Hunting leases

[homeinwestIL]

Does anybody here have experiencing with leasing land for hunting? I have lots of big corn-fed deer and wild turkey on my place and know that people come from all over the US to hunt deer in this county. I'm sitting here listening to gunfire on the neighbors property. How much can you make from this? What hassles are involved? Do you lease directly to hunters or to an outfitter?

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Your profile states you are a lawyer. If so you will want to check into your liabilty if there is a hunting accident on your land that you lease. Here in New York if you hunt on non-posted land and get hurt the land owner is exempt from any lawsuits. If you lease that land to hunters, you are responsible for the hunters safety and if one of them gets hurt or killed you will find yourself in one big lawsuit. Just letting you know before you find out the hard way.

As for leasing, around here most land that is leased is by groups of hunters. They pool their money and have rules as to group size and how many non-lease friends are allowed there. They also put rules on what size animal can be harvested. Most of these groups approached the land owners and worked out a deal. If you think your land is desirable then do a search online and you can find sites to list your lease on. Or if you want to keep it local toss an ad in your local paper. Just make sure your insurance will cover you if you lease your land to hunters.

 

[BB_TX]

Hunting leases in TX has become a big business. There is almost no public land here, so if you want to hunt you have to pay. Even as large as TX is, the demand exceeds the supply and the land owners charge from about $1000 per gun per season to more than $2500 depending on the area. There are two methods. As previously mentioned, a group will get together and lease the land for the season. The owner decides how many people he will allow and how much per person he wants for it. Or the land owner will do day leasing. In day leasing, you may have a different group of hunters each day. That requires much more managing on your part. But by charging $150 or more a day, you can make considerably more off it, at least in TX where we have a 2 month long season. Either way, the hassles would be in managing your hunters. There will always be those who are more interested in drinking and having a good time than hunting. There will be those who think nothing of tearing stuff up and leaving it. There are those who have no clue what gun safety is. In TX you can make some money if you have some prime land. But you may have to put up with a lot of crap to get it. And then again, you may get lucky. There are 4 of us (all graduated from high school together in '64) that have been on the same hunting lease since 1969. We have always treated the land as our own and the owner has always treated us as family, not money. That has made for a great deal for all of us.
Don't know what the law is as far as liability in TX.

 

[stevenf]

Homeinwestil, I have lots of experience in leasing land to hunters and BB_tx gave you pretty much the story. In the North east it seems like most people just wander onto someones property and hunt or ask permission and hunt but typically either way for free. In Texas if you want to hunt and not have a 100 or so other hunters to contend with on the few available public hunting reservations you pay for a lease. Day hunting is a lot of work and you'd have to be there full time and run it like a state park entrance fee booth, it requires a lot of work and you never know who your dealing with. We choose to lease by the season and deal directly with the hunters who must form their own group of 5 or be prepared to pay the total lease fee regardless, the season starts 2 weeks before archery season and ends 2 weeks after the special late spike and antlerless season. We allow access throughout the year to maintain feeders, blinds, food plots etc. etc. We split the money into a deposit and balance arrangement deposits are due by March 1st and balance is due Sept 1st. We have 347 acres that we live on, we lease to 5 named hunters for $10,000 per season. All hunters and their guest must sign a release of liability that is written especially for hunting in Texas. We allow the hunters to have hunting guest at $10 per guest per night and then the guest have kill fees $50 for feral hogs, $100 for white tailed deer (shot off their sponsoring hunters allotment) and $250 for exotics (sikas, axis, black buck antelope, red stags and fallow) The hunters included with the lease fee allotments are 1 trophy white tailed buck, 1 cull white tailed buck, up to 3 white tailed does, unlimited feral hogs over 30lbs and 1 exotic of their choice of species and gender. Our ranch is low fenced so even on 347 acres most game is transcient. We supply a very small rock cabin with two 15 amp electric circuits, there is no plumbing in the cabin so for water they run a hose from our house which is 150 feet away and I also plant numerous acres of food plots for the wildlife and provide secondary watering sources which also is part of our wildlife management AG exempt tax status so our taxes are less than $500 per year instead of over $25,000. In your bio it says you have 80 acres and unless your place is very hilly like ours you might be looking at only 1 hunter so if your game is really top notch you could probably charge a premium you'd have to check with your local hunters to find out what that is and if its worth it to have strangers walking around on your ranch with loaded weapons. For us it pays a bunch of bills including my new tractor payment so its worth it but it is a lot of work.
Steve

 

[johan3400]

If you take a look at whitetailhabitat.com you will find information. The expert there is Ron. He lives in Manteno Illinois and deals with hunting leases every day. Let me know what you find out. I have 63 acres in western Illinois and have thought about the same thing.