Lost My Hunting Land

[Newt]

There's a place not too far from where I live that I love to hunt. A buddy's grandparents own somewhere close to 800± acres about 25 miles from my house. It's great hunting land, and so far has just been the family hunting with a few friends on the whole place and a joining piece of land of about 300 acres. I just found out that my buddy's uncle (who is set to inherit the land) isn't going to let anyone who's not family hunt up there before long.

It's great hunting land, and I understand it's family land, but I sure am going to miss it. I can't say that I blame him, but the last thing I want to do is be somewhere I'm not wanted. My buddy would love to take me, but it looks like he's not going to have any say in it anymore. Just wanted to vent.... Looks like I'll be looking for some public land from now on.

 

[birddog]

Over the past 5 years, I've lost five properties on which I've hunted for years. It leaves a bitter taste, for sure. Sorry for your loss.

 

[Karbon]

All hunters fear this more than most other things in life.

Sorry on the loss man. Good luck finding some other land.

 

[DogBonz]

Maybe you could get an exception

Offer to help with the maintenance of the property or to "keep an eye on it" because you live so close. Hell, if you really like hunting there, try a little begging...

 

[birddog]

All hunters fear this more than most other things in life.

You know, most people would say "oh, that's being melodramatic". But you are 100% correct.

Especially with places where you've made memories, giving them up and relegating your experiences there to "the past", really is hard.

 

[swampgator]

Insurance

From the landowner standpoint one of the biggies is liability insurance. Ask him if he has it and if so how much money per year. Offer to help pay it in return for hunting priviliges.

 

['Card]

Want to know what's even worse than losing permission? When a coal company comes in and decides to strip mine the land where you and your family have hunted for decades. Although it isn't really strip mining anymore, they call it "mountaintop removal" these days. It utterly devastates everything. Hills are leveled, creeks and hollers are filled in, every tree is cut down.

The reason why I think it's worse is that when you lose permission, you can always hope to get it back. When the coal companies take over, the land is destroyed. It won't be worth anything for hunting for 40-50 years after they're done, and even then it will be a completely different landscape.

It hurts a lot. I've always looked forward to taking my son hunting on the spot where I killed my first buck - but it looks like the surface of the #*&^%$ moon now.

 

[swampgator]

Strip mining

That stinks. Not just because you can't hunt it, but because it sounds like it destroys the land.

Funny how most hunters are actually environmentalists also.

 

[Cosmoline]

That's horrible, 'card.

 

['Card]

Don't get me wrong - I'm not against coal mining in general. It's an important source of energy, and the industry provides a lot of jobs back home where people need them pretty badly. Strip mining isn't really the problem either. It used to be that the only coal that was strip mined was the coal that you really couldn't access from a deep (shaft) mine because it was too close to the surface - so it was fairly limited. The problem is that in the last 10 years or so, heavy equipment technology has advanced to the point where it is now marginally more cost-effective (and therefore slightly more profitable) to simply remove the mountain rather than digging a shaft under it.

Deep mines have a pretty low environmental impact, believe it or not. You've generally got a few roads for hauling in and out, a shaft opening carved into the face of the mountain, and a support area, and that's really about it other than the occasional ventilation shaft - and those are nearly invisible unless you walk right up on them.

But this mountaintop removal is a different beast entirely. Let me show you what I mean....

This is one of the areas where I used to hunt. It was remote, wild, and all forest.

This is what it looks like now.

 

[sixgunner455]

That is beyond sad. It is immoral, and should be criminal to abuse the land like that.

There's a lot of shaft-type mines around here, and one open-pit mine. I can hunt over the old shaft mines. The open-pit is copper, so I guess that might be the only way to get it.

 

[trickyasafox]

i hope someday to be financially comfortable enough to have my own land. If not only for my sake but for my father. the man loves the outdoors more than anything i hope someday i can give back to him for all he has done for me

 

[Newt]

All hunters fear this more than most other things in life. --Karbon

Me losing hunting privilages is something that sounds to trivial, and in the whole scheme of things, it really probably is, but that statement says a whole lot.

Card, I hate to hear about your place. I too was hoping to take my son up to this place to have him kill his first buck. We found out about 2 months ago, (my wife is pregnant) ours is going to be a boy (our first).

I appreaciate all the suggestions too, but I don't think the uncle is going to go for anybody but family from next year, on. I'll have to find something else. In the back of my mind, I knew it would happen. I just didn't want it to become reality.

