Expectations

I see a lot of movement of hunters from/to new leases and ranches early this season, maybe more so than prior. I know for many this was a difficult season with lots of rain and a very abundant supply of natural groceries for the deer to dine in. Having been on both the lease and now land owner side of the equation over my 40+ years of hunting, as a leasee in deep South Texas and owner the past 10 years in NW TX, do we think the movements could be more a deeper introspection into ourselves more than anything else? Possibly a very real look into our deep expectations as a hunter, legit or otherwise? As for myself, when we leased reasonable priced South Texas properties, our goals were to annually see adequate amounts of good deer, not great Boomers, knowing we did not come in the high side of the price equation. Additionally in season and maybe just outside, we expected unfettered access to said property but certainly not the "full run" of the place with a mutual respect rendered from and to said landowner. I have to admit that I do laugh sometimes internally when I see what hunters on the THF expect with a $1500-$3000 annual lease payment in terms of deer quality and land access. Am I on to something here, what Sat the Forum???

Say the Forum?

I say I should be able to hunt anywhere, anytime on anybodys property I dang so choose for Free

Just be prepared to share it then.....

like everything else in this world deer lease cost are driven by the market - if a LO can get their price from a willing buyer (leaser) then more power to them. If nobody is willing to pay their price then they either lower it or do not lease it. Welcome to America.

when I see folks complain about the cost of a lease I laugh - I remember my Dad in the 1950s complaining that their lease land owner went up from $150 to $175 a gun for the coming season. It is all relative.

It is what it is. No problem, hunting packages are still cost effective options.

Most likely I don't understand the conversation you're starting.
The price of all forms of recreation has increased over the years, the cost of the typical recreational / hunting lease has not kept pace with the price increases of any other type of outdoor recreational activities.
Trophy & those with desirable amenities type leases have done slightly better but for the most part are still a good value.
The list of examples is almost endless & would surely take your thread off topic into argumentitive territory.

I beilve one of biggest factors is too many hunters on too few acres leads to disappointment and the desire to move on to a supposedly better place. If your goal is to kill a truley mature buck every year sustainably you need substantialy more acreage than most hunters are willing to believe, especially in counties within a couple hours of many major cities.

Another factor is lands once used as hunting leases being removed from the lease pool.
The whole expectation thing, lease cost is an access fee, you pay your money you take your chances.

Why I believe things associated with leasing have changed is because times have changed.Some people now do not have the same morals or whatever you want to call it as they did in years past. Not true for everyone but those few have screwed things up for a lot of other folks. Now if you gave unfettered access to someone you would be giving them a blank check on dealing with your property. And like everything else sometimes you don't realize what you have gotten yourself into until it is too late. And look at it from the other side. If you owned the property would you lease it? If you did would you want those that leased it the right to come there anytime and with no limit on the amount of times. Sometimes things look a little different when the shoe is on the other foot.

What share??? All kidding aside there are people that think that way

Some great insights Rustler...

Deer leases used to be just for deer season.

Then everybody started using feeders, & now wanted access to fill feeders year round.

Then hogs started hitting all the feeders; now hunters wanna hunt hogs year round.

Then everybody got feeders, stands, a Polaris, travel trailer. Then they got thermals, NV, drones, etc.

The nature of leasing land for recreational hunting has drastically changed the last 20 years.

I also enjoy hearing hunters piss & moan about lease costs, sitting in their $15,000 Polaris, with $10,000 worth of rifles & NV, parked in front of their $10,000 travel trailer, looking for a $1,500 deer lease.

When everyone figures out how much a deer lease is actually worth, they’ll be paying 10x what they are now.

Lots of truth here Max ..

yup

They now hunt deer, turkey, hogs, predators, exotics, doves, ducks, quail and small game on a lot of leases. Throw in fishing and arrowheads and you have your standard year round lease. Break a lease fee down by animals hunted and they will really get sticker shock.

All the land owner has to to do is express his rules for hunting his property....as he is putting those $ in his pocket.

Cannot expect the hunter to take any lease and not have high expectations. Have to be realistic, both hunter and landowner.

exactly - we pay a load of money for our lease. But in our case the LO does ALL of the labor. Feeders and stands all in place. They order protein, cottonseed and corn and put it all out for us. They bulldoze the roads and maintain the property. They do not run cows or have oil field traffic, They keep poachers off the property. They fly the property once a year to do the survey. The mess with us during the season when we ask for help on aging a deer etc.

