Some opinions on how much I could charge.

SetterNut

SetterNut

New member
I am doing a little planning / dreaming about what I could do with my little farm and farm house in the furture.

Background-
I have a 160 acre Kansas Flinthills farm with 70 acres of pasture, 70 of crop and a 20 acre hay meadow.
There is a small old pond that is about 1/2 acre.
Most of the fields are lined with plum thickets. The pasture is not being grazed at this point in time and is very thick.
We have quail, turkey, waterfowl, coyotes, and some deer.
My wife and I are thinking about building a new house on the farm and that would leave the current farm house empty.

So here is what I am thinking:
-I could put in a larger pond in the hay meadow, and put in a windmill to aerate the water to prevent it from freezing. It would be covered up with ducks and geese.
-The pasture could be used as a controlled shooting area, so I could plant birds for people.
-There are enough turkeys in the area that several people could shoot turkeys in the spring.
- I am sure that I could get several of the neighbors to allow people to shoot coyotes and maybe deer.
-The farm house could be rented out, and it could easily be set up to hold 6-8 people.
- I will also have enough pigeons that people could come for a day or weekend to train dogs in a safe easy to access place.

What do you think I could charge people to hunt on my place : Waterfowl, planted upland birds, turkey, coyotes,,,, ?

Want to see if it would be worth the effort.
-
 
There are not enough birds around to train dogs. Looking for a place I could work some dogs. Do not care to shoot any. I would think $20 to $25 a day.
 
Steve, my caution to you is this: you have to be careful when you make your passion a job because many times your passion will suffer! Maybe a bed and breakfast not associated with hunting or fishing would prevent that end and still fill your income desires. If there is a guide/outfitter nearby, might work with him/her to facilitate use of the rental rooms.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
Steve, my caution to you is this: you have to be careful when you make your passion a job because many times your passion will suffer! Maybe a bed and breakfast not associated with hunting or fishing would prevent that end and still fill your income desires. If there is a guide/outfitter nearby, might work with him/her to facilitate use of the rental rooms.
Click to expand...


I thought about that as well. But I would not have to do this if I don't want on the income side. I can also get a college student to do some of this.

But I would like to be able to offset the cost of the pond, windmill and taxes. So it might be only for a couple of years.

But you make a good point.
 
SetterNut said:
I am doing a little planning / dreaming about what I could do with my little farm and farm house in the furture.

Background-
I have a 160 acre Kansas Flinthills farm with 70 acres of pasture, 70 of crop and a 20 acre hay meadow.
There is a small old pond that is about 1/2 acre.
Most of the fields are lined with plum thickets. The pasture is not being grazed at this point in time and is very thick.
We have quail, turkey, waterfowl, coyotes, and some deer.
My wife and I are thinking about building a new house on the farm and that would leave the current farm house empty.

So here is what I am thinking:
-I could put in a larger pond in the hay meadow, and put in a windmill to aerate the water to prevent it from freezing. It would be covered up with ducks and geese.
-The pasture could be used as a controlled shooting area, so I could plant birds for people.
-There are enough turkeys in the area that several people could shoot turkeys in the spring.
- I am sure that I could get several of the neighbors to allow people to shoot coyotes and maybe deer.
-The farm house could be rented out, and it could easily be set up to hold 6-8 people.
- I will also have enough pigeons that people could come for a day or weekend to train dogs in a safe easy to access place.

What do you think I could charge people to hunt on my place : Waterfowl, planted upland birds, turkey, coyotes,,,, ?

Want to see if it would be worth the effort.
-
Click to expand...

I think I would have to come out and hunt the land then I could give you a well informed recommendation on what you should charge......:cheers:

If I were you I would work with a company that handles rental propeties and have them rent it for you and possibly repairs. You and your wife might become slaves to the property in your free time. As part of the rental you could charge a trespass fee to hunt your farm, otherwise hunter could use your place as a base for their hunting trip.
 
I am not looking to rent this place more than a few weekend during hunting season. Maybe a couple times during turkey season.

Unless I could get a KSU student that is Outdoor rec management to live in the house and handle all the people and problems. :D
 
Three of use to lease a place north of town. It increased from 8-1600 in 5 years. That was 8 yrs. ago.
With improvments I would think on yours 2500 to 4000. Tops. I could be off? Ours ran from sept.1 to feb 15
 
SetterNut said:
I am not looking to rent this place more than a few weekend during hunting season. Maybe a couple times during turkey season.

Unless I could get a KSU student that is Outdoor rec management to live in the house and handle all the people and problems. :D
Click to expand...

I was thinking of renting just during the hunting seasons, not year round.
 
BrownDogsCan2 said:
Three of use to lease a place north of town. It increased from 8-1600 in 5 years. That was 8 yrs. ago.
With improvments I would think on yours 2500 to 4000. Tops. I could be off? Ours ran from sept.1 to feb 15
Click to expand...

I think people paying that kind of money would expect exclusive access and rights to all game, right?

What if you set up a couple tree stands and maybe a couple turkey blinds and allowed a few hunters per season? Since you don't need the money, why not stick your toe in the water first before diving in? Set up a couple turkey blinds in the Spring and see if you can get anyone to pay to hunt. If that goes well, put up a couple ladder stands and see if you can get a bowhunter or two in the Fall... And if that goes well then find a couple rifle hunters for the rifle season.

Depending on your success at that you could figure out how much work to put into the house.

And honestly, I think enlarging the pond sounds like a slam dunk idea. Waterfowling is big right now. The only problem I would see is that 120 acres isn't a massive area. You will lose your serious deer hunters if people are blasting shotguns down at the pond every weekend.

Good luck, Steve.
 
My place is not ever going to be a great deer hunting spot. There is not enough timber on it for that.

