Deer hunting, a "rich mans sport"

[AT Hiker]

Not to hijack TNdeerguys thread...

Who actually thinks and believes this? Im not rich and my future is not pointing in that direction either, yet my hunting has not suffered. My priorities have changed to accommodate my hunting lifestyle though.


I did cut cable, it was becoming to "rich" for my blood. Saved me over $1,000 a year, now if I could find a nice lease.

Do wealthy individuals play a vital role in the game management philosophy? Sure, some states auction premo tags off to those willing to drop $10k plus. If I was wealthy I would do the same. Typically that money benefits the common hunter over the wealthy one. So would we rather have those wealthy people fighting with us or against us?





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[Deer Assassin]

Re: Deer hunting, a

it is no doubt
especially archery

20 bucks every time you fling an arrow

 

[PillsburyDoughboy]

Re: Deer hunting, a

it is no doubt
especially archery

20 bucks every time you fling an arrow

Ha! Yes archery is expensive. I recover a good many of my arrows and can reuse most of them. But not always.

 

[PillsburyDoughboy]

Re: Deer hunting, a

There is a lease in Perry county. 1400 Acres for $450 a year. Do the break down on that its not to bad per acre. Only 14 hunters maximum. $450 may seem like a lot of money for a lease but most of the leases I am looking at in other states are $900 plus for smaller plots.

 

[szuliman1]

There is a lease in Perry county. 1400 Acres for $450 a year. Do the break down on that its not to bad per acre. Only 14 hunters maximum. $450 may seem like a lot of money for a lease but most of the leases I am looking at in other states are $900 plus for smaller plots.

I live in perry county I would like to get on that lease.

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[PillsburyDoughboy]

Re: Deer hunting, a

There is a lease in Perry county. 1400 Acres for $450 a year. Do the break down on that its not to bad per acre. Only 14 hunters maximum. $450 may seem like a lot of money for a lease but most of the leases I am looking at in other states are $900 plus for smaller plots.

I live in perry county I would like to get on that lease.

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Send me a PM here and I will pass on the contact information.

 

[catman529]

It's not any time soon but does seem to be headed that way with all the big buck mentality, leases and people willing to pay big money for a place to kill a big buck


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[PillsburyDoughboy]

Re: Deer hunting, a

The lease is right on the Perry County Lewis County Line. Its been years since I hunted it so I cannot say what the deer herd is like. Back then it was doe rich. We did manage to pull a couple of nice 8 pointers off there but nothing huge.

I know they have the fees and some work parties as a requirement to join. They have a camp-site where you can put in a popup or a tent. You will probably need a good truck or a 4x4 to navigate the logging roads as they get very slippery especially on wet weekends. A ATV would be very helpful as well but do not know what regs they have put in place about riding on there. I know they were getting picky about ATV when I was there as yahoos where riding the roads just to be riding the roads.

 

[szuliman1]

Ok sounds. Did they have any potential.

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[PillsburyDoughboy]

Re: Deer hunting, a

Ok sounds. Did they have any potential.

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I thought so. I wound up buying my own land so I did not need the lease any longer. I loved the set up there as the area we camped in was gated. There were a couple of guys that almost lived there so you could leave stuff in camp and did not worry about stuff walking off. Of course that could have changed.

Its a timber company that owns the land and they are constantly cutting timber so I do not know where they are at with it. I know they had just cut and replanted a good portion of it and a lot of young trees so its probably about ripe for cutting again.

 

[szuliman1]

I hear you thanks. You see alot of deer when you where there and how long was you on the lease?

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[PillsburyDoughboy]

Re: Deer hunting, a

Ok sounds. Did they have any potential.

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I talked to one of the members recently. He tells me they follow TN state regs for the most part. . 1st buck is any buck you choose. The second buck has to be 4 points on one side MIN. So I am guess they are managing it to a certain degree.

When I left they were just starting to experiment with putting out small food plots but really did not have a good handle on things IMHO. Just about all the dues collected went out to the Timber Company for Lease Fee so there was not a lot of money in the budget for things. Alot of guys did stuff out of pocket. I never had any problem with the fellows there. Opening morning of gun season was always crazy because someone always brought a guest so you usually had 30 people in camp. But after the 1st week in DEc it was usually just the same 3 or 4 people hunting every weekend. Bow season you had the same 3 or 4 people hunting . I remember a couple of years hunting in Late Dec and had the whole place to myself. Much like every lease I have ever been on.

 

[PillsburyDoughboy]

Re: Deer hunting, a

I hear you thanks. You see alot of deer when you where there and how long was you on the lease?

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I was on the lease between 94 and 98. Like I said alot has probably changed but I see alot of the same guys are still on there so I can't imagine alot has changed.

They have picked up more land to hunt. Back then it was 700 acres. They had a designated archery only area but Its my understanding is that is not happening any more.