In our case it is total respect from each side - LO respects that we follow their rules and help them manage the ranch. So as the saying goes "you get what you pay for" - if a person wants a $1000 lease no problem - just be prepared to deal with what you paid for

Let’s look at my arrangement. I hunt on 5400 acres with year round access and guest allowances.

I have access as if it were my land. Can bring my family and friends. Allowed one trophy and all the hogs, dove, quail and varmits I desire. 3 does to fill the freezer. I pay 4500.00 a year plus feed costs. Sounds expensive huh?

How much do you think it would cost me to own, maintain and pay taxes on 5400 acres?

Much cheaper for me to lease. No comparison.

I can never be happy hunting a couple hundred acres. It would cost me more to own than I pay now.

To me, the hunting is the icing on the cake.

Pitch, how many are leasing on that 5400?

I have several kids who hunt and who are interested in hunting, so I've shifted my focus on finding affordable (free is best) land options that keep us all in the woods. Sure, our expectations have to line up, but ultimately I want them to have plenty of options to be able to hunt regardless of financial situation. Our expectations have evolved and hunting has actually become even more fun as we constantly explore new hunting grounds and options. In the end we MIGHT spend more money of fuel and licenses, we don't have feed costs and lease cost is limited to the hunting club I'm a member of in Ohio (just me). We'll probably hunt four or five small farms next year with the largest being under 200 acres and twice that many public land areas with hundreds of thousands of acres to roam. We normally kill a good buck or two, but we will kill our share of does and have a blast either way. If we all measured success by killing mature bucks each year we might be disappointed (although one or two will certainly be killed), but each year gets better and better and more fun.

This is a good thread. Our expectations will be the single biggest factor in how much we enjoy hunting-that I'm confident of. I know SO MANY people who have focused so much on antlers rather than the hunting experience and have set their expectations so high that they can't afford to hunt regularly (or at all). I won't be that guy. My kids will have the ability to hunt (now and when they're grown) if they choose that's what they want to do.

Hunters come and go from our place yearly. Heck I even took a year off in 2017 and it does not get better than $6.25 an acre with what our land has to offer IMO.

People get busy with life and even though the lease fees can be fairly cheap the actual feed, fuel, and time spent can be overwhelming at times. My kids are getting to the age where they can be in the stand with me and one of them is hunting now so it's almost priceless to me.

I think, the way the thread started, is what is the reasoning behind what he seems to see as a lot of lease jumping this year more than other years. It was a bad year for me- only saw two deer all season and that was the last weekend of muzzle loader season. Is it because we have become and instant gratification society? "I didn't see any deer this year so there must not be any so I will find another lease" mentality. If you stay on a property long you will have up and down years. I don't have to kill a deer every year but I would like to see some, but some years I see none. The same lease where I saw no deer this year I had five bucks under my bow stand opening weekend of bow season three years ago. The be all, end all for a lease doesn't have to equal an animal on the ground- it is what else comes with it. I am on two different leases that are reasonably priced, have opportunity/potential for good bucks (if that is all you are chasing), and close enough that I can hunt every weekend of season. That is all I can ask for-the rest is up to me to improve my chances of venison in the freezer.

Never been a lease jumper. I hunted on 2 leases before we bought our own property. First one was 250 or so acres on the outskirts of town, we had year round access to maintain feeders/ blinds but hunting was only deer season only general season. We paid $225 a gun. After that I hunted a place between 700-800 acres in Kendall Co. Paid $350 a gun for 20 years pretty much the same hunting arrangement but we did get to shoot as many hogs as we could and occasionally exotics.

We got off the first lease because it sold and was developed. The second we got off of because we had bought hunting property and it was getting tuff to split time and resources between our land and our lease. Add to that the lady who owned the second lease passed away and it just never seemed the same. Her son took it over and we never had a cross word with either of them, true blessing of landowners to lease hunters, good simple honest old time people. We still talk to them now and meet up with them occasionally and invite them to stuff. They attended my wedding and I hope to still see them.

