Ohio Game Fishing banner

Hunting lease?

18K views 44 replies 24 participants last post by  DUCKHEAD  
#1 ·
How much are people paying for hunting leases? How do you know if you’re getting a fair deal?
 
#5 · (Edited)
yup... leasing is ruining public hunting grounds... Used to be so much mead property in Southeast Ohio , you could go on a hike for days and never see it all… Used to be all public... now it's just a bunch of stupid out-of-state hunters that group together and lease it out. and 20 to 30 dollars/acre is not okay, especially when you consider that most of these tracts Are leased in 300 to 500 acre parcels. your best bet is to get a group of 20 or so guys together and form a hunt club and then lease out the land together , It's cheaper per person for your group. about 10 years ago we did this with a group of 20 guys in Southeast Ohio… It was only like $200 a person per year… Which was awesome... Then each successive year the Scioto Land company would keep raising the rates and It just got ridiculous so we all got out of it.
 
#6 ·
We leased 1089 acres at an average of $20 an acre until 2020 when Aep sold it. We also had to provide our own insurance, places like Basecamp that price is included. But at Basecamp their price goes up 10% every year, so in 10 years you are paying double what you started at.

reelylivinsportfishing.com
 
#7 ·
We leased 1089 acres at an average of $20 an acre until 2020 when Aep sold it. We also had to provide our own insurance, places like Basecamp that price is included. But at Basecamp their price goes up 10% every year, so in 10 years you are paying double what you started at.

reelylivinsportfishing.com
yes they do keep raising the prices… But check your math… adding 10% every year for 10 years ends up being a lot more than double
;)
 
#15 ·
Until just recently my friend was the leasing agent in Eastern Ohio and Western Pa for Basecamp, and had been there since its beginning, when properties came up in my area he was getting I would go there and take pictures for him to post on the website, it would save him time, travel, etc and he'd throw me a bone for my efforts.

reelylivinsportfishing.com
 
#17 ·
Until just recently my friend was the leasing agent in Eastern Ohio and Western Pa for Basecamp, and had been there since its beginning, when properties came up in my area he was getting I would go there and take pictures for him to post on the website, it would save him time, travel, etc and he'd throw me a bone for my efforts.

reelylivinsportfishing.com
So you may be familiar with a chunk of land i leased a few years ago north of Mesopotamia that had a decent size marsh on it
 
#23 ·
Here’s my opinion and it’s probably quite different than most. A land owner has every right to do as he wants with his property. The only thing that has technically ruined anyones ability to hunt private land is themselves. I personally wish I would of done things differently years ago and bought my own hunting land when prices were reasonable. That’s my fault for not thinking ahead, not tv or celebrities or out of staters. Definitely not the land owners fault that I used to have permission off of that used to allow me to hunt but either sold or leased their land to someone else. Meade was technically never “Public” land. Was always privately owned and can you really blame them for making extra money off land they purchased and pay taxes on? Trust me I know it sucks as I’ve lost over 5000 acres of private hunting land in the last 10 years or so but the only person I can blame is me.
 
#21 ·
I live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. One landowner that we till property for owns six farms. There's about 1500 tillable acres and about 450 acres of woods on these farms. You could occasionally kill geese on these farms, most years never see a duck, the deer hunting is below average for the area and the turkey hunting is pretty good. This spring that landowner was offered $60 an acre for everything.
That's over a hundred thousand dollars, if my math is right, to hunt those properties for one year.
 
#26 ·
Personally, I'm not a fan of leasing. Guys leasing a farm as a group is one thing but leasing companies is another. My uncle owns a nice chunk of Harrison county. My early years of deer and turkey hunting were awesome down there. Then the leasing company showed up. Offered them six grand a year and control of the deer population. In two years, they shot 3 deer. My uncle was furious for all the deer damage his crops were sustaining. The last straw was the lease was for deer only. When they caught guys turkey hunting ( with my uncle's permission) they went off on my uncle. He showed them the door. Unfortunately, all the neighbors also leased their ground and now about 4000 people hunt my uncle's place and 3700 of them are Amish. It's not safe to hunt there anymore. The leasing companies are turning this into a rich mans game. It will hurt future generations of hunters as kids won't have hunting opportunities unless daddy's loaded. It's sad. I am very grateful to have permission to hunt some good property but I know someday it will be gone and I can't afford to buy it.
 
