Two questions
(1) Anyone here have current or prior experience with hunting leases that could pass on useful tips?
(2) Anyone here have property with wildlife present that would be willing to lease it to me for 2025? Multi game hunting, maybe even some remote camping if permitted?
Nothing up for lease right now but we have a club that leases from us every year and has for the last 15+. They absolutely rock and as they all get older I really don't look forward to replacing them with other people should the hunt club eventually dissolve. They just don't have many younger guys joining them.
What I look for as a landowner/landlord:
1. We communicate year round. If they're going to be in planting food plots or doing large scale work besides just checking on stuff, I usually get a heads up. On the flip side, there are some good fishing ponds that locals have had permission to fish for longer than I have been around and sometimes a reminder is needed that the hunt club has exclusive access during deer and turkey seasons. If they see people coming and going when they shouldn't, they let me know and I handle it since they are just tenants. If I see something wrong with stands, food plots etc I call them. Its rare, but it happens.
2. They are stewards of the land. I still run cattle on the bigger parcel they lease, so they're attentive. If they see a busted section of fence either I get a call or they just go ahead and put it back up. They built gates or ladders over fences for their own access into the wooded areas we don't graze. They don't haul ass around on machines and they fenced off all of their areas for food plots so it protects both of our interests in the land.
3. I don't have to chase them down for the dollars and cents. A few of them cut a good bit of hay so we typically trade out a portion of the lease in hay then they work out the rest of the value internally amongst the club. It really works well for all of us.
I have a few smaller spots that only I hunt. The clubs/tenants get the prime dirt. Over the years I have had multiple friends ask to come hunt, but my answer is always the same. "Sure, come up one weekend and help me out and we can check out some spots". 0 People have hunted this farm with me
and that's fine. I get to all of that property at the very bottom of the list and very end of the season IF I have time. I got my first access to private land years ago by just helping people out on their property to earn permission. It gave me a lot more appreciation for what goes into maintaining a tract of land for hunting let along just for general ownership. I guess I expect the same. I've got a good friend I hunt with in central VA and since day 1, even for just a handful of days a year, dues are paid. One year I gave him a few cameras to put up so we could inventory the hot spots on the property, other years its been tree work around the property, but the work is put in some way some how. The brown likker and red meat back at the camp is a bonus, but its all part of it when it comes to hunt camp IMO.
