Explain all the hunting leases here?

[Praesul Presul]

Having lived here for several years, I have noticed that practically everyone I associate with hunts on a lease which is a strange concept to me. Where I grew up (Western KY) no leases existed with anyone I knew and I often had free invitations to hunt more places than I could in a season - any season. I have a cousin who routinely asks complete strangers at their front door if he can hunt on their land and hardly ever gets told no. I have stated that people pay to hunt down here and gotten a lot of questions while home. Of course for the relatives that have not seen my pictures or visited, they envision we live in a shack out in the Basin I think because that's what TV portrays as we don't live in N.O.

Here I notice land appears to be no more or no less available but noticeably higher except in some areas. I also notice most people are hunting in Miss or AL not Louisiana eventhough we are the "Sportsman's State".

The one big difference I notice though is for whatever reason fewer people have interest in owning land. For me its due to working in the BR area but not wanting to drive far although my 5-10 plan is to find something affordable in MS somewhere down the road to frequent on the weekends.

What's your opinion?

 

[CrkdLtr]

Greed.

/thread


The way I see it, most land here is owned by individuals and/or timber companies and gives the lessee exclusive rights to hunt a plot of land and cultivate the way you want, unless the lease forbids it, to help with deer herd management.

There's more to it than that but that's just the way I see it.

 

[sandman7925]

I would not say most here hunt out of state. The ones that do are usually the wealthier. Remember that most hunters are the type that you don't ever here from. They are the working class, own 1 maybe 2 rifles, and for them it is not something they advertise. Just a way of life.

 

[Storm52]

Reduced liability exposure, increased control of access, source of income, safety to name a few reasons. The leasees or clubs benefit with having the ability to build, maintain, add services (water, electricity) and plant, seed and bait areas.Many of these leased lands have been around for 40+ years.

 

[jmcrawf1]

Why let someone hunt for free when you can make them pay to hunt your land?

 

[10shotgroup]

I can honestly say I'm a very avid outdoorsman in Louisiana.

I do Not know of any private land that I can hunt for free. At leat not in the last 10 years. Now I may get an invite or two a year. But that's it.

That being said there are lots of public oppertunities avaiable. And, with the right effor they privide better quality than all but your most expensive leases in Louisiana.

Also my father and I maintain a 2900 acre lease in Texas. Just for trophy whitetails. Shows how the cost to hunt else wear for deer can be eaiser to bear in other states.

When they say Louisiana is the Sportsman paradise. They mean we have more sporstman than anyone else. If you ain't got money, a boat, or hip boots, your screwed.

 

[themcfarland]

I feel your confusion. Where I used to hunt, southern illinios and southern Indiana for free, folks now pay 5000 dollars for 7 days there and family is not allowed now..

I fly my bird in questionable areas some, mainly for that reason.. IT SUCKS!

 

[hunter5567]

Once upon a time you could hunt on private property for the mere asking. Hunters at that time were courteous and obeyed the landowners wishes. The the slob hunters took over and went on anyones land that didn't have a posted sign on ( on on those lands also) and proceeded to do whatever they hell they wanted on the land they were trespassing on including tearing up the roads with jacked up 4 wheel drives, shooting cows and livestock, barns, you name it. Also night hunting was rampant and it got so the honest sportsman didn't have a chance so clubs were formed and trespassers were kept out and outlaw game thieves that hunted at night were turned in and had to forfeit everything they had with them including vehicles. In the past, trespassers could come on your land--fall out of deer stand--and turn around and sue the land owner for their injuries. You had to have posted signs every so many feet and 3 strands of barbed wire around the place to make your land posted. Well that changed about 7 years ago when they passed a law that all land was posted and you had to have written permission to hunt on the land and trespassers could no longer sue the landowners for their retarded negligent injuries.. At one time you never saw a deer feeding on the side of the road cause that deer would soon be going down the road in the back of Bubba's pickup and deer that hung out by the side of the road didn't get to pass on their genes.
Even now in a lot of areas deer will go nocturnal and not move during the daytime and it takes dogs to roust them out their hiding places and make them move.
All this is getting better as time goes by and you see more deer feeding on the side of the road as they slowly become accustomed to not being harassed by driveby shootings and deer are starting to move better during the daylight hours.
Anyways, thats why you see people hunting on deer leases where the animals can be managed and poachers kept at bay and insurance protects the landowner.

 

[deafdave3]

I can honestly say I'm a very avid outdoorsman in Louisiana.

I do Not know of any private land that I can hunt for free. At leat not in the last 10 years. Now I may get an invite or two a year. But that's it.

That being said there are lots of public oppertunities avaiable. And, with the right effor they privide better quality than all but your most expensive leases in Louisiana.

Also my father and I maintain a 2900 acre lease in Texas. Just for trophy whitetails. Shows how the cost to hunt else wear for deer can be eaiser to bear in other states.

When they say Louisiana is the Sportsman paradise. They mean we have more sporstman than anyone else. If you ain't got money, a boat, or hip boots, your screwed.

