Dave our landowners are in bad health and up in years. His wife is in rehab center now and he has on going issues with heart ailment
They have one daughter who is unmarried and obviously does not want the land. The place we are on has a buyer now. They have 2 other properties that will be sold in time

hate to hear that - it seems to happen often now days -

And some folks still want lease prices to be what they were in the ‘90’s. If you don’t have some serious income on a ranch today taxes will force you to sell sooner than later. It’s a catch 22 for leasers and landowners. Property taxes are destroying private land ownership.

90s, hell I want 80s but I can wish in one hand and you know what in the other and see what one fills up first, lol....

Someone mentioned looking for a lease and wanting to pay 2500.00 a gun. I cover a lot of country and those days/prices are long gone!

What would you say is the going lease price PER ACRE these days? Wouldn’t a smaller place (100 acres or so) still be in that 2500 range…with 2 guns?

Maybe 2500-3000 but probably only 1 gun and if 2 guns, maybe 4000.

As newish landowner (~5 yrs) here's my perspective on things, take it or leave it. For me, this is not inherited or grandfathered land. This is land bought and paid for with my hard work. I wasn't born into money, no college degree. Just plain ol setting a goal and working hard to achieve it. I see many discuss the rising prices of leases. You do realize the nominal fee paid for hunting rights doesn't scratch the surface of what land ownership cost, don't you? The cost of equipment, the cost of keeping that equipment running, the man hours spent just maintaining the property. Let alone any kind of improvements. I learned really quick that all I have done is pay a lot of money for work for myself and cost myself much more after the fact. Do I enjoy it? Sometimes. However, there are many times when it becomes another thing on the to do list, and it sure is always something. And that's with being 15 min down the road. The constant fences that need to be fixed, trees that have to be cleared off of roads, trash I have to pick up from idiots with no common sense or courtesy, tractor time maintaining aforementioned roads and pastures, and on and on. You're upset about that extra 2k/yr for hunting since the 90's? That probably covers diesel for the year. Have you priced a tractor(s) recently? Tires for a tractor? High pressure injection pump? If someone offered you a minimum wage job being a mechanic/forester/farmer/manual labor from March-October, would you take it? But that's essentially what is expected to be paid to a landowner and reap some of the harvest off of their hard work.

Upset because you have been there for 25 yrs and in some very small way, feel entitled (and even a mention of filling every tag possible)? Thats beans compared to the cost of blood, sweat and tears a person could have spent making a place. Let alone what it cost them just to get there in the first place. Maybe you put in many hours helping the landowner making it a better place, but that's a small percentage of what it actually takes, and you see but a small portion of it. It's their land to decide what to do with. Be thankful for the time (however short or long) and move on. My land will go to my kids. It is my hope that they don't sell it, but I will be dead and gone, they are free to do as they wish. If a hunter was to get upset about it, I would laugh in their face from the grave and tell them "If you only knew". As hard as it may be for you to accept, I promise that someone (however far it may have been down the line) paid much more than you could ever dream of. Not just in money. Hard work, time, love and memories.

Don't hold back, 68A! Conceptually, I agree with a lot, most of what you've said. Nothing if life is guaranteed, a big fat NADA! Folks losing leases is not much different than losing a lady, hand of blackjack or investments in financial markets Play the game enough and you're bound to eventually lose; doesn't mean the hurt don't still hurt though

No doubt about it and I understand there is some love lost, and the hurt involved. It just confuses me a bit to read about the frustration of the cost, or a lease being sold or the land changing hands. If a person doesn't own the ground that they are hunting on, there should be no complaints about what is taking place with something they don't own. It's a simple concept most of us should have learned as children. A friend brings a toy over and shares it. When they want it back, it is theirs to take back. If that toy gets left for an extended period, it still doesn't mean a person has any rights to it when the owner comes back to get it. If the owner passes on the toy for someone else to have or decides to sell it, the new owner can do whatever they see fit.

Perhaps this thread wasn't the appropriate place to post such a response as I don't see many, if any, on this thread making pointed derogatory remarks about cost and generational land ownership/selling. However, I have read it and gotten the vibe from some on this forum. Just trying to offer perspective from the ownership side vs the leasing side, as I have been on both sides and speak from experience. Sorry to derail, OP. I sincerely hope you find a new lease that works out for you.

I don't think i have noticed any hunter confused on the cost of owning property versus leasing for hunting purpose.

What kind of operation are you running that requires all this fence fixing and tractor work?

Lots of land out there that if it were not for the lease hunters or cattle tenant, would have no human presence on it at all (we see that mainly with generational land).


What I’ve been seeing more than anything, is that landowners just don’t want the hassle of dealing with lease hunters.

We ran an operation like yours for many years where we had lease guys from out of state. We shredded, maintained blinds and feeders, put out feed, it was all factored into price of the lease. But at the end of the day, after the work we did, it didn’t pencil out on our end for what the net return was.

Only way to alleviate the situation was to sell off half the ranch and take a big chuck of the proceeds for operating costs without having to lease it. And even then we still did some package hunts thru and outfitter.

An operation in a place that has trees and tornadoes. Not shrubs and a drought problem. I’ve got no less than 3 trees down on fences at this moment because of two storms that rolled through in the past two weeks. Big hardwoods. Red oaks, white oaks, sweetgum, hickory. Neighbor and I will be at it soon.

Ah, trees.

I’ve read about them in National Geographic.

68A ... there is a whole lot of respected truth with your perspective, at least to me. I have a small place that used to be my dads until he passed in 2004. It was passed down to my brother and I but he has minimal interest in it and is not a hunter any longer (he gave it up about 50 years ago). So when my dad passed, I took over upkeep and keeping the ag exemption in place to keep the taxes tolerable for my mother. I just followed suit of what my dad was doing in keeping a few cows, using my uncle's bull to breed them, then taking calves to market when they were old enough. It really wasn't all that hard or time consuming to begin with, a trip out every few weeks, walk the fences, make sure the artesian springs were running so they had water, etc. I finally found a guy that was looking for pasture space for grazing that I leased it out for cheap but he had to maintain the fences & water. After a year or so, the drought of 2011 was in full swing and the feral hogs moved in, damaging fences and he pulled out of the lease as it was too much time to keep his cows contained. I went to the livestock auction and bought a few more but quickly realized he was right, I was out every other weekend chasing cows from neighbors places and patching fences. It only took a couple of months of that for me to change direction and shift over to a wildlife improvement exemption. There is still work involved but I can do it at my own pace throughout the year to keep the taxes low. I can only imagine a larger tract of land and keeping everything up and going. There is still considerable money involved between renting skid steer with cedar sheer, my tractor, seed, plowing, planting, keeping feeders & mineral site year around, etc.

but on the other hand, I've been on leases with my dad & his buddies that were on a place for decades when some events caused the LO to have to change direction that caused a lot of shuffling without much warning, it will tick you off, no one likes change, especially if you put a lot of effort into the lease to help improve it for the LO and hunting. But life happens and things change ... if you don't own the land, you can be ticked at the circumstances but just move on, you have no rights to complain unless you have a long term lease agreement, but I'm not sure if those are worth the paper they are written on.

Ah, I have always wondered where you got all your facts......