I had not really thought about renting it to just one group, was thinking more along the lines of several different people for shorter periods of time.

I don't think I am not going to give someone exclusive access to my place for a long period of time. I have friends and family that I will let hunt.

So lets say for a weekend someone could come, hunt ducks/geese in the morning, then shoot planted birds in afternoon. What would you think would be a fair price to stay in the farm house and do that?

How about to stay in the house and shoot a turkey or two. There would be heated blinds on alfalfa in sight of roosting trees?


Thanks for the input.
 
Ours was doves and watetrfowl only. I agree its probably not big enough for deer hunting. Before the one I mentioned we were on another duck lease that was 250 a head 9 guys plus the owner.Multiple blinds First come first serve. It had a little tin bunkhouse with a bathroom and a coffeepot and a map on the wall and you would go in and stick a golf peg in the in a hole that represented the blind you would be hunting out of. People could stay out there and drink play
cards, cook breakfast and what not. Not sure anyone ever used it for that other than opening weekend. This one the water was a little more technical and would have probably been more suitable as a training lease. If your going to the expense of putting in a pond a retriever training group might be a better use of it.
You could rent the house as a vrbo a few weekends a year, maybe ad a premium to it during deer season.
 
Steve:

You have an interesting idea - several possibilities.

You are investigating two business models: Hotel and Land Leasing.

Providing guest accommodations in your building would possibly have lots of legal implications and risk; code requirements, inspections just to name a few.

I'm not sure about your exposure on the leasing side; land users would need to sign off on holding you liable in case of an accident. However, they can still sue you.

Others have suggested starting slow and small. That sounds like a good idea, and get good legal advice, also.

Good Luck!
 
Steve, to take off on a bit of a tangent, when you look to expand the "pond", do so as if creating a "marsh". Puddle ducks are a shallow water species and are attracted to marsh conditions where they can tip to feed. Adding more deep water may not facilitate that. They concentrate on water less than 18 inches deep.
 
Troy

What I was thinking was actually having two ponds put in. a bigger main down stream pond and a smaller one above it. I could let the water level of the main pond drop during the summer and plant millet on the bank. Then when the duck season starts I would let water out of the upper pond to flood that millet.

But if I could get enough to offset some of the habitat expenses that would be great.

But if you have someone come in on Friday night, Hunt Saturday and Sunday and leave Sunday night, what would you pay to do that?
 
I would say, $50/night lodging and $100/day hunting +/-, per person assuming no meals etc. I haven't experienced anything like this but it is a figure I would be willing to spend for a private land hunting. I can only compare to what I have seen on the net for hunting outfitters and rentals. If it were me I wouldn't mess with pen raised birds, but that is just me.
 
The cabins I manage sleep 4 comfortably with a full kitchen and bath. They will sleep 6 with 2 in each double. They rent for $70 a night and I think that they are under priced by quite a bit for that number. For 2 that might be reasonable. Any activities would add to that and I can't see that being less than $150-$250 per gun/day for small game, upland game, turkey, or waterfowl hunting wild birds. Deer are a different price range all together. Released birds would vary with numbers released. Wild quail could be higher due to their limited numbers.
 
Thanks guys, that is the kind of input I was hoping for.

I have a guy that raises thousands of quail, pheasants, and chukar that is only 2 miles from me.

I work to hard to have wild quail on my place to let people come shoot up my dog training wild birds :D
 
Having a bird source that close would make it doable. I think most preserves around me get $20-25 birds. I'm sure you would need a preserve license or just release roosters, still might need a preserve license.

I agree with Troy the state cabins are a great deal for lodging and way under priced.
 
Things to think about. Liability insurance, you need to have a waiver to have them sign. Most likely you will have to deal with the state health dept. I pay sale tax on the revenue that we bring in. When I figure my rates I base the housing at $50 a night the hunting charge changes as the season goes on. It can be a source of income but I have backed off a little because I want to hunt too. I have the best dog I have ever had and he hates it when hunters come and he does not get to go along, so we just don't book every week. Good luck.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
Steve, my caution to you is this: you have to be careful when you make your passion a job because many times your passion will suffer! Maybe a bed and breakfast not associated with hunting or fishing would prevent that end and still fill your income desires. If there is a guide/outfitter nearby, might work with him/her to facilitate use of the rental rooms.
Click to expand...



I think Troy has the right idea - you dont necessarily have enough land for a hunting operation and think anyone wanting to train dogs would be such a narrow market it'd be hard for you to find customers.

My second passion besides upland and mule deer hunting is Real Estate Investment.

I'd think you could do quite well if you're proficient using Facebook, and joining some deer hunting, turkey hunting or upland forums and advertising your place as a vacation rental.


IE you furnish basic bedding, furniture, couple of tv's maybe some cable or netflix if you can get Hi-speed internet there, micro, the basics...give the hunters a place to crash.

Websites like VRBO.com can be used to keep track of dates available and also advertise the place, complete transactions etc.


Your only work is keeping the place clean after people leave, and managing the books side/answering questions of people.


If I was looking at it from a standpoint to make a little extra spending money I'm of the opinion that would be the best way. Youd need to check your local laws on short term rentals for whatever county you are in, but I'd guess there would not be any regulations you'd need to worry about out in the sticks.

I'm a member of www.biggerpockets.com and there is a wealth of info there - you might listen to one of their podcasts where they discuss vacation rentals or complete some searches on the discussion forums.


You could of course hire the cleaning/housekeeping out to someone and just keep yourself busy playing the part of the welcoming committe and answering questions about the local area.


Could put in a tack barn and horse trails as well - might be a bit of a draw for a few folks in the summer or the fishing.

It would be a modified and probably more fun version of landlording. I'm a landlord for 3 properties and like it. Cant wait until it's my fulltime job.
 
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