Average price per acre on hunting leases

My family and I are on a lease in Kimble county. We've been on the lease for 21 years now with no issues and it has been a great experience. Last year our leaser got married and the new husband has taken control and is starting to change everything up on us. He's messing with a good thing. So yesturday I got a letter in the mail from him saying that they would be increasing the leasing fee per gun this year. He didn't give a number but said when the decision was made he'd email me. Right now were paying about $12.50 an acre. We have electricity on the property and a wind mill we can get water from. The hunting is ok. We have plenty of does and about every 3 years take a buck over 130", most of our bucks are in the 110"-120" range. We hunt on about 380 acres and are high fenced on the south and east sides of the lease.

I was just curious on what some of y'all are paying per acre on the leases around our area, so we can get a comparison and maybe if he goes up more than we're comfortable paying maybe have an idea of a compromise between both parties. We really don't want to leave and his wife enjoys having us on the lease. It's hard to find a land owner and leasees with 20 years no conflict relationships.

Thanks for any imput,
James C.

Had three leases but one sold recently so now I'm down to two. On the bigger lease out in West Texas we pay just over $4 per acre. On the two (now one) smaller leases in Central Texas we pay $10 per acre. $10 - $15 seems to be about average depending on how good the hunting is and extras like a camp house.

We are in the Panhandle and pay just over $10 an acre.

Any exotics like axis on your lease, James?

I would say that if yall are happy with your lease than wait and see what price he comes up with.
Remember... Good leases are hard to come by and in the long run you very well could end up paying more down the road for another lease.

We get just under $14/acre for our lease in Mills County.

No. We killed an axis buck about 5 years ago, but that's the only one we've ever seen on the property.

Yeah we really enjoy the land, and I comepletly agree with you. I have friends who have to find a new lease every year or can't find one. I've heard a ton of horror stories in the lease searching world. I count myself very lucky to have found a place for this long. I just hate that things are starting to turn a little for the worse because of the new husband. It hasn't gotten completly uncomfortable or any where near a bad situation, but that seems to be the road we're heading down.

I guess however much he goes up will be based on who he knows and has had discussions with about pricing. What really sux is that alot of these smaller leases go upward of $25 an acre. I wouldnt count on him doing it all at once, but he could have it that high in the next 2-3 yrs.. We currently pay $12 for 1000 acres in Brady. Good luck and I hope it all works out for you.

You start out talking price/gun and then ask about price/acre? One guy hunting 380 acres or 12 guys on 380 acres. Makes a difference.

WWWW

In that part of Texas if you are patient and put in the time you can find a much larger lease for a lot less per acre. You might have to share it with other members that you don't currently know, but that's what we've been doing for the last six years and it has worked out well. We hunt in northwest Texas and pay about $4 an acre for 10k acres. We've had hunters come and go that we never really gelled with, but if good rules are in place that are inforced, its never been a problem. I doubt that you'll find that price per acre in you area, but I think $6-$8 an acre is doable.

We pay $15/acre for 2,000 acres in Mason County....but we have two houses on the property.

One of mine is $1,000/gun on 550acres for ten people

Alright I heard back from him. We will now pay $1300 a gun for 4 guns on the 380 acres. So it ended up being about a $1.00 increase for acre, $13.70, so not the end of the world. The lease we're on is actually 1000 acres with a cross fence seperating the upper end from the lower end. We have some friends that lease the lower half and they are paying $1500 for 5 guns on 620 acres. so they are paying a little less an acre than us, not sure the reason but I'm not gonna push to much. I hope we never hit the $25 an acre some of you have mentioned. I know he leases a few properties around the area, but not sure what he charges but I'm guessing thats why we increased. I'm sure he figured his guys pay this much so we should all pay that much. I'm also figuring it's not based per acre with him. Thats just my opinion though.

Thanks for the input everyone. It's nice to get a ballpark value of the area around us. Hopefully they will get some rain out there and we can see a swing in the quality of deer from this freakin drought.

I just keep having problems with landowners stacking hunters one to every 50-100 acres. Maybe it is just because of where I live, but, to me, that is eventually goung to bite you in the butt. You guys educate me.

What is his strategy by pricing it per gun? Just say x per acre and you can put x max guns on it. They think hunters can't do math anymore?

The last year I hunted in Kimble, I paid $1,500. That was in 2011. We had a cabin, water, hot water/shower and 230 acres to hunt. Had three guns. However, we had a GREAT relationship with the landowners. I never realized how having a good relationship with the landowner until we moved leases.

BTW, we left because our 230 acres was finally completed fenced in with game fence by the neighbors. Damn I miss that place!

For $1300 and a good relationship with the landowners, i'd say you got it made in the shade my man! Relax and enjoy!

If everyone is planning to tag out every year, its a huge problem. On the 2 small leases I was/am on (225 acres and 250 acres) we have 4 hunters on each, but we are only bow hunting and only shooting trophies or extreme management bucks. We average maybe 1 buck per year off of both leases combined. Last season we shot 2 - an 18 inch wide 11 point and an older 16 inch wide 6 point that really needed to go. As long as all of the hunters are super disciplined, it will work. But there's not many people willing to lease and not shoot legal bucks when they have the opportunity.

Oh yeah, and it it will only work in areas with relatively high deer densities and good cover.

Same thing happening in a lot of the panhandle and it's ruining things for everyone.

I understand what your saying and I wish we had 300-500 acres for gun, but hats not always possible. First off everyone's budget is not the same I can afford $8-$15 an acre for a small property but if I was having to pay the same price for that much land on my own I would be sitting at the house. Also not all terrains setup the same, we've hunted as many as 6 on the property at once without interfering with each other. If you have a good plan in place and hunters who follow it you can benifit from it.

On the flip side I know the areas around us seem to be that hunter every 100 acres. I Know when we first got down there it was nothing to see 20-30 deer in a sitting now I might see only 2-5. That's what drought and people shooting everything they see does. We are very cautious of what we shot. We consider all aspects age, health, potential, and ratios. But it gets frustrating going to the local processor in junction and seeing 1-2 year old six and eight points who never got to meet their potential. And you go 3-4 years without killing a buck because you let shooter deer walk to try and let them get bigger and they just jump the fence and get shot by the next guy. But there's nothing we can do about that. Just keep hunting the way we do and hope it pays off one day.

Yeah I know what you mean. I never realized how good we have it with our land owner until I started talking to other people dealing with crappy situations. I definitely will enjoy it and hope we are here without issues for a lot longer.

Didn’t mean to sound like I was faulting you. What I take issue with is the landowner that is more interested in how much he can pocket this year, ignoring the fact that that his place may be completely shot out in a couple of years or so and the hunting won’t be worth squat.

Depends on where the lease is. We lease 650 acres for $4550. Thats $7 an acre on the banks of caddo lake. There's an adjoining government land that is only accessible by boat or trespassing across our land. We've had the place since before I was born (36 years ago tomorrow) so we probably are getting some special treatment but we have it divided between 7 people. I have two stands on the property but between the both its about 25 acres. Its thick hardwood timmber so it works out great. If it were open land though, it wouldn't be nearly enough...