What is the least you’ve spent?

On a hunt?

Has to be an actual paid hunt not a “ I bought beer and steaks for a weekend to hunt my buddies”.

I paid $75 once for a duck hunt. Was really more of a taxi service. Guy took us out, dropped us in a blind in the middle of Caddo Lake and left us to our own devices. He did provide the blind and a few decoys

The use of my truck to drag a trailer and Jeep Scrambler on an a free axis hunt. I killed 2 axis bucks and my friend, who paid for the hunts also killed 2 axis bucks that weekend. Also 2 trips to Alberta to mule deer hunt that only cost me the guides tip for those two years. Both those hunts were paid for just not by me. Lot of invites to hunt that cost me nothing other than fuel to get there.

I'm no duck hunter, but I've always wanted the "full experience" on Caddo. Did you kill any ducks??

I paid $500 for a whitetail hunt, any legal buck. I lucked up and got a nice 8-point

$100 per doe, whitetail or Sitka. Couldn't turn it down, went and dropped 2 whitetail doe and dad took a WT doe and a decent Sitka buck that they guy agreed to for $150. Wasn't much of a "hunt" but we had a good time. He drove us around and when we saw something to shoot, he would stop and we would get out to try and get a shot. My guess was he was actually just getting rid of most every deer inside his property.

Paid in beer to fish in a private lake.

I paid for raffle ticket on a Trophy Bull Elk hunt - $5.00. Won the hunt on the old Pennzoil Ranch west of Raton. Got a 6 x 6, now hangs in the Elks Lodge in Tucumcari, NM. Hunt was valued at the time for $5K. Done in 1983.

$800 for 2 person guided cow elk hunt at East Moreno Ranch in NM. Bought it in the auction at our local RMEF banquet. Fully guided hunt for 2 people, all inclusive.
Spouse took my brother in law and went and both got their elk.
Other hunters there at same time on same type banquet hunt from California paid $3,500 for their hunt at their local banquet.

Gave a farmer a bottle of whiskey to pheasant hunt his fields.

All the dove hunting places used to be "just ask for permission". Gas and shells was about all we spent money on.

Worked lot's of cattle in high school around Dublin for hunting rights. I latched onto one big calf one time and it drug me at least a hundred yards before I got it stopped. I never let go and the landowner was really impressed. I hunted his place for several years.

I think $175 for a Texas dall ram forum hunt near uvalde years ago.

We limited out both days.

I’d never been in that area. We woke up at 4 am after getting to bed at 2am and drove from my buddies house on Bob Sandlin lake to a hole in the wall town called “uncertain”. And man, was that place aptly named.

We loaded up after eating some coot tacos into an old john boat and started down an old waterway hand cut by slaves pre-civil war. It was damp and foggy, perfect duck day.

We got in the blind as it started to get light. When it finally got legal shooting light the surrounding scenery was something I cannot describe...towering cypress trees draped with moss, water hyacinth so thick you can walk across it, looked like a swamp in a forest primeval.

Hunting was good and we limited out in quick fashion.

Would go again just for the lake experience

As a kid in the 70s my dad leased about 100-150 house pasture of a larger ranch near Natural Bridge Caverns. The cost of the lease was a bottle of whiskey to the owner and $15 per buck and $10 for a doe providing he had doe tags at the time. Of course my dad always bonused him with a couple more bottles for Christmas every year. He hunted there for over 20 years and the price remained the same up to the end.

TPW draw hunt for exotics at Devil's River. Stayed in our tent and ate outa cans.

Thats an awesome story!

$100 for a doe/spike hunt on a HF place in Brakettville.

$25 dollars to dove hunt.

we had a ~300 acre lease in Burnet county (circa early 1970s) where the LO ran championship Herford bulls and he told us we needed to do $100 worth of work to the old house homestead each year, plus we could use it as our camp house. We had year around access for whatever we wanted to do on the place, just keep an eye on the cattle & fences. We spent hundreds of hours out there working the roads, house, well, brush, etc. Learned to bushwhack ducks by creeping up the backside of tank dams and blasting when they flew. Also learned my dad was spot on when he said mom couldn't cook a duck to where it was edible. We had that place for a long time until the LO sold it.

$75 teal hunts were common place when I was a kid

My first deer lease was a couple hundred acre place. I hunted it for 2 years, we paid $225 a year and could shoot what the paid hunters license allowed.

Second deer lease I hunted on for over 20 years, had some family that hunted it before and is still hunting it now. We started out at $350 a gun in 1990. They are currently paying $450 a gun. Same rules as the first, each hunter can shoot what the license allows, no guests can hunt and guest must be wife/girlfriend or your kids.

Had year round access to both, but pretty much only for filling feeders/clearing brush/maintaning blinds. The second one did have hogs we were welcome to hunt any time.

$7.50 a day when I was 16yo. to day hunt deer at Brad. Belding family land.

$20 trespass fee duck hunts and $35’ish res mule deer tag in Co

$100.00 for my youngest son to shoot a doe. It was a day hunt and the guy let us stay for the evening to pig hunt. Fun times.

$10 for the Mason Mt public draw Scimitar Oryx hunt.

