Seems lots of folks looking for a lease. I get a lot of messages from folks asking if I know anyone that has anything available. Seems like year round places are like hens teeth. I remember long ago when I leased, you could find them but finding a good one was more challenging. Seems a lot harder now.

That's a good idea Creek. Folks that are looking for specific hunting opportunities, speak up...you never know who might have something available.

I might be if thing go the way I think they are with my LO's health. Hate the thought of both.

I'm looking for a multi-year mule deer lease. 2-10 guns. 'Prefer no "cross over" country, meaning, no WT. Trans-Pecos or Panhandle; have gun will travel. Too late for this year, but...maybe somebody'll {%^& up and a LO will see this.

I’m always on the lookout for quail hunting lease opening. Prefer open mott, dog running friendly terrain. Also ability to drive through the pasture.

Less landowners willing to lease and more people in the state. Demand far outweighs supply.

The landowners who are willing to lease are usually doing a few package hunts thru outfitters to offset cost

Hardly any of the other landowners here lease hunting rights anymore. Weekend hunters from the Metroplex ruined it for them.

How so, would love to hear why. Were they out there all the time, Brown it's down, acting as if they owned the place, what?

Two sides to every coin. The traditional season lease was in many ways structured so a leasee could enjoy benefits of ownership at a fraction of the cost to purchase the land, but had no vested interest.

Landowners were leasing land in many cases out of necessity, not out of goodwill. As properties change hands, new owners in most instances don’t need this income to own the property. Some will lease out in the future as cost of ownership increases or sometimes out of a desire to give back, but usually it’s on a limited basis thru outfitted package hunts.

Been on both sides of the leasing coin, have leased land for hunting and we leased our land for hunting. It was a lot more fun when we didn’t have lease hunters, as having hunters on our property meant we couldn’t hunt ourselves. Some landowners are absentee or not interested in hunting but as places sell to end users this tends to change.

Many lament the loss of a lease, while at the same time others ( friends of the landowners, guests, family, etc,) will now have an opportunity to hunt now that the leasing of hunting rights are over.





Again, there is two sides to the landowner/leasing coin.

I feel very fortunate to be starting my 12th year leasing a small pasture (150 acres) from a landowner in the southeast corner of the panhandle. The father and son landowners own many acres up that way and used to have multiple lease hunters but have since signed up with an outfitter for all of their spots except the 150 acres I am on. I pay way below market average and they have never raised their price on me so I know they would make way more money from the outfitter than they do from me. I have never asked why they allowed me to stay on but I have to believe it is because I treat the place as if it was my own and do not kill every buck I see. I basically try to stay invisible during the season and for the most part the only interaction I have with them is when I pay my lease dues each May.

I know I could find a lease either closer to the metroplex or where I would have a better chance of killing a big deer every year but it would be a lot more money. I go out west every year hunting as well and the hunting budget is only so big.
I plan to stay on this lease until I can no longer hunt or they decide to go a different direction.

looking for exact same thing.

If it’s brown it’s down and treating the property like it’s a shooting range are the most common reasons I’ve heard from the other property owners. They understand sighting in guns and dove hunting means a lot of gunfire, but guys ripping mag after mag through their AR’s sending projectiles to who knows where, just doesn’t sit well with the land owners.

Thanks and I couldn't agree more with those sentiments.

I leased a small place outside of Bandera about 7 years ago. Guy had kicked his previous hunters off due to them being trashy. Beer cans laying outside the blinds, all kinds of debris, he finally had enough. I hunted there for a few years before I found a place that was better suited, I offered to transition the lease to a friend of mine but he was not interested in leasing to anyone else.

It’s just not worth the hassle to a lot of guys. I just sold a ranch that had 5 lease hunters on it. Landowners actually lived on the property. They had their own camp away from the main house but not hidden. They had jeeps, an old box truck, all kinds of crap laying around. Deer blind would blow over in the pasture they would put up a new one and leave the other one laying on the ground. Why would the landowner want to look at that ?

I can think of maybe 1 hunter off the top of my head ( well heeled guy who leased the entire ranch for himself and family) who actually treated a place well, kept it clean and did right by the property. Most others I’ve seen, the hunters treated it like a rented mule.

