If you are a participating landowner(live on the place, run cows oin it, visit it to fish the ponds, etc) I could never consider leasing it to the average texas deer hunter nowadays for the obvious associated reasons. Unfortunately for the sport as a whole, buying your own is becoming the only option more and more, which is probably not the best thing for hunting but that is where we are headed. The amount of o n g checks that have hit landowners pockets over the last 12-15 years didn’t he,p the lease availability situation. But , if I was getting those kinds of checks, I would think about dealing with deer lease era,a for an extra 20k.

Que mas??

Well there's always the poaching option...
Might be cheaper?

Not much for breaking laws CGB but is an option, just not very practical, lol....

Shooting a white tail deer on someone else’s property without consent is a felony. It’s a good way to get rid of poachers for a bit and make sure they can’t ever hunt with a firearm for the rest of their life.

I own my own 133 acre place. Even with exemptions, its more expensive than a lease. Taxes and general out of pocket stuff.

Yeah, I was kidding. Just doesn't seem to be a good answer. It's getting worse too.

I own 67 acres. My taxes were $148 last year. What else are you having to pay? I can understand improvements cost but most of those just increase the value.

I’ve added some stuff in the last 45 years that drive the “value” up. Wish my taxes were that low.

One 3 acre stock tank, 1/4 acre tank, couple of smaller water holes, cut a one mile road from front to back, cut trails throughout, white trash trailer house, water well, shipping container for tools, junk stuff and 4 wheeler storage, large construction office trailer for more junk storage, 4 bay tractor shades, shooting range, huge BBQ pit, 2 pieces(about 6 or 7 acres) land cleared for wheat patches. About 2 acres of blackberries.

Home away from home and only a little over 50 miles from Fort Worth. Wife thinks the whole place looks l8ke a rats nest. It suits me.

It’s been discussed before. It’s hunting the same old place, yes. But the improvements and management can’t be taken away, the kids can’t sell it, you can’t get out bid, etc. I gave up on lease or even good ole boy lemme hunt deals, here today gone tomorrow. If you could afford a few hundred plus acres(depending on what area of the state) I’d say go for it. If small places would be only option I’d keep leasing. Owning isn’t more expensive than a lease. If it is, you should be able to see it again one day. Your lease won’t go up 8-15% annually in value(depending on part of state) either.

We lost our long term lease when the owner died. The place was sold in a few months. Back when you could scratch out a living on a farm/ranch and not have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so every year the owners would allow thier place to be leased to supliment some income. Now that they can't afford to farm/ranch the only option is to sell the place and relocate to a smaller place. We just happened to get lucky that we have 100 acres of family land in East Texas that has seen the deer size grow alot over they years. When we went back to hunting it a couple years ago and realizing that the quality of deer was far different from 15 years ago we are happy just to settle in to hunting it. When asking about the deer size in East Texas changing a guy at the processor said (most people in East texas quit shooting 6 points). I guess it helped.

Deer hunters changed, east texas included to some degree. It is still bad areas, but not like it used to be. Mor3 out there horn hunting than what used to

That's good to hear about east Texas. Old ways die hard.