I killed several deer off there. My buddy killed a NICE 8 pointer off there that was a 150 class deer. Lots of 130 class deer were taken off there every year. Im sure things have changed so you will just have to go down there and check it out. Im sure if you ask really nice LATE season they may let you come down as a guest and hunt one afternoon or something just to check it out if you show your serious about it.

 

[szuliman1]

Sounds good.

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[szuliman1]

Do you happen to have their info.?

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[AT Hiker]

It's not any time soon but does seem to be headed that way with all the big buck mentality, leases and people willing to pay big money for a place to kill a big buck


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The "big buck" mentality has been around ever since I started hunting 25 years ago. To me the only thing that has changed is the stigma attached to people that hunt for large rack deer. TV, internet, social media and magazines admittedly give a false impression of deer hunting reality but it is what sells and its not the rich people buying those either.

We are in the midst of the whitetail hay days, huge racks are breaking records every year. The mule deer craze for big rack bucks was 40-50 years ago and just about every year it seems like the herd gets in worse shape (thankfully its slowly getting better in most places) but people still gather and plan to go hunt those critters. Even though the chances at breaking a record or killing a "trophy" are a lot less than they were 40 years ago.

People still travel thousands of miles to go and hunt public land and shoot whatever legal animal they can. These people are working class like most of us that choose to spend their hard earned money on this lifestyle.




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[7mm08]

Re: Deer hunting, a

Yeah , this ranks right up there with sailing boats, flying private airplanes, alpine skiing from helicopters, or helicopter into remote trout streams all over the world. Please!

 

[J_W]

Re: Deer hunting, a

It certainly CAN be a rich man's sport, but doesn't have to be. I agree that for the vast majority of us, it's currently a matter of prioritization.

 

[gobblinfool]

Re: Deer hunting, a

Isnt all about resources and priorities. Personally I have never leased a property...I have permission to hunt 5-6 properties in TN and 1 in KY without paying a dime. Now that I am back in Clarksville for good I plan on getting to know more farmers. I shoot for the meat first/foremost. If money wasn't an option.....I would go to Alaska every year and hunt for moose/caribou (I worked for a guide back in the late 80s---and was stationed there from 04-07). I now have a friend asking me to come to Iowa....so I will start applying for that. A few years back a friend and I went to Ohio and hunted an amazing WMA...but we stayed at a camp that was $35/night, with breakfast/lunch/dinner.....so we do our homework. In the end, as much as I would like to kill a monster.....I just want meat for the freezer....if I kill buck, that is bonus.

 

[Gravey]

Re: Deer hunting, a

It's definitely getting expensive if you don't hunt public land close to home. I grew up hunting family land but no longer have access to it so been on a lease for 4 years because i refuse to take my son on public ground due to some of the nutjobs you run into there. I like sitting around the campfire and the camping aspect these days as much as the hunting. If I were to add up the lease fee, diesel fuel spent going back and forth not to mention hauling tractor down a couple times each year, food, etc I'm sure it would be a nice chunk of change but the memories made are priceless right now.

 

[smalljawbasser]

Re: Deer hunting, a

if you want to hunt private land, you either have to pay, or you will have to pay. i've been paying through the nose.

 

[Winchester]

Re: Deer hunting, a

Most definitely headed it that direction, and for my kids sake its going much faster than I like to see! Just in my 35 years of deer hunting the cost for all aspects of it have went up much faster than inflation and cost of living!

 

[TheLBLman]

Re: Deer hunting, a

Just in my 35 years of deer hunting the cost for all aspects of it have went up much faster than inflation and cost of living!

But, HAVE THEY, IF you (or we) hunted like we did 35 years ago?

35 years ago, how many of us purchased very expensive "special" hunting clothes, special hunting boots, expensive stands & blinds? ATV's? Deer scents? Scent eliminators? Oh, and how about optics and gps units? Yes, today's best Leupold scope is much more expensive than yesterdays, but you can still buy the optical qualify of 35 years ago pretty cheap.

Never mind I didn't own a scoped deer rifle until I was over 20 years old, and at which point had been an avid deer hunter for 8 years, just killing lots of deer with my shotgun and simple recurve bow (no sights, cheap arrows, cheap fixed heads). And my first few years of deer hunting, my "hunting" clothing was simply a single pair of heavy brown duck pants with a matching coat, worn the whole season without washing, for all types of hunting. In colder weather, I'd add a pair of insulated coveralls, which were also worn for tasks like hog killing and farm choirs.

35 years ago, I had never owned a muzzleloader, and I don't think TN even had a muzzleloader season yet.
And, at about that time, I owned one gun, a shotgun. That's what I did my early deer "gun" hunting with, just a shotgun, using "slugs". Same shotgun I used for quail, rabbits, squirrels, and waterfowl hunting.

I think there are many ways to look at this issue.

