Hunting without a deer lease

[Benno]

I do appreciate the responses.

The suggestion to buy our own place is interesting, so I decided to do a quick exercise on what that might look like.

Hypothetical - let's say my dad and I spend a total together (lease cost, equipment, feed) of $5000-6000/year. We'll say $5k for ease of math. This does not include our fuel costs to get there, food and drink, or hunting gear.

Down payment on property - 20%. A $200k ($40k down payment) property would take us 8 years to put our lease cost toward.

Mortgage - ~$1k month with taxes/insurance. We currently pay ~$420/month if you divide it all down, so it would cost us well over twice yearly what we currently pay.

Feasibility - where can you find 50+ acres for $200k or under? This type of property would most likely be either very raw land, and/or in a more remote part of the state than we currently hunt. If we owned a property, we would want to be there as often as possible - much more often than we even spend at the lease. Once we get there, is there electricity? Water? A place to stay? Probably not - we'd have to make that happen ourselves which equals more costs.

Don't get me wrong - I love the idea of purchasing my own land to hunt, but it is certainly not an apples-to-apples exercise. Yes, land will appreciate, so you can look at it as an investment, and that is also enticing. I'd be curious to see how y'all who've bought land to hunt have justified it over leasing.

Same way you justify buying a house over renting. You can rent a nice place and never have to worry about replacing the roof, the AC going out, damage from a storm, but after 15yrs have nothing to show for your money. This is the first time you eluded to your lease cost, but if it was costing 2 of you $5k for the lease, equipment and feed as you already know, not going to be easy to replace. Hell, I probably spend close to 5k in feed, chemicals and food plots a year. Seldom shoot anymore, but get way more enjoyment from it than I would a 5k vacation or a guided hunt.

[Texans42]

I maybe out to lunch on this one, but it used to be you cant buy that bear tag unless you also have the deer or elk tag in the same season. I am too lazy also to check the current regs out.

Not for Sept rifle, it’s independent. A lot of units even normally have left over.

OP the most expensive part of out west is initial gear, but it’s not unreasonable to keep cost for 4-5 hunts under 5k total(excluding gear), “if” you switch up species. I’d budget 1500-1750 (excluding gear)for DIY elk hunts just due to tag costs but deer are very reasonable in most states(budget 1000-1300), bear <1000, pronghorns 1000-1200. I normally do 3-5 western hunts a years. So I have my system down. Two most expensive things are tags and fuel.

Op- If you have any questions pm me I’m more then happy to help.

[Backwoods101]

Tagged for later. Just skimmed through but ran across some great suggestions! Having a lease is about as stressful as not having one…the whole time I’m worried I’m going to lose our lease [emoji28]


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