I’m not saying you need to dump a bunch of money into a place, but it doesn’t cost anything to be clean

I'll go out on a limb and say this type of stuff is not representative of THF hunters!

I believe in the last 10 years there are two dynamics that have also come into play that has taken away a lot of land that use to be leased for hunting.

Way to many people have moved to Texas with high paying jobs or just a lot of $$$ and have bought up a lot of the land for their own personal use.
Developers bought up a whole lot of land from small farms/ranches to very large ones and chopped them up into small ranchettes!

although I am pretty settled in my hunting locations, I am always looking for a potential better fit for me and possibly my son/SIL/grand kids/family in general. I've seen pretty much any scenario previously mentioned over the past 60+ years. Times have drastically changed over that time, as well as my own hunting desires but I was taught to respect everything and treat places like I owned them with upkeep and oversight. I was never a "Karen" any place I've hunted and know the LO has the ultimate say ... if you don't like something or something is not a good fit, move along and keep looking until you find something that is a good fit for you.

years ago, the if its brown its down was the norm, many LOs found the deer to be nuisance and competing with their livestock, kill them all would be okay and prices were very reasonable. That mindset has shifted quite drastically.

I moved near Canton area about a year ago, and I am looking for a place for 2 people (me and my dad) to primarily bow hunt pigs. We just had our son so want to find something close that I can sneak away for an afternoon hunt and take him after school/on weekends once he gets big enough. If I could use rifle or hunt deer, that would be a bonus, but I’m really just looking to bow hunt pigs. Thanks for the time to read and great post Stompy!

That's absolutely 100%. That's the reason I HF'd my ranch. Ranch to the north and ranch to the south both busted up into 60-80 acre ranchetts. And sold quickly

Let's also remember that, just like elderly folks, not every landowner is "as pure as the driven snow." They're just people, with some great ones, and some real jerks all mixed into one. Square-heads still trying to raise sheep and goats, north of Sanderson, waiting for the market to come back was my last experience. They're a cranky bunch. Mine was always looking for anything to throw a histrionic fit over. He never got mad at me, in fact, I got a little Scotch down him and it dramatically improved his mood, but he was always a ticking time-bomb. Cute wife though.

I'm curious, what would a ranch like this be worth for leasing.
640 acres with about 4 ponds.
3 guns max
Year round
Great location with lots of cover, mixed Oak and Mesquite on the whole ranch.
Great elevation with hills and decent roads
Small cabin and one RV hookup with water, electricity and sewer.
Cabin is off the ranch about 1.5 miles away on another property.

What's y'all's best guess on price?

$10k to start.

Also, need to know location. Pretty big factor. If you are within decent distance of Victoria, I am interested. Looking with some other dads for family friendly place. People that you will never have issues with and will always correct or work with you on any issues or mistakes that come up. List of references of character a mile long.
Greg

Your county Stompy, Stephens. I could see $3-4/5k a gun, good deer, cabin, 2 hours from metromess.

This particular place is on the Stephens-Shackleford county line, totally in Stephens county. There are some quirks to the cabin. There will be 2 months the cabin can't be used due to dove hunters using it. That is the first 8 weeks of dove season. The cabin is free for rifle deer season, the remaining year the cabin will cost $50 a night. All of this is per owner. Looks like I have the opportunity to pick this place up. Just seeing if it's worth it.

Sold quite a few places to guys who used to lease and got tired of dealing with the hassle and uncertainty of the future, so they bought their own ranches. Can't fault anyone for that. From a wildlife manager's perspective, an individual is going to take better care of the wildlife on his property than a landowner will who is focused on Livestock and his lease hunters. Not an absolute mind you, but this is what I've observed over 15 years of selling ranch properties.


The fragmentation of land is one issue that has been going on for some time and unfortunately will not be getting better anytime soon unless individual counties start restricting or regulating it. That is an ongoing issue that affects a myriad of things, namely water usage. High and mid density Developers have absorbed a large amount of land that was leased for hunting and livestock and took it out of production for both.

However, one thing I've seen on larger acreage subdivisions is that it can actually reduce hunting pressure, as many new landowners are not hunters or are interested in hunting their property on a large scale. Again, This isn't a rule by any stretch, but I have seen it happen on multiple occasions, where after the lease hunters were removed there was actually less hunting pressure on the immediate area after the land was partitioned out.