One is in terms of what we pay relative to the opportunity we have for getting what we want from that opportunity.
Growing up, I had virtually no opportunity to kill an older buck. Very few bucks survived to 2 1/2 back then. In fact, there wasn't even any legal deer hunting in the county in which I resided. We had to drive to another county to deer hunt. Yet, just like today, no hunter had a goal of killing a "small" buck, as virtually all hunters preferred to kill a "big" buck.

Today, we have much more opportunities to kill "bigger" bucks than 35 years ago. Cost per older buck has probably decreased.

But today, we CHOOSE to outfit ourselves and our children with the latest weapons, gimmicks, and gadgets. In times past, we didn't do this, at least not to the extent most of us do so today.

 

[Mike Belt]

Re: Deer hunting, a

Just something to ponder on...

I always read that in the "good old days" there were no mature bucks and all that was ever killed were small, young deer. In any span of 4.5 years of that time there were bucks that reached maturity. I know the deer population wasn't as high as it is now but there had to have been bucks that slipped through the cracks. I know I saw several. Were we not killing any because we were so tickled to see and take any deer that we always shot the first thing to come along which was usually the young bucks?

 

[TheLBLman]

Re: Deer hunting, a

Mike,

Where I hunted back in the 70's to mid-80's, a 2 1/2-yr-old buck was more rare than a 5 1/2-yr-old buck is today. The hunting pressure was simply much higher then, and no bucks with antlers were given a pass. Very few survived to 2 1/2, and even fewer to 3 1/2. It did happen, just was relatively rare. Today, most of Tennessee has more 4 1/2's roaming the woods than we had 2 1/2's back then.

 

[landman]

Re: Deer hunting, a

Just in my 35 years of deer hunting the cost for all aspects of it have went up much faster than inflation and cost of living!

But, HAVE THEY, IF you (or we) hunted like we did 35 years ago?

35 years ago, how many of us purchased very expensive "special" hunting clothes, special hunting boots, expensive stands & blinds? ATV's? Deer scents? Scent eliminators? Oh, and how about optics and gps units? Yes, today's best Leupold scope is much more expensive than yesterdays, but you can still buy the optical qualify of 35 years ago pretty cheap.

Never mind I didn't own a scoped deer rifle until I was over 20 years old, and at which point had been an avid deer hunter for 8 years, just killing lots of deer with my shotgun and simple recurve bow (no sights, cheap arrows, cheap fixed heads). And my first few years of deer hunting, my "hunting" clothing was simply a single pair of heavy brown duck pants with a matching coat, worn the whole season without washing, for all types of hunting. In colder weather, I'd add a pair of insulated coveralls, which were also worn for tasks like hog killing and farm choirs.

35 years ago, I had never owned a muzzleloader, and I don't think TN even had a muzzleloader season yet.
And, at about that time, I owned one gun, a shotgun. That's what I did my early deer "gun" hunting with, just a shotgun, using "slugs". Same shotgun I used for quail, rabbits, squirrels, and waterfowl hunting.

I think there are many ways to look at this issue.

One is in terms of what we pay relative to the opportunity we have for getting what we want from that opportunity.
Growing up, I had virtually no opportunity to kill an older buck. Very few bucks survived to 2 1/2 back then. In fact, there wasn't even any legal deer hunting in the county in which I resided. We had to drive to another county to deer hunt. Yet, just like today, no hunter had a goal of killing a "small" buck, as virtually all hunters preferred to kill a "big" buck.

Today, we have much more opportunities to kill "bigger" bucks than 35 years ago. Cost per older buck has probably decreased.

But today, we CHOOSE to outfit ourselves and our children with the latest weapons, gimmicks, and gadgets. In times past, we didn't do this, at least not to the extent most of us do so today.

I was right there with ya

 

[Bone Collector]

Re: Deer hunting, a

I just realized this is a duplicate thread.... There is another one below it by the same name, that I posted in. I was wondering where my post went and thought maybe I said, something I shouldn't have and it got deleted.. :lol:

 

[AT Hiker]

Re: Deer hunting, a

I just realized this is a duplicate thread.... There is another one below it by the same name, that I posted in. I was wondering where my post went and thought maybe I said, something I shouldn't have and it got deleted.. :lol:

Yea I know, not sure why it did that. I posted it from my phone so maybe there was a glitch in tapatalk.

 

[Land Between the Lakes]

Re: Deer hunting, a

Hunting is becoming expensive. Before it was common to be able to hunt private land for free. Now nearly every private land in this area wants thousands of dollars for a lease. And it's nearly impossible to find any good land to hunt because it is already being leased by someone else.

Fishing is the same way. Most new Bass Boats are over $40,000. A lot of new sonars are over $2,000. And a lot of fishing lures and equipment is very expensive also.

 

[mikemc411]

But it doesn't take a 250hp bass boat to go fishing ! 20 years ago 150hp used to get a guy to his fishing hole, now some guys require 300hp .... Water must be getting thicker


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