I am sorry for the trouble, i kept trying to make a point and I think I might be missing yours by at least as wide a margin as you missed mine. Now I gotta go to sleep.

They absolutely should go up. Inflation is what it is.

Dude, it is $10k split 6 ways. It ain't $9k a year a person. It's a freaking good deal these days as I listed out our amenities. 8 stands to hunt or anywhere you want. I have been hunting up there 15 years now on 2 leases. Our LO has been offered double what we pay but doesn't want to deal with JAs. Buddy 20 miles away pays $4,500 a gun but 9x our acreage. They don't all kill bucks every year.

So how many acres do you think that would be? How many acres would you have to lease or own so you could spot & stalk, hunt all kinds of animals, fish, run around with the family, etc? How many acres?

laid over, keep hunting/fishing public land for $100/yr. Big slabs, high fin blues and 70" bucks eat damn good. That's a bargain.

I guess it would take at least a thousand acres, in East Texas or somewhere the vegetation is thick, plenty of cover. Would be fine if I was restricted to one buck and one doe a year for my entire household, or either or even depending on the rest of it. Other than that, cottontail and squirrels with air rifle only to keep the noise minimum and because I <3 airguns. Would be fine sharing it with other lessees. I'd bring No guests outside of my household. Wife, two young daughters, teenage boy.

I could live with restriction to stand during deer season so long as I can get after the squirrels and cottontails the rest of the year.

It is an incredible bargain.

I have no self discipline to speak of. I really am going to bed now.

Nite all

So let’s say you need 1,000 acres. & close to the city to boot. Do you realize what your asking?

Your wanting to use a multi million dollar asset year round, as if it was yours, for a couple of hundred dollars a year. Even if you paid the mentioned price of $10k, that’s less than .5% of the value of the land.

What I think your missing, when comparing to public land, is the privacy & exclusivity of having your own place, be it ownership or lease. You can have things set up your way, & no one will interfere. It’s nothing like public land. The time I hunted public land, there was blaze orange everywhere. People camped out everywhere along the road. People tramping thru the forest everywhere. People drinking & people waving guns around. But maybe that was a fluke.

If your happy on public land, that’s great. Most people aren’t. They want their own place, 1 way or another.

You are right, it's asking too much.

I was thinking a hundred acres might do before I posted, then I changed my mind because you can't spot and stalk a hundred acres. I have walked all the way around and through a thousand acre wma a couple times in a day after squirrels and cottontails.

Then I figured if i an sharing with other lessees they'd be po'd about me spreading my scent around trying to stalk something.

I probably won't own a thousand acre place in this lifetime, more likely retire on like 40. So that'll be a deer stand and a feeder if I am ever gonna see a deer i guess.

Public land is hit or miss. My first time deer hunting public land I saw a couple dozen trucks parked throughout the woods in a half hour walking. Hell with thst.

But if you are willing to walk a long way and bust a couple of draws you can have the rest to yourself. People are lazy, go where they won't. That has rewarded me in fishing and hunting.

Spot & stalk is nice, I’m not sure how much of it you have actually done. But yes, it takes a lot of land.

I think you would be very happy with a stand & feeder. You could have that right now, with more than the 40 acres you mentioned, with a decent lease. No, you prolly couldn’t stalk around shootin all the time, but you could have nice deer, hogs, & maybe exotics.

The best thing about a good stand is a Mr Buddy heater & a comfy chair. Take some coffee & snacks.

Leasing private property for hunting rights is enjoyed like that by people in TX every year. It’s a lifestyle for most hunters.

I bought my place over 35 years ago for somewhere around $325 per acre. It's only 133 acres, just south of Bowie, and about an hour and 15 minutes from my home in Hurst. It was a big investment that I wasn't sure I could afford or even make the payments on with 3 kids. Unimproved would be an understatement. It's all trees and rocks with washed out roads that I've added and good for nothing but recreation. Over the years I've introduced a lot of kids to hunting; no charge. Some of those kids still show up and help the old goat fill feeders but only occasionally come to hunt. They sometimes bring their kids just to show them wildlife, go fishing, and a place without pavement. I encourage that.

So, where am I going with this? Buy your own place. You don't have to hunt big places to have fun. Find junk land. There's a lot of it out there West and NW of Fort Worth. Upgrade over time. I've added what I call my white trash trailer house, stock tank for fishing, had a well dug, bought a tractor and built a shade for it, shipping container to store 4 wheelers and tools, etc. It took many years to get to this point. We have only rarely taken trophy deer but hogs are always around. But, they're nocturnal and I'm not. It was our vacation place for many years because we couldn't afford to go anywhere else.

If leasing, it helps to show up and help the landowner fix fences.

