Lease

Nope, not any sort of business owner or anything like that.

Sounds like kansasbrittany and I come from almost the same background - farm life. This is where most of my passion comes from. It was (and still is) all agricultural land - no CRP fields laced with sloughs/cattails for prime pheasant country. most of it was half hour to hour west of 'home'.
Yeah, you work 20-30 hrs more than me a week. Early in my career I was there to but that was short lived as I found out that a nice paycheck wasn't as tasty afterall...family and enjoying life were. So now the pay and vacation time are less but I have moved back closer to home somewhat to be able to enjoy family and hunting that much more. I'm sorry I misunderstood earlier...I was sure you did say you leased.

A deep scar I have is the deer hunting property my family and I had access to long before I could even had my hunters safety class. Some rich ____ from the Fargo here leased up all that land (so his clients could hunt there) and we were forced elsewhere. Well, deer hunting just isn't the same after that. I haven't had a deer in my sites since that was 12 years ago.
So is that why leasing has left a sour taste in my mouth...yeah probably. But screw off if pheasant hunting is going to be taken away from me because I don't own land. This is the one thing that I could not truly live without (maybe a bit bold). I just can't sit here and hear stories about $50k for 5000 acres and try to make any sense of it.

But I just see leasing as a cancer that will eventually spread throughout all areas and it'll boil down to who has the thicker wallet. It sad. I can honestly say that the areas I hunt, the l/o's know who I am and know that I would not disrespect their property. But I realize that money can easily pursuade that l/o at anytime and give me the boot. If I were in the l/o's shoes...I wouldn't think twice about turning money away knowing the hunter who has hunted my land for years and no issues than some money tossin' stranger. But that's just me. The wrong people are being rewarded and not enough of the honest folks are being commended.

That's why I'm glad I am just a 'kid' up here in ND and have the luxury of having a state who has worked so hard with l/o's in cost-sharing programs and has roughly 1 million acres for the PLOTS (Private Land Open To Sportmen) program. I'm surprised other states haven't tried to introduce this.
But it's Friday guys. 29 more days to opener. If you really want to know more about me...visit my blog...www.uplandgameadventures.com. I hope you can see from my site how passionate I am about pheasant hunting. I'm a member of PF. I try to support NDOAF (Outdoor Adventure Foundation) who raises money to give sick kids and disabled vets their dream hunt/fish trip. It's something I want to pass along to my kids and when they are older and go hunting as well. Same goes all all the future hunters out there.
 
@DonS, UncleBuck, & landman - Good Stuff!!! Don't know how on earth I still manage to fly under the radar with a few very kind landowners in spite of their having been bombarded year-after-year with this kind of attitude...And landman, anyone who SAYS that they would do otherwise for the most part than you have stated is a ding-dangety-dong liar as well, beginning with the "you landowners owe me" entitlement crew! :cheers:
 
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Uncle Buck said:
I was also going to add that anyone on this forum who says he/she would NOT like to own there own chunk of prime pheasant ground is a damned lier.
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I would prefer that my father-in-law owns it. That way I do not have to pay taxes on it and am the only one who gets to hunt it anyway. :D
 
Some very interesting points from everyone.If a guy gets $50,000 for a lease,i say good for him.Greed is the norm for this country anyway so he might as well join the crowd.
Some of you guys think you have it bad,be a pheasant hunter living in chicago.I drive a minimum of 2 hours to wisconsin and hunt overcrowded land just so i dont sell all my guns off and give up the sport.For me,it is not abnormal to hunt 2-3 weekends and not even getting a shot off but i dont complain.Bird hunting is what i do,the shooting is just a bonus.I appreciate the little things about bird hunting,sunrises,sunsets,sitting on a log sharing a ham sandwich with my Lab,and watching waterfowl pour into a marsh with my gun unloaded.
Some people forget why they started hunting.For me it was never about a full hunting vest,it was always to get the hell away from everything and everyone just for a few hours.
I work anywhere from 40 -70 hours a week on graveyard shift,plus go to college part time,plus have a wife and kids that need my time.ANY chance to walk a field with dog and gun and this year my 10 year old son whether we shoot any thing is good enough for me.......for now.
Upland game adventures,thanks for the info for the PLOTS program.Maybe ill do some research and head to North Dakota next year.
 
uplandgameadventures said:
Nope, not any sort of business owner or anything like that.

