What if it is HF?

Oh no you didn't.

You created the straw man implying that all lease hunters think they own it lol. Two sides to it. Ive always been a respectful tenant with what i would probably consider better than average landowners. But ive seen a lot of family get bent over by some POS owners. Hunted my last lease for 20 years with the landowners hunting it also, we legitimately never had a gripe one way or the other, not one single instance. We left the lease becasue we bought our own and didnt want to split the time. We do regret not keeping the lease.

If I leased an apartment from you, I would not expect you to show up one day and start living there. Same with a hunting lease. Now, if I were leasing a room in your house, then that is a different story. It all should be spelled out in the lease document. If I am leasing exclusive hunting rights, I would expect just that. I, and my leasing party, have exclusive hunting rights. Exclusive of even the land owner.

I think everyone is entitled to their own whims, fancies and what they believe is fair and right. On both sides. With a willing buyer and a willing seller - and everything disclosed in writing - I see no problem with whatever arrangement it is that they came to.

We have a similar debate here is SA.

Every farm has it's own prices and rules. Every hunter has his own budget and preferences. If you don't like the price and the rules then move on to the next farm. If you know the rules and sign the agreement then, as hunter, you should stick to it and, as farmer, deliver what you promised.

Many lessees just automatically assume they have exclusive rights to do anything they want on a ranch.

I’ll never forget the time a guy showed up wanting a spot on my deer lease & asked what I would be doing all year, if he was he leasing he wanted everything (grazing, hunting, firewood, fishing, etc), He basically wanted to own a ranch for <$2k a year, with no upkeep or taxes.

I LOL’ed & sent him on down the road.

I also LOL’ed a few years ago when my neighbors deer hunters took his cedar posts he had cut all summer. They just assumed they could help themselves to whatever they wanted.

Or another neighbor who had the deer hunters haul off stacks of oilfield pipe.

For every story y’all can tell of untrustworthy landowners, I can tell you 10 stories of idiot deer hunters.

My brother was at a pesticide meeting a few years ago. There was a guest speaker, a lawyer, talking about leasing land. She said if it isn't written in the contract,the rights of the leasee is greater than leasor.

I'm there with you Maximus, too many out there and many even on the THF think that paying a couple of grand a year should entitle them to unrestricted and total free reign and usage of leased property whether things are written in or not. I see a lot written in THF where folks want to damn near take up full residency on a LO's property; may as well have the mail forwarded too. A degree of common sense needs to "rule the day" when it comes to hunting leasing and it really doesn't matter much what is written into an agreement when talking about full, unfettered access and usage - no such thing will ultimately exist in the eyes of the LO and ultimately in the eyes of a court of law. Seen and heard many a cases over my 45+ years of hunting of folks being booted off places for basically taking advantage of lessors access and usage. Trust me, at some point a LO has a "breaking point" that can and may be crossed whether a written contract exists or not granting what may have been perceived as exclusivity or not. I know some of this is really an expansion of the original poster's question regarding exclusive hunting rights or not which I previously gave my two cents on...

Which post? Maybe I missed that. I do see some on here talking about leasing but they also seem to be good stewards of the land and want to follow the agreed rules. Isn't that what matters? Shouldn't I expect, from a landowner, that leases the hunting rights to me that I be allowed to hunt that land as per the agreement? It doesn't mean i can do "whatever I want".

Lemme ask you this. If you paid for something and the person rendering the service didn't live up to the agreement or changed the agreement during the term of service, what would you do? Most of us know your profession. You can consider that question rhetorical if you wish.

For the rest of us what is his profession?

Not me, but friend joined with several others and found a new lease several years ago. They were told by LO, very occasionally his grandson might come down from the City and take a doe, but he would not be a problem. A bit of concern from the hunters, but agreed to stipulation because....

About two weeks into the season, the kid shows up with a buddy while the lease holders are not around, and hunts their blinds/feeders, also leaving a bunch of trash. They complain to LO who says he will take care of it - but to be sure the hunters put locks on all of their blinds. Late in the season the kid comes out a second time and cuts the locks off (throws them on the ground) and hunts the blinds again. Hunters didn't renew, but as a group they had invested a lot of money and effort in setting up camp, erecting blinds and feeders, etc. and had to start over on yet another new lease.

As others say, if I lease the rights, I want exclusivity and would walk if not granted.

Thanks. I love answering rhetorical questions.

I would honor any agreed upon deal, either as a landowner or lease memeber. If I didn’t like it up front, I wouldn’t commit. Any problems (on either side) would be addressed the next season. .