Most landowners that I know don't want to lease their land. They prefer privacy and control over their property.

But, having a year round lease, with access, may not be a bad deal. I'm about to leave Hurst to work on a tractor and it's kinda warm outside for a 76 year old goat . Lessors don't have to worry about upkeep and repairs. And, then there are taxes, electric bills, plumbing problems, poachers, etc.

Would be a great way to get my wife and daughters started. Even my 17 year old boy can not keep up with me on a stalk. We found a big bodied deer last year and could not close the distance well enough to tell if he was legal.

Hunting and fishing with little girls, the fun is over by 11AM. Be nice to have a stand and a heater, and an IPAD on standby to keep them occupied

I love end of summer threads....

' Be nice to have a stand and a heater, and an IPAD on standby to keep them occupied'
Yes it is, here is my grandson's on Ipads in the stand and then after the batteries start going dead.

That was a fun read

Not looking for a Unicorn jackwagon! Nor did i start this post for you guys to go after each other. We all enjoy hunting and the outdoors or we wouldn't be on this forum. Im just saying that a good, family friendly lease is not the easiest to find. I do go without to provide my boys the same outdoor opportunities i had. I lost 3 yrs of them growing up and i guess i am trying to make up for lost time. Sorry for choosing a different career path so you can have the freedom to voice your opinion.


Thanks to all of you members who gave me some good ideas on were to look. I appreciate it.

Really? He was just agreeing it wasn't easy. Come on Snake.

fouzman, if you win the bid on a tract it gives you access to the tract for the year. It is up to you to put up stands, set up feeders, put in food plots if there are areas that can be done- everything you would normally do when getting on a new lease that isn't a turn key operation. If you don't screw up you should get a renewal notification for the next year. If you continue to not screw up you will probably have it for as long as you want it. I have had one of my timber company leases for about 12 years.

Interesting you deleted what else he said....

Brother, I only saw were he posted 1 time.

You sound like a prime candidate for finding 100 - 500 acres to lease just for you & the family, lease the whole place, no other lease members.

Should fall somewhere between $1500 - $ 8,000 depending on all sorts of things,, then other than following TPWD regulations & LO rules do whatever you like.
They are out there, you have to put effort into finding them, for the most part leases don't come find you.

Many are non resident LO's, many folks moved to town for a job, medical facilities, grandkids and lease their places just to know someone 'looks after it' occasionally, maybe timber co land is a good fit for you.

Not all LO's have the same property rules, not all are just about the $.

LO's have no duty to lease to anyone for any price, most certainly won't lease to someone that has a poor attitude or thinks LO's are money hungry just looking to rip people off.

There is a difference between a deer lease and a hunting / recreational lease.

Deer leases are more focused & set up for deer hunting, sure many offer all legal game, varmints, predators, fishing, as long as none of those other activities interfere in any way with the main goal of deer hunting. Sometimes that includes some sort of restrictions for off season activities or access.
If something about the lease terms doesn't appeal to you, don't lease the property, real dang simple.

Just like duck & goose leases focus on ducks & geese and quail leases focus on quail. Folks on these leases don't want deer hunters messing up their hunting.
Dove leases generally are for days during or dove season only. They don't want deer hunters scouting, setting up blinds & filling feeders while they're trying to kill doves.

Hunting/recreational leases are not as focused on one species, generally more relaxed within the LO property rules.
Don't like them, don't lease it, simple.

All your 'hard earned money' for lease payment doesn't come close to covering what I spent on pipe & rock for an entrance that washed out & partially collapsed last spring.
Much less any other costs associated with normal land / rural property maintenance, repair & improvement.

If you owned 250 acres within 3 hours of a major city how much would you charge strangers to lease it?
What would your property rules be?

I said it before in one of your other threads, your attitude & the things you post have already excluded you from thousands of acres of opportunities.
That number goes up every time you get agitated & spout off more nonsense about LO's, property rules, lease costs and the commonly accepted methods of deer hunting in this state.

In other words every time you complain about or belittle folks about hunting in Tx you make finding a lease much more difficult instead of easier.

Yep. For me, what I pay annually for my lease on 6,000 acres would likely not pay for 50 acres of land over the course of @ 20 years. I like to play golf too but I'm not going to buy a golf course.

Maybe there should be a blanket easement across all of the rural areas of Texas that allow the residents to harvest the animals since the wildlife doesn't belong to said property owner?

Sounds great. So I can come over to your place anytime I want also, right? I’ll be on the couch.

I'm trying to convince my friend to go halves on 9 acres. He won't because the asking price is $100,000. The reason for the high price? It controls access to about 5000 acres of Skyline WMA.