Sounds like kansasbrittany and I come from almost the same background - farm life. This is where most of my passion comes from. It was (and still is) all agricultural land - no CRP fields laced with sloughs/cattails for prime pheasant country. most of it was half hour to hour west of 'home'.
Yeah, you work 20-30 hrs more than me a week. Early in my career I was there to but that was short lived as I found out that a nice paycheck wasn't as tasty afterall...family and enjoying life were. So now the pay and vacation time are less but I have moved back closer to home somewhat to be able to enjoy family and hunting that much more. I'm sorry I misunderstood earlier...I was sure you did say you leased.

A deep scar I have is the deer hunting property my family and I had access to long before I could even had my hunters safety class. Some rich ____ from the Fargo here leased up all that land (so his clients could hunt there) and we were forced elsewhere. Well, deer hunting just isn't the same after that. I haven't had a deer in my sites since that was 12 years ago.
So is that why leasing has left a sour taste in my mouth...yeah probably. But screw off if pheasant hunting is going to be taken away from me because I don't own land. This is the one thing that I could not truly live without (maybe a bit bold). I just can't sit here and hear stories about $50k for 5000 acres and try to make any sense of it.

But I just see leasing as a cancer that will eventually spread throughout all areas and it'll boil down to who has the thicker wallet. It sad. I can honestly say that the areas I hunt, the l/o's know who I am and know that I would not disrespect their property. But I realize that money can easily pursuade that l/o at anytime and give me the boot. If I were in the l/o's shoes...I wouldn't think twice about turning money away knowing the hunter who has hunted my land for years and no issues than some money tossin' stranger. But that's just me. The wrong people are being rewarded and not enough of the honest folks are being commended.

That's why I'm glad I am just a 'kid' up here in ND and have the luxury of having a state who has worked so hard with l/o's in cost-sharing programs and has roughly 1 million acres for the PLOTS (Private Land Open To Sportmen) program. I'm surprised other states haven't tried to introduce this.
But it's Friday guys. 29 more days to opener. If you really want to know more about me...visit my blog...www.uplandgameadventures.com. I hope you can see from my site how passionate I am about pheasant hunting. I'm a member of PF. I try to support NDOAF (Outdoor Adventure Foundation) who raises money to give sick kids and disabled vets their dream hunt/fish trip. It's something I want to pass along to my kids and when they are older and go hunting as well. Same goes all all the future hunters out there.
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Thanks for your posts UGA. I can tell that you are an educated man.
 
@MD - LMAO!!! That's what my buddies say about my boat! :D

Dang y'all, some of these threads can get awful prickly on all sides at times...Getting cleanly at the real issues underneath is kinda like seeking out desert gambels quail amongst all the ocotillo, prickly pear, barrel cactus, yucca daggers & plethora of other assorted stickerbushes!!! :p

@shooter - now THAT'S what hunting should be all about!!! I'm still workin on getting all the way there after 50 yrs, but have to admit I do like the confidence of knowing that my chosen fields are salted with at least a few roosters for all the effort be4 wearing myself, the kids & the dog out! :cheers:

@uga - No personal offense to you - it's a hard-knock life finding a happy medium between us all with NOBODY winding up getting the short end of the stick! :thumbsup:
 
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moellermd said:
I would prefer that my father-in-law owns it. That way I do not have to pay taxes on it and am the only one who gets to hunt it anyway. :D
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You have the thing figured out. My in-law's land is in E KS where there once existed plentiful upland game...when I first met her.........should I shop for a new wife or ask the in-law's if we can make some wildlife enhancements:rolleyes:
 
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uplandgameadventures said:
Nope, not any sort of business owner or anything like that.

Sounds like kansasbrittany and I come from almost the same background - farm life. This is where most of my passion comes from. It was (and still is) all agricultural land - no CRP fields laced with sloughs/cattails for prime pheasant country. most of it was half hour to hour west of 'home'.
Yeah, you work 20-30 hrs more than me a week. Early in my career I was there to but that was short lived as I found out that a nice paycheck wasn't as tasty afterall...family and enjoying life were. So now the pay and vacation time are less but I have moved back closer to home somewhat to be able to enjoy family and hunting that much more. I'm sorry I misunderstood earlier...I was sure you did say you leased.

A deep scar I have is the deer hunting property my family and I had access to long before I could even had my hunters safety class. Some rich ____ from the Fargo here leased up all that land (so his clients could hunt there) and we were forced elsewhere. Well, deer hunting just isn't the same after that. I haven't had a deer in my sites since that was 12 years ago.
So is that why leasing has left a sour taste in my mouth...yeah probably. But screw off if pheasant hunting is going to be taken away from me because I don't own land. This is the one thing that I could not truly live without (maybe a bit bold). I just can't sit here and hear stories about $50k for 5000 acres and try to make any sense of it.