Now let me ask you, what if you leased a guy some acreage for hunting. And then he assumes he can bring anyone he wants, shoot anything he wants, tear up the road whenever he wants, haul off whatever he wants, & generally goes far beyond the norm for deer hunting, but since you didn’t EXACTLY spell out what he couldn’t do, he acts like he owns the place.

When lease guys start telling landowners what they can/can’t do on their own property is where lots of landowners decide it’s no longer worth the hassle of leasing.

You wanna know why there are fewer leases every year? Some people expect to dictate terms to the landowner. Here’s a hint- lots of landowners have lotsa money & don’t need your piddling $1,500, much less hearing your [censored].

well, if you put it that way . . . .if every hunter out there did all of those five things, no one would stay with him. your point is just a lil' far out there.

Taking items from the property have nothing to do with deer hunting. That's theft plain and simple. If the land owner wants to retain some hunting rights, the price should reflect it. I have rented out houses before and every time there was damage and theft. So I know about people thinking they own what they only rent.

1,500? must be in east Texas or less than 100 acres.

Fair enough, I'll answer in good faith like you did. First, I would have a contract that was good enough to cover harvest limits, use of ranch, who is allowed, etc. I have to guess that you know (way better than me) how to read and write up a contract that would cover you and your ranch. I would also interview them as every lease manager and landowner has done with me.

If after all that I had a hunter that tore stuff up or did other things that was beyond a trespass/hunting licensure, I'd do the same thing you'd do. Show 'em the door.

I reacted to this statement


I don't read this in this thread. The guys I'm reading in this thread are the ones that want to do it right, myself included. I knew NOTHING about deer leases when I moved here from New Mexico many years ago. I learned the etiquette of what that means from the THF.

Is this really what your are seeing on this thread?

I honestly think most guys here as well as most lease hunters in general are out there and doing the right thing.
At least I do when I lease and the hunters I've leased with. If not, I would have gotten sideways with them pretty damn quick. And that goes for whether they are just an acquaintance on the lease or a good friend. I don't put up with any BS when it comes to respecting the land in any way!

The elephant in the room is that some folks don't want anyone else to shoot that trophy buck they've been watching and feeding since last April. Once you get over the fact that wild game doesn't belong to you the sport gets far less stressful.

To answer the original question, I would be very reticent to get on a lease that the landowners also hunted. Too many variables to list, but it would be almost guaranteed to have conflict.

Our family once leased a property for grazing, and were given permission to hunt, but they would not lease the hunting rights, as there were extended family members who occasionally hunted. We very seldom hunted, and NEVER if there were other people there. We also would not put up any feeders/blinds, because we didn't want to expend the effort, not knowing if others would reap the rewards. After many years of this arrangement, without issue on either side, one of the nephews of primary landowner brought a friend down to hunt. That friend promptly decided he could do whatever he wanted. One of the landowners stipulations was that nobody (other than us) could be there without being accompanied by a family member. This guy completely ignored that rule, and went so far as to begin bringing friends of his own, also without any of the actual owners being present. He was a real winner, did many of the things mentioned above: procured oil field pipe for personal use, strung up "fences" for food plots, destroyed the roads, etc. I made mention of these things one time to the primary owner, a very elderly lady, her reply was "oh, he wouldn't do that." Never mentioned it again, didn't want to upset her, and none of my business. When she passed, her son contacted me and asked if I was still interested in leasing the hunting, along with the grazing. I told him absolutely, but only if we had the exclusive rights. He said of course. He had to make a lot of calls, to get everyone on board, but it eventually became a very good lease. Only once did we have a family member call and say he was going to come hunt, I referred him to the lease boss, and he straightened it out.

So what your saying it’s wrong to get upset if you spend time and money growing a deer and some drift in comes and kills him on your leased property without any reciprocation?


Yeah I think most people would get upset. I know I would

I'm on a lease that the landowner also hunts, but he only gets out a couple of mornings a season, and as a courtesy to me, he never does so during opening week, so it works out fine. If he were hunting every week and taking his son with him, it probably wouldn't work.

Neither the landowner or myself use a feeder because he doesn't want them on his place. We don't grow deer but only hunt them. If he can put together a strategy that ends with killing a nice deer on his own place, I won't hesitate to applaud his success in the craft. But I will ask him to share his approach.

Doesn’t sound like much a strategy. TBH, sounds pretty dumb.

Do you pass on bucks? Do you shoot every deer you see? If you both do then you are "growing deer" by passing them up.