#28 ·
Personally, I'm not a fan of leasing. . Unfortunately, all the neighbors also leased their ground and now about 4000 people hunt my uncle's place and 3700 of them are Amish. It's not safe to hunt there anymore. The leasing companies are turning this into a rich mans game. It will hurt future generations of hunters as kids won't have hunting opportunities unless daddy's loaded. It's sad. I am very grateful to have permission to hunt some good property but I know someday it will be gone and I can't afford to buy it.

Absolutely 100% right-on. & exactly what happened to the farm where we hunted since 1980.
Originally, I asked permission to hunt ground hogs. The farmer got to know us & things evolved.
We helped him stack bails, clear fence rows, patch roads, put up electric fencing. He loved us. We got invited to his familys outdoor partys, & I even cooked.
I asked permission to hunt deer, for 5 of us,,, & eventually asked to put a camper down on his Muskingum bank.
He gave us permission to use the familys cabin! I asked 'How much' & he said cut the grass or paint.
THEN, an out of State guy came by & offered him $1,000 a year to HUNT. He couldn't turn that down. We hunted together,,, but separately.
THEN THE FANCY TRUCK 'OUTFITTERS' started showing up from NY, Michigan,, with the BIG DOLLARS. They easily signed contracts with the farmers. They never even walked the property & collected huge bucks from their OUT-OF-STATE clients. NOW, we were finding dead deer everywhere,,,, with their heads cut off!
Then the Amish came & put a barn up for him. ONE guy asked, & 20 showed up!! They started Running deer with dogs, right under our tree stands.
THAT WAS THE END. We never went back. Our tree stands are still down there.

So, WHAT was the beginning of it all?

ADVERTISING,,, the 'Central Ohio BIG BUCKS'.
Just like a BASS or WALLEYE contest,,,, as soon as you put a dollar amount on it, you add competition, & then greed & deceit follows. ( lmao,, the Fall Brawl)

It's THE BEGINNING OF THE END,,,, the GOOD TIMES, as we have known it.
 
#27 ·
The one solace I have for my soul is that at 67 most of my hunting years are in the past and during more hunter friendly days. So I am thankful for the bounty I enjoyed and the health to do it. I agree that hunting opportunities are going down the tube for our future generations. Quality of pubic hunting already is compromised, but there are no easy fixes. When I was young I think the USA population was probably around 200 million and now is 350 million and growing fast. So logistically it can't be any better.
 
#29 ·
Me, 2 sons, and my brother hunted property in Harrison cty for ~40 yrs. that a good friend and his brother bought at a Sheriff’s tax auction for $50 an acre!(total of abt 100 acres). It was pure hunter’s “Paradise”, near Tappan Lake. We actually had adjacent farm and idle land totalling another 100 acres to hunt. We offered money to further cement the situation, they turned it down saying we were “all good friends”! The brothers(and us) got old and they passed away abt 5 yrs apart. They had no kids but family/heirs(nieces, nephews, all non-hunters) who were only interested in turning the property into $$$$$$! It sold the first year after the passing of the last brother. That was it-“Paradise Lost”!!
 
#30 ·
JSMH...
Thread has been cleaned up.

Some are very fortunate to own their own land...some aren't.
Some know how to post on OGF with respect...some don't.
Don't have the means to help those that don't own land.
Do have the means to help OGF and it's respectful members with those that aren't.

Lets please keep all comments respectful.
Thanks
 
#34 ·
Some of my family were part of a lease in Carrol county, I think it was 200 acres, they paid way too much for it for 12 years. This past summer the owner of the property told them an outfitter from Colorado came and offered him more money so they lost that lease to an out of state outfitter!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#36 ·
I feel bad for all of us that we went down this road in Ohio. I don't feel bad for the group or other groups this happened to. What did you think was going to happen when money became a part of it. Sooner or later someone is going to offer more. This is what has happened to other country where it's pretty much the rich who hunt. This happened to a friend of mine and I laughed when he told me he was out bid and lost his spot.
 
#37 ·
I don’t deer hunt anymore but have run across many areas while creek crawling that have posted the lease signs! So I have lost a few creeks I used to fish because of the whole lease thing also! 😟