But I just see leasing as a cancer that will eventually spread throughout all areas and it'll boil down to who has the thicker wallet. It sad. I can honestly say that the areas I hunt, the l/o's know who I am and know that I would not disrespect their property. But I realize that money can easily pursuade that l/o at anytime and give me the boot. If I were in the l/o's shoes...I wouldn't think twice about turning money away knowing the hunter who has hunted my land for years and no issues than some money tossin' stranger. But that's just me. The wrong people are being rewarded and not enough of the honest folks are being commended.

That's why I'm glad I am just a 'kid' up here in ND and have the luxury of having a state who has worked so hard with l/o's in cost-sharing programs and has roughly 1 million acres for the PLOTS (Private Land Open To Sportmen) program. I'm surprised other states haven't tried to introduce this.
But it's Friday guys. 29 more days to opener. If you really want to know more about me...visit my blog...www.uplandgameadventures.com. I hope you can see from my site how passionate I am about pheasant hunting. I'm a member of PF. I try to support NDOAF (Outdoor Adventure Foundation) who raises money to give sick kids and disabled vets their dream hunt/fish trip. It's something I want to pass along to my kids and when they are older and go hunting as well. Same goes all all the future hunters out there.
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I appreciate your position. I can't imagine charging someone or paying someone the kind of money that started this thread. Why wouldn't you just start buying up land if you could afford a $50,000/yr lease?

However, I don't see anything wrong with a farmer making a few hundred bucks a year off of a guy that wants to save himself some time. I've experienced the loss of a few spots to people buying and leasing private ground myself, so I've been less than appreciative of the concept myself. There may come a time where you will have to pay to hunt everywhere, but I don't think small short-term (relative to a life span) leases are going to be a major contributor.

No hard feelings. Everyone with any sort of spirit gets exited about what they believe in.

Best of luck to you this fall!
 
KB I would go with the wildlife enhancement I'm sure your wife would agree and it probly would be less expensive to enhance the wildlife and you already have her trained why start with another one
 
kansasbrittany said:
You have the thing figured out. My in-law's land is in E KS where there once existed plentiful upland game...when I first met her.........should I shop for a new wife or ask the in-law's if we can make some wildlife enhancements:rolleyes:
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Hell yeah! I've wished many times that I could get my grandpa and uncles to convert a couple precious farm acres into a CRP field. If your in-laws have it, that's half the battle.

First start asking some questions with your state wildlife people. See if they have any programs that are set up to help owners develop land into ideal habitat. Maybe a cost-sharing program, etc. Or even supply some of the seed to establish a quality habitat that it once was.

Once your land is ready, buy some chicks in the spring. Don't wait too long to release them as they tend to turn a little too tame and not shy away from the fox and coyote. Maybe even get a couple mature birds to release and hunt them in the fall...then you'll have some mature hens for breeding next spring. And so it begins...you're own little hunting spot. No lease and a smile from ear to ear because of working the ground with your own hands and time.

Go to this site for some different types of seed to prep your land with. http://www.pheasantsforever.org/page/1/foodplotseed.jsp
see if your state wildlife rep has any suggestions for which type is better for our area.

:cheers:
 
uplandgameadventures said:
Once your land is ready, buy some chicks in the spring. Don't wait too long to release them as they tend to turn a little too tame and not shy away from the fox and coyote. Maybe even get a couple mature birds to release and hunt them in the fall...then you'll have some mature hens for breeding next spring.
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So you are opposed to leases because it is bad for the sport but stocking is OK? :confused:
 
moellermd said:
So you are opposed to leases because it is bad for the sport but stocking is OK? :confused:
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No, not at all especially in a situation like this. It sounds like K-Brit is in eastern Kansas and needs to travel a great distance (to the west) to find birds. If his in-laws are near by and can put their land to good use, why not!?!? It would be a great thing they are doing for him and their grand-kids and have a great opportunity to hunt with dad. Sounds like he has very limited time to even spend with his kids and to fit in time hunting...he can have the best of both worlds. And if it's done right, it will be a fun family activity. My dad brought home 200 chicks when i was about 10 years old and released them in our immediate area later that summer. It's something my brother and I enjoyed (catching the escape artists) and watching the warden band the birds on release day. We didn't have any birds around there for many years. So why not, if someone is ambitious enough to do things right for a just cause, then how could I be against that?

