog hunts.

I believe if you will go back and check, that post of mine you quoted, was directed toward Mr. Gilbert and his comment and not toward you.