$15 box of potatoes each year gets me on a 100K acre ranch in Wyoming for deer.

What do you do with those potatoes?

When ranchers have all the beef they could ever want, they really appreciate big, fresh out of the field, fried potatoes. The really big 40-50 counts make giant long french fries

Nice!

$100 when I upgraded to first class on my flight to Kansas when I won that hunt through Buckmasters.

If you're through Laramie with an extra bag I'll buy it from you !
You all have no idea how great fresh spuds are, my son who moved to Texas laments that fact he can't get good potatoes all the time.

My least expensive hunt I made a few hundred on. Back a bunch of years ago myself and a friend had a hunting service. There was a year back then that you could guide hunters in Colorado without being a licensed guide in the state. There were a couple of guys we had hunted in Texas that wanted to hunt Mule deer in Co. So we took them to Dry Creek Basin where at that time there were a lot of deer. We hunted them a couple of days. They got their Mule Deer and left. We stayed the rest of the season and hunted and both got our deer. After paying gas, license, beer and food came out a few hundred ahead.

We paid 50 cents an acre on my first deer lease in Mississippi back in 1976. It costs 10 of us just $60 each to lease 1,200 acres of timber company land. It might have even been 25 cents an acre for twice as much land, but I know it only cost me $60 for the year. Of course, it was a time before feeders became legal and deer turned into the cash crop they are today. It was a common belief back in those days the timber companies made leases so affordable for the sole reason of having hunters help them protect it from timber theft and fire.

For several years we did a hunt outside of Doss. $200 got you a WT doe, lodging, and a weekend of fun. Hard to beat it.

Nothing. A friend owns a 7000 acre ranch near Camp Wood and has an annual hunt. Cost of gas and food and ammo lol. He has a ranch house that sleeps around 12 and 2 cabins that sleep 4. We always bring all the food and beverages. The owner, who is pushing 85 now - still gets up at 3:30 in the morning to cook breakfast for all the hunters. Many exotics on the place, which we are allowed to shoot, but very strict on WT buck and doe due to MLD tags.

Labor exchange

Friend of mine holds cattle on 100 acres that belongs to an old boss of his who turned into a very close friend. Went to feed cattle with him one day and shot a 7 point. Asked if I could set a feeder and blind. Land owner said I have full access to hunt but he was not gonna pay/touch a single thing to help me set it up. Land owner decided where to put the feeder. So I hunt for free on a chunk of land that has not been hunted in 10+ years. Land owner has never met me face to face. I respect the property and only go to my blind/feeder and to the cattle field to feed for my friend during season. If I want to take anyone I ask my friend and he clears it for me. Took 4 doe and a really nice 8 point this season

That's an invite. Thats 100% the opposite of what I asked.

I could have told a story about my buddy who picked me up, took me down to his place, let me drink his beer, shoot his 10 point buck and then fed me a steak, but I didnt, because i didn't pay to hunt. I told a story about the LEAST amount of united states currency that I've exchanged for the right to hunt.

In the late 1980's through the late 1990's, I was on a lease on the Victoria/Goliad county line that was $285 a gun for year round hunting on a 460 acre lease. There were 5 of us but one guy killed one spike in 25 years on the place. He just liked to go out to the place. Ducks, hogs and tons of deer on the place. Because it was a trust of an older lady that had died and had no relatives living nearby, we were able to just come and go as we wanted. There was some gauging and oilfield activity on the land at times. Coleto Creek backed up to the place with good fishing and Indian artifacts and fossils. A pond and a large slough for the ducks and sometimes geese. Even at the end after 25 years it was only $800 a gun with family able to hunt also. We were south of HWY 59 and would get up to 28 doe tags some years.


I went on a day hunt twice in the mid 1990's outside Encinal, TX that was $45 dollars a day, two day minimum, with camping at nights with a group of guys. Several shot does and one buck was taken as well as a bobcat and a javalina. The ranch was 2200 acres and high fenced on two sides and kind of run down but a fun time.

Texas Parks and Wildlife hunts where the only cost was a public lands permit and luck of the draw.

My first deer lease, in 1974 540 acres just north of Perrin was 35.00 a gun, year round two stock tanks with good bass. 5 guns. 35.00 again in 1975, then in 76 it went up to 100.00, I thought that was outrageous.

1960 we paid $5.00 per day on TC Frambo's ranch south of Strawn (700) acres and would get a free hunt if we killed a bobcat or red fox as he raised goats.

$55 each for a turkey hunt we found in the DMN classifieds about 12 years ago. Best peace and quiet ever. Unfortunately the huge HF neighbor fed heavily lol Luckily got back on a lease then.

Of course I can say like most hunt free or for labor on a place but that wasn't the question.... I have a million of those.

I pay 120 bucks a year to hunt all of Ft Hoods 200k acres. Have killed a few nice bucks there and tons of hogs for fun.

Bought my own place (133 acres) about 40 years ago. $415 per acre. Prior to that I did some day leasing for, I think, about $35 per day. Never had a season lease. With 3 kids doubt that I could have afforded it.

Several times I was invited back, no charge, for helping out around the place.