No spring turkey hunting?

 

[10shotgroup]

The drought depleted the turkeys for now. But when they come back, and they will, we hunt them again.

 

[scubasteve]

Hunter did a pretty good summary. Only part I would debate is the barbwire fence law. We understood for years that all that had to be done was "flagging", putting a distinctive colored paint on trees every couple hunerd feets. This is something we did every fall before hunting season on my uncles family property when I was a kid.
Hunting clubs came in after WWII. The timber companies and large landowners would lease to groups simply to cover the property taxes. Not so nowadays. Hunting has turned into a mega industry and I feel has made it harder for Joe plumber to have a place to hunt. Many of the long standing clubs are no more due to parceling of large land tracts, either to sell or lease for mo money.
Fifteen yearsago my cousin in Iberville Parish predicted $20+ and acre for leases. I told him he was crazy. Well, guess what? Land we used to have free roam on near Ramah is busting $20. It's farging crazy. I'm waiting for the bubble to burst......hopefully.
Anyway......I could talk for hours about this.

 

[hunter5567]

You got to remember--$20 now was $10 - fifteen to twenty years ago.
The government has printed that much money.

 

[scubasteve]

Fifteen years ago we were paying $2 an acre.

 

[42]

Having lived here for several years, I have noticed that practically everyone I associate with hunts on a lease which is a strange concept to me. Where I grew up (Western KY) no leases existed with anyone I knew and I often had free invitations to hunt more places than I could in a season - any season. I have a cousin who routinely asks complete strangers at their front door if he can hunt on their land and hardly ever gets told no. I have stated that people pay to hunt down here and gotten a lot of questions while home. Of course for the relatives that have not seen my pictures or visited, they envision we live in a shack out in the Basin I think because that's what TV portrays as we don't live in N.O.

Here I notice land appears to be no more or no less available but noticeably higher except in some areas. I also notice most people are hunting in Miss or AL not Louisiana eventhough we are the "Sportsman's State".

The one big difference I notice though is for whatever reason fewer people have interest in owning land. For me its due to working in the BR area but not wanting to drive far although my 5-10 plan is to find something affordable in MS somewhere down the road to frequent on the weekends.

What's your opinion?

It's still possible to go door-2-door in some surrounding MS counties where I live (Adams Cty). The best option is find the general area where you are interested and begin your leg-work in barbershops, mom/pop grocery stores, gas stations, private realty agents, etc.....In my direction (IMO) I'd start with Jefferson, Claiborne, Wilkinson and Franklin (in that order due to economic factors). And as with most introductions, first impressions (clean and courteous) will go along way in a small community to nix or fix your request.

--> Supply/demand (ie greed), insurance and general distrust have sent the $/acre thru the roof.
--> Some guys (out-of-towners) shoot at anything that moves and it disturbs the natural order of things amongst the club.

I spend alot of time tracking in the Homochitto National Forest bout 15min from Natchez, when I could bag my limit in one week on my own land. To me, it's about the hunt not the harvest, so I tend to stay away from camps/leases, even though my dad & father-in-law both belong to private clubs.

 

[bayoupirate]

I believe that timber company land was hunted like public property for decades. Once timber companies realized that they could sell private controlled access to their lands as a new means of generating funds, they started to sell private leases. That began the supply and demand cost of having a place to hunt.

Most of the better areas of Louisiana for deer hunting cost 25-50 dollars per acre to lease per year and would cost 3000-5000 per acre to buy.

 

[scubasteve]

BP, we used to buy a $10 permit to hunt timber co. land back in the 80's.

 

[42]

BP, we used to buy a $10 permit to hunt timber co. land back in the 80's.

Yep, hunted most of the International Paper tracs in Jefferson County, MS for a loooonng time. Those were the days.

 

[charlie12]

Hunter did a pretty good summary. Only part I would debate is the barbwire fence law. We understood for years that all that had to be done was "flagging", putting a distinctive colored paint on trees every couple hunerd feets. This is something we did every fall before hunting season on my uncles family property when I was a kid.
Hunting clubs came in after WWII. The timber companies and large landowners would lease to groups simply to cover the property taxes. Not so nowadays. Hunting has turned into a mega industry and I feel has made it harder for Joe plumber to have a place to hunt. Many of the long standing clubs are no more due to parceling of large land tracts, either to sell or lease for mo money.
Fifteen yearsago my cousin in Iberville Parish predicted $20+ and acre for leases. I told him he was crazy. Well, guess what? Land we used to have free roam on near Ramah is busting $20. It's farging crazy. I'm waiting for the bubble to burst......hopefully.
Anyway......I could talk for hours about this.

You're right Hunter did a great job explaining it, that's the way it's been here.

As far as the barbwire and flagging. I think the flagging deal came later.

We moved to the country in 1960 in EBR to make it legal you had to have the barbwire and signs every so many feet and had to be ran in the paper for so many days. The outlaws would just pull you signs down.

Around here the people that seem to want to hunt the most don't own **** and want you to give them a place to hunt.