The future of bird hunting

Goosemaster

Goosemaster

Well-known member
It hurts like hell to say this, but within 50 years, all hunting on private land, will be pay hunting. It will be at least 100 dollars per gun. These fancy commercial outfits will buy up prime, private ranches, and build huge lodges.It's already happening in Montana. Gentleman, it's a sad state of affairs.
 
Nugent said:
It hurts like hell to say this, but within 50 years, all hunting on private land, will be pay hunting. It will be at least 100 dollars per gun. These fancy commercial outfits will buy up prime, private ranches, and build huge lodges.It's already happening in Montana. Gentleman, it's a sad state of affairs.
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Just a $100 a gun? That's a bargain at today's prices. lol
 
It is an odd post in an odd place, but he does have a point. 25 years ago when CRP was really going most states had public or private land open to the public, a prime example was MT with massive amounts of crp in block management. High quality habitat, now with crp going what little that is left goes for big bucks.
 
Alaskan swamp collies said:
It is an odd post in an odd place, but he does have a point. 25 years ago when CRP was really going most states had public or private land open to the public, a prime example was MT with massive amounts of crp in block management. High quality habitat, now with crp going what little that is left goes for big bucks.
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Yes, and good crp has to be at least 12 inches tall, which takes years.Luckily, Montana isnt as flat as south Dakota, so they cant farm it all out.
 
Man I was in far western kansas for a few days this week . I was amazed at the poor quality of the walkin. I've always been of the opinion that a farmers got to make a living. But man this stuff was garbage. Do these guys even look at what they are enrolling. 2200 acres of continuous crop without a weed or blade of grass within miles. CRP hayed, crp grazed, crp gone. Crp pulled. On the bright side there was an area with quite a bit of first year planted crp that should be good in the future. Who are these guys sleeping with to get their ground enrolled.
 
BrownDogsCan2 said:
Man I was in far western kansas for a few days this week . I was amazed at the poor quality of the walkin. I've always been of the opinion that a farmers got to make a living. But man this stuff was garbage. Do these guys even look at what they are enrolling. 2200 acres of continuous crop without a weed or blade of grass within miles. CRP hayed, crp grazed, crp gone. Crp pulled. On the bright side there was an area with quite a bit of first year planted crp that should be good in the future. Who are these guys sleeping with to get their ground enrolled.
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I agree, some of these guys fleece the state.Some block management in Montana is deer country at most.There might be 1 pheasant. Yet in the guide, they say pheasant. I'm all for block management, but it can be misleading...
 
This has been going on in South Dakota for over 30 years. And yes, it does suck, but it is what it is. Be thankful most of our states have decent public hunting. I use to have numerous parcels of private land to hunt but it all went away years ago. I haven't seen $100/gun/day her in SD for many years. I know a farm that has all wild birds that now charges $450/gun/day just to walk on the land.
 
Dakotazeb said:
This has been going on in South Dakota for over 30 years. And yes, it does suck, but it is what it is. Be thankful most of our states have decent public hunting. I use to have numerous parcels of private land to hunt but it all went away years ago. I haven't seen $100/gun/day her in SD for many years. I know a farm that has all wild birds that now charges $450/gun/day just to walk on the land.
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Those south Dakota farmers are cashing in. I'm not a fan of pay hunting, and I'm not going to say it's good. I'm sure within 50 years, all private land will charge a huge fee.Maybe 20 years.
 
I'll be a distant memory in 50 years.

But, in the meantime, if I can continue to hunt ditches, then I'm good. I'm not a fan of paying for access (to shoot stocked birds). If it comes to that, I'll just stick to grouse hunting back home where there's limitless public land that will always be public. However, it seems paying for tame birds or chasing the chicken truck is the preferred option for many guys.

I'm not going to worry about it and just keep doing what I do until I can't.
 
Kre said:
I'll be a distant memory in 50 years.

But, in the meantime, if I can continue to hunt ditches, then I'm good. I'm not a fan of paying for access (to shoot stocked birds). If it comes to that, I'll just stick to grouse hunting back home where there's limitless public land that will always be public. However, it seems paying for tame birds or chasing the chicken truck is the preferred option for many guys.

I'm not going to worry about it and just keep doing what I do until I can't.
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I agree.Ive only hunted pen raised birds once.It was 400 bucks a day, at a place near Gregory, South Dakota.It was an impressive set up.Some rich guy from Indiana bought the farm in the late nineties, and set the whole place up for pheasant hunting.He even built a small lake for fishing.He hired the former owner, and his family, to operate the place. It was in march, and I shot a bunch of birds. Its It's a place where wealthy, blue bloods hunt.The orvis, filson crowd. This place was called a preserve. When I saw this place, I realized where pheasant hunting was headed in south Dakota. It isn't there yet, but eventually these well heeled types are going to control almost everything out west.
 
It's supply and demand that result in the economics. There is a portion of the bird hunting community that is well off. They will pay to hunt if they have to. When there was lots of prime habitat (read CRP) there was lots of places to hunt and the pay to hunt places couldn't command as much money for a trespass fee. Now prime habitat is at a premium and the price of the pay to hunt places has gone up and more landowners realize that they can make more money leasing the land to outfitters than to the state. The states still try to enroll land in their programs but have a poorer choice of land. With general hunting license sales heading generally down there should be less hunters looking for places to hunt, hence less profitability for landowners to put in leased land rather than in state programs. Isn't happening because the prime habitat is disappearing even faster. Somebody told me that 70% of the CRP has gone away in NE MT. If we bring back more prime habitat than we would spread the hunters out and drive down the demand for pay to hunt. But than the landowner would not have the economics to put his land in CRP. Must be a solution but someone smarter than me has to find it.
 
To get an idea at where hunting in our country is going, just look at Europe and the UK specifically. It's a sport for the very wealthy, there is no public land to hunt on and the preserves are not cheap. We aren't there yet obviously, but it's trending that way. The US is a different animal given the size of our country compared to the UK, but corporate farming and real estate companies like Realtree and Whitetail Properties are not helping.
 
Alaskan swamp collies said:
It's supply and demand that result in the economics. There is a portion of the bird hunting community that is well off. They will pay to hunt if they have to. When there was lots of prime habitat (read CRP) there was lots of places to hunt and the pay to hunt places couldn't command as much money for a trespass fee. Now prime habitat is at a premium and the price of the pay to hunt places has gone up and more landowners realize that they can make more money leasing the land to outfitters than to the state. The states still try to enroll land in their programs but have a poorer choice of land. With general hunting license sales heading generally down there should be less hunters looking for places to hunt, hence less profitability for landowners to put in leased land rather than in state programs. Isn't happening because the prime habitat is disappearing even faster. Somebody told me that 70% of the CRP has gone away in NE MT. If we bring back more prime habitat than we would spread the hunters out and drive down the demand for pay to hunt. But than the landowner would not have the economics to put his land in CRP. Must be a solution but someone smarter than me has to find it.
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I agree, without the crp, it makes finding good hunting more difficult. I'm not a big fan of outfitters!
 
Nugent said:
I agree, without the crp, it makes finding good hunting more difficult. I'm not a big fan of outfitters!
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Coming from the business side of things, I get that you don't like outfitters. I get it and I'm ok with that. Different strokes for different folks. It's private land, they can do what they want.

On the flip side, how do we produce more birds? I thought one of my my close friends had a great post the other day: https://www.uguidesdpheasants.com/news/governor-noem/ Agree or disagree, facts & discussion topics are here.
 
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