I have read this whole thing and will continue my many year long stance against leasing. For all those who truly believe that leasing is the inevitable future and nothing can or will stop it I say you are very wrong, and it won't be any kind of boycott by hunters that stops it. It will happen when there aren't any hunt able populations of deer, or not enough trophy hunting to sustain it. If the Farm Bureau and other groups get their way and let the legislature govern the deer hunting and scale back the population levels to 1980 levels there won't be much leasing and very few outfitters to spark it. The very plain truth is that IF THERE ARE NO DEER TO HUNT NO ONE WILL LEASE LAND TO HUNT THEM. If you look at the trends for the last 5 years you will see that as we kill more and more does and the population decreases from a peak harvest of 211,000 deer to just over 140,000 in 3 years, and we are now issuing more tags for more seasons than ever in the past, and these groups are still demanding a greater doe slaughter. Where will that put us in another 5 years? At the current rate that will put us at a harvest of 80,000 or 90,000 with far less than half being bucks of any kind, much less trophies. When we had those kind of harvest numbers in the past, during the early 90's, but the buck harvest was 70% to 80% and even with that we didn't see many problems with NR hunters or land owners, or outfitters, or leasing. We also had less than half the total number of deer hunters so the competition for land was less, and the many thousands of acres that have been bulldozed or pulled out of CRP to plant $5.00 corn or $14.00 beans were still good deer habitat. I know that I have played this song for several years now, but feel free to correct me, but I think much of what I have predicted is coming to pass.
Leasing can be stopped other ways as well. Such as keeping a cap on NR licenses, licensing and regulating outfitters with fees and bonds, special regulations for any one leasing hunting rights. I know that the lease is only for access to hunting land, but if it weren't for the deer that supposedly belongs to all of us, no one would pay for that access. I also know that the next argument is that the farmers feed the deer their crops and should have the right to get paid back for that. I personally think that is kind of a copout. We don't see them marketing leasing for squirrels, or raccoons, or possums, or rabbits, or the neighbors cows, all of which eat lots of crops. They have targeted deer and to a smaller degree turkeys because they have learned that there is a market for those leases. Different types and levels of crop insurance already help reimburse for these losses. There are certain loss levels that have been accepted for decades as part of doing the business of farming, so why now try to cash in on it by using the losses as an excuse to justify leasing hunting rights.
For those who feel that their lease is both justified and affordable, I will ask the same question as someone else did earlier. This will sound like I am picking on Double A but I an not, it is just that he is one of the few to step up and express his personal reasons for leasing in trying to give us the other side. If you currently lease 220 acres for %1500.00, which is less than $7.00 per acre, what will really happen if and when that does jump to $60.00 an acre or $13,200.00 per year? If you had to pay that today, would you and if you would how would you? I am sure that you don't believe that will ever happen but I know of places here that are leasing for up to $40.00 per acre, so it really might not be that far off. Many will say that if it causes a hardship on their families then they will just quit hunting but as long as you can afford it it won't effect you. I wonder how long it would take for these hunters quiting bow hunting and there for not buying new equipment to have an impact on your business and there by making that lease unaffordable. What is your magic number and how quickly will it be surpassed?
I firmly believe that leasing is very bad for hunting and as long as we accept the idea that I better do it before someone else does because it is the way it will be, we are destroying what we have for future generations. If it take the average hunter spending several thousand dollars just for a place for him and perhaps his family to reserve a place to hunt then we will have very few average hunters and just a few rich hunters with very deep pockets to either pay for leases or to pay an outfitter who in turn pays even bigger bucks for the lease. If we drop to a very small number of rich hunters who will only spend the dollars to hunt trophies then what happens to the doe population and the deer herd in general? If it explodes like I'm sure it would then what the farmers loose in crops to deer currently will be just a drop in the bucket. While I can understand some of the reasons a person might purchase a lease I still think that it will ultimately lead to our downfall.