A Whitetail lease for me is nothing more then relatively close, safe, outside experience for my kids, to be kids and learn to hunt and respect the great outdoors. It’s a place for them to see other kids and women hunting and enjoying being outside. . It’s not about a deer anymore. If I really want a bigggg deer I’ll buy an opportunity. Think I’ve killed one hard horned buck in 10 years. I normally give my allotment to my Dad or Wife.

Yeah! Let's go shoot up The Rancher's place!

Lots of truth in that. Marketing and peer pressure are powerful influences.

I have come to believe that money spent on actual life experiences is better spent than on things.

PP makes some great points also. It’s expensive to buy and maintain property.

Buying land may be expensive, and you may have to suffer hunting a little less property, but at least you have something to show for it. To me leasing was like renting a house, the second you quit making that payment you got nothing to show for it.

Is buying property expensive? Yes, but it appreciated in value while you get to use it. If we wanted to, which we don't we could sell ours for more than we have in it.

Life experiences are the value for me as well. I just returned last week from a outing with my daughter Sarah and Sapper Titan. I will post some pics soon of all the bucks we saw and could of killed. Nothing over 5 years old. We had a 5 out in front of us that most hunters would of shot if they look at things for what they pay. I think Sarah would of liked to shoot it but she never said so, lol........but it was one of my most cherished memories created talking about anything with Sarah and being emersed in this awesome wilderness surrounding us. By the way NP, we have been enjoying the SX60HS you recommended. I am shocked at the pic quality we have got out to 200+ yards all on the auto settings.

Yes I didn’t mean to imply buying land was a bad move. I did the same thing and bought back in 2004 - mainly for hunting/recreation. Don’t regret it at all but there are pros and cons as with any big financial commitment. We sacrificed a lot to make that note payment every month.

The main benefit is the satisfaction and enjoyment owning your own place provides. There is no substitute for it.

Good deal PP glad you are enjoying that camera. It was a game-changer for me.

Time is my greatest commodity and my biggest demon. As it applies to hunting, it makes me more willing to pay extra for proximity and quality. The third factor and fourth factors are WHO is at the lease with you and how is the property managed. Proximity is pretty self-explanatory, so I won't spend much time on it, other than to state the obvious. With work and family obligations, my time to drive out and work at a lease is limited, so I prefer to stay within a 3-4 hour driving time from my home base. Quality is a very broad category. The type, number and overall health/quality of animals in the area of the property, for example (whitetail and hogs only? exotics? Turkey? dove? quail?). The type and quality of properties around the lease matters (i.e. we've all had the potentially nice place that got ruined because every property around it subscribes to the "if it's brown it's down" philosophy), as do the hunting conditions (terrain, roads or lack of, water, cabin, utilities, etc). Who is at the lease with you *really* matters. Friends? Family? Fellow hunters with similar strategies/philosophy? Or yahoos who are going to make your experience miserable (at best) or unsafe (at worst)? Finally, how the property is managed matters. Are you and the LO aligned on priorities/strategies? Do you have the ability to influence the management of the place? Are neighboring properties under similar management (or at least *some* management)?

I think $4,500 for 5,400 well-managed acres with year-long access, hogs, trophy + 3 does seems like a good deal to me. As contrast, I pay $1,400 for 2,900 acres (10 guns) but we only have access to the property during the regular WT season (Blanco Co.), and only get 1 trophy and 1-2 does (depending on the year, the LO makes the call). If the 5,400 acres were relatively close to me, I would consider switching if I felt aligned to the other hunters. But our lease is only 1.5 hours from my driveway, and we have good WT genetics there. If it was better managed, I bet the property would produce much better deer, but we have too many does and cull bucks there.

Exiled that is a very economical price.

When we bought our land we were on a trophy lease in Kent county. 10k acres with 10 guns total @ $1500 a gun with year round access. Not many deer on the salt fork back then but when you saw one it was a dandy. I'd love to have that place today for that price. After seeing what our property can produce, the fact that its 2 hours from my Wifes house, and the fact that I'm 20 years older, built a nice home on the place, Im thoroughly content. A trophy buck here will score 130"-140". I'm happy with that. I can hunt almost every day of gun season, just by walking out my front door. When I was younger I hunted 4-5 different places. I enjoy going to other friends places, but the satisfaction of seeing deer feeding in a field that you planted on your own land is hard to beat.