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Lease prices

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hoosierhunter

Active Member
I'm curious as to what people think is reasonable when it comes to price per acre? It seems that Basecamp & HLN have a mentality that every piece of ground is worth 20 per acre in the Midwest. Maybe I'm the minority here but I just don't see it. I walked away from my Kansas lease because the landowner wanted 20/acre this year(we paid 12 last year). My buddy killed a 180 but I still can't justify that kind of money.

I certainly love to deer hunt but my cost benefit analysis can't add up to 20/acre. They keep using the example of comparable cost to a outfitted hunt and it drives me nuts! If I wanted that I would pay for it, but I don't expect to pay it when I'm doing everything myself.
 
I prefer $0 / acre. Id be suprised if more than 10% of people on this site who are residents lease gound.
 
I grew up in Van Buren county and started hunting in the early 80's. I had permission from several different landowners back then. Around the mid 90's that started to change as the landowners grew older or passed on their farms were being bought up by new landowners both resident and non-resident. When the bow hunting really took off then the leasing started, we were losing access to more farms every year. My brother-in-law saw the direction things were heading and decided to make a deal with a landowner and leased 3 farms from him before someone else came along. As of 2011 those were the only 3 farms that I still have access to hunt. I don't know if its that way around the rest of the state but in the area I hunt almost every farm is either posted no-hunting or is leased by someone. As for the leased ground I would say at least 50-60% is leased by residents.
 
I'm guessing that most leases are considerably less than 20/acre unless someone has previously thrown big numbers out. I've heard 5-10 should be normal for most residents, unless of course they are educated to leasing....
 
hoosierhunter said:
I'm guessing that most leases are considerably less than 20/acre unless someone has previously thrown big numbers out. I've heard 5-10 should be normal for most residents, unless of course they are educated to leasing....
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Iowa is 10-12/acre unless the landowner wants more, some landowners already have a price in mind.....with that being said Ohio for example is getting 30-35/acre, the only thing that keeps Iowa from going through the roof is the draw system Iowa has. Buffalo county Wisc is seeing 50-65 and up an acre....
 
bkcrrtnps said:
Iowa is 10-12/acre unless the landowner wants more, some landowners already have a price in mind.....with that being said Ohio for example is getting 30-35/acre, the only thing that keeps Iowa from going through the roof is the draw system Iowa has. Buffalo county Wisc is seeing 50-65 and up an acre....
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Yikes that's some unreal numbers.
 
Not sure what the average is, but I know a guy that was getting $500 for about 40-50 acres of timber ($10-12.50/acre). Then some new guys offered $3500 for the entire 200 acre farm ($17.50/acre). That included 160 acres open pasture, just to keep anyone else off of any other marginal spot on the farm. So, for the actual ground they plan to hunt (40-50 acres), they are paying $70-87.50/acre. And I'm guessing they lease another 600 or so acres on top of that for around the same. Iowa residents.

Another guy I know is a cattle/crop farmer, owns a lot of ground, hates whitetails with a passion, but don't think he would just let someone come hunt. He knows the value of the land for hunting, and as long as people are willing to pay the price, it won't be offered for free again. I think he gets in the range of the guy above.

I think there are more residents that lease ground than some may believe, due to the popularity, lack of their own ground, and people wanting to supplement their income. Most people want to make a dollar these days, which I can't blame them. It's their land, they can lease it out if they want to. Hate to think about ever losing the family farm. Probably have to stick to public then.
 
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StickersNKickers said:
as long as people are willing to pay the price
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That's this whole discussion summed up in 10 words. The going price of leasing is whatever people are willing to pay.

What's too much....try to find a landowner that's trying to lease his place out but can't get any takers based on his price being high. Most don't have that issue.

I am in Michigan so it's not a fair compairison but we are at about 11 bucks an acre for our 200 acres. That is on a 5 year lease with year round access.
 
I agree there are way more leases than people may think. I know we have one and in our area if you don't own it or are willing to lease it you better just look elsewhere to hunt. Its sad but thats the direction our sport is heading or already to i guess.
 
I've never leased, I only knock on doors. Its funner that way and more of a challenge then just throwing money around, and I even get lucky and shoot a nice one every once in a while.
 
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