And really...how does my opinion of leasing relate to stocking birds? Why would it be bad for the sport? In some cases, it's probably even best to introduce a new gene pool to the area for breeding purposes. Unless you endorse cross breeding...(I don't want to know the answer to that by the way) :laugh:
 
One thing that is for certain. When folks want something they want it to be cheap or free and maybe even someone else to pay for it. Conversely, when folks have something to sell they want more, even more and all the money.

landowners are no different. When they are in the market to buy land they want it cheap so they complain about high land prices caused by investors and pheasant hunters driving up the price of land. But when it is time to sell, they advertise their land "hunters paradise" or Investors take note" and they sell to the guy with the highest offer.

Same way with pheasant hunters, those that are looking for land to hunt want it cheap or even free. Those that have land seek to maximize their income from hunting.

There isn't much that is going to change the way things work. A limited supply of good hunting land or an increase in hunters willing to pay will determine the cost of hunting. It isn't about greed or tradition or the way things were, its about supply and demand and our economic system. You're going to have to either adapt or get out of the game.
 
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Since this entire UPH forum is for the birds (haha), I need to eat a little crow here! :D And landman, you are so right - that dang ol' human nature will get us all on both sides of the aisle every time if we're not real careful! I have no problem whatsoever with "REASONABLE" (a highly-and-widely interpretable word indeed) when it comes to lease, trespass, or guide fees, BUT...

@uplandgameadventures - You are spot-on about one thing: How easily & quickly lease fees can spiral out of control, once that runaway train ever gets started!!! ANYONE who has ever hunted deer anywhere in TX without family or friend connections, geese on the famed TX coastal rice praries, or pheasants in the sw corner of ND can attest to the fact of just how bad it can get!!! :eek:

I grew up with & love hunting geese, but the current mess down on the coastal rice prairies where guide services have EVERYTHING locked up & the farmers all drool as the guides outbid one another in the 10's of thousands of dollars for every single piece of property in the countryside has really turned me off...Can't say I really blame the guides or the farmers when there is easy pickings to be had, but when hunting becomes a sheer cut-throat big-business it takes all the the fun out of it for me & I for one will simply find elsewhere or other ways to spend RELAXED time in the outdoors!!!

I am a native Texan (y'all don't hold that against me), but I haven't hunted deer all that much in my home state for years over all the high-$$$ nonsense...Simple cold, hard fact of life = I can't afford several thousand dollars a year (and they sell off separate/simultaneous quail leases on many of those same deer leases for several thousands of dollars a year more)!

Any of you who have ever tried free-lance or even halfway-modest fee rooster-chasin in the pheasant-laden pocket/corner of sw ND know exactly what I mean! I'll just content myself for now scratchin out roosters here-n-there on marginal (and more reasonable) lands much closer to home! :thumbsup:

Yeah, there is no end-around of supply-&-demand, but that also works two ways - the market has a habit of severely correcting itself back down-to-planet-earth in economic times such as these... :cheers:
 
moellermd said:
Might want to check into what PF thinks about that.
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You know, you are right. I'm wrong. I did check with the local PF Biologist and he set me straight. Research shows that pen-reared pheasants are not as prolific as wild pheasants.

Granted, it's PF's right not to dedicate any money towards stocking because the numbers show that its not worth it and sustaining habitat is the key.

However, I still don't feel I'm in the wrong here in K-Brit's case. If the numbers of birds are very low or non-existent in his area, there should be no harm to try to release a few birds on his in-laws land that has been properly prepped into a sustainable habitat for their own personal use. Even if he just bought a few birds to release and hunt right away.
I know a few hunters that buy birds to be released just for dog training purposes also.

On a side note, I will post the numbers shortly that I received. If you are interested, I will try to have them posted on www.uplandgameadventures.com by the end of the day.

I'm not sure if there would state restrictions to this or not but that would be my first step in asking those questions from the start. Here in ND 20 years ago, there was no problem obviously because the game warden was present and banded the birds as we released them.
 
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I too think it could help in the situation I'm faced with in this particular part of east central KS. The birds aren't going to make it long enough to reproduce anyway.
 
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Getting in late on the debate here, but it's very similar to the "Knocking on doors" thread", with the same kind of effect. Like some have already stated here, it kind of depends on what side of the fence you're on. Like it or not, the landowner is holding all the trump cards on the access deal. The hunters are pretty much at their mercy regarding whether the hunt is for a fee or not. Like Landman said, that's just how it is these days.

I hate to admit it, but that is one reason I started shooting sporting clays as kind of a substitute for the real thing. Sure, it's fun too, but it's definately not the same as late-season wild birds! I don't want to ever look in that safe some day to say; "Well, since those guns aren't seeing any action, I guess it's time to sell out". Unfortunately, the deer rifles are already on shakey ground........................
 
its kinda hard to eat a clay pigion isnt it and my deer rifle is on a day by day basis on weather it stays or not lol
 
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