 

[992]

strip mine

I worked most of my life on the surface mines of S.W. Virginia,and hunted most of my time on the same.
The company I worked for,when we reclaimed tthe land it went from almost straight up and down land,to land that was rolling pasture land and flat industrial parks that gave places for companies to build on so that we could at least have some kind of industry after the minning was finished, so that our children would not have to leave and go to the city to make a living.
Most people who cry aout the leveling of moutian tops never had to live on the side of said moutians!
After the land is finished being reclaimed,and the grass and trees are sown and planted,there is more game and wildlife than there ever was.
By the way reclaime surface mines is where the majority of the elk herd is being reintroduced in Kentucky,and they are doing fantasic!!
They even have had secessful hunting seasons on a limited draw sistem!!

I live in these moutains every day,and this is the way I see it.
Just my .02,

992

 

[MCgunner]

In Texas you either buy or you lease. There's really few other viable options. There is the Type 2 TP&W land, but it sux, all in the east Texas piney woods and very hard to hunt unless you live there and can scout and do what you gotta do there. Baiting isn't legal on those lands, but I've walked up on corn laying around before, locals "doing what they have to do".

 

[Karbon]

Man, 'card I don't even know what to say... So sad, and so permanent. Damn.

I look forward to deer and duck hunting all year, luckily they can't kick me out of the swamps so that hunting is safe. But my deer hunting is a different story. I save all my vacation time, sorry wife, for it and spend countless hours a year getting ready, buying gear, practice, chatting (duh) and thinking about it. It's my favorite time of the year. I (so far...knock on wood) have a good relationship with the land owner whos property we hunt. but I too know that there will be a day, for whatever reason, that we cannot hunt there. I also fear getting rejected in 10.7 years when my son is of hunting age. But for now I'm lucky.

As for you other individuals that are loosing, or lost hunting land...I feel for you all. Best wishes finding new land and if I had enough of my own (.65 acres now) , I'd invite you come hunt. If I had the ability to share beyond my family and friends, I would.

I wish anti's only realized how many of us are conservationists and sportsman...

 

[Art Eatman]

I sure know how that loss hurts. Our old family place was "attacked" by Austin's growth--urban elephantiasis. Cars killed more deer than I could. The taxes per acre got higher per year than my grandfather's buy-price per acre.

Which is why I bought my little chunk of desert. No great numbers of anything, but cheap land and lots of absentee landowners who never come out here. Nobody ever goes to the east side of the huge state park next door, so I might as well own it.

Art

 

[Karbon]

Art, out of sick curiosity...

How much per acre of desert?

 

[ZeSpectre]

I don't hunt but I do hike and backpack a lot and you have my complete sympathy. I used to camp on the ridgeline of a mountain where you'd wake up in the morning, walk about 100 yards over to the bald and you were looking out at all God's creation. Just beautiful! Been going there for 16 years!

Landowner died and son sold it off to a developer who clearcut the whole ridgeline started to build about 30 IDENTICAL McMansions...and then walked away from the whole thing when the housing market started to tank.

 

[MCgunner]

Which is why I bought my little chunk of desert. No great numbers of anything, but cheap land and lots of absentee landowners who never come out here. Nobody ever goes to the east side of the huge state park next door, so I might as well own it.

State park, Black Gap? I think it's in my type 2 book, but only thing I remember legal is birds and stink pigs.

Only thing about desert, yeah, it's cheap, but you need a section to have anything. LOL! I have 20 lousy acres here and deer all over it. But, I gotta feeder watch. Ain't really huntin'. I'd love to have just a portion of the ranch we had leased at Pumpville, just west of Langtrey. Fantastic hunting there, lots of draws and such. I loved hunting there. It was part of a hunting club I was in. Probably should have stayed in it, but I got to where I didn't like driving that far. We had leases close to home, but nothing worth the money it cost. That west Texas lease was really awesome, though.

 

[fordman650]

hunting land

sorry ' card know how you feel also, here in so oregon we lose some every year big ranches expanding ,people moving out of the city and buying it up we have mining companys moving in or expanding,we still have a lot but it is now taking longer to get there
Larry

 

[Art Eatman]

Karbon, back-country land is moving in a price range of $150 to $275 per acre. It depends on the views and ease of access. All the tracts, mostly 20- or 40-acres, have graded road access, but some tracts are more up-and-down than others. Anything near electricity is much higher; with water and electricity, even more.

These are resales by either the original buyers or by people who have bought for resale.

http://www.poatri.org/ is the website of the property owners association that's responsible for operation and maintenance of the motel, restaurant and the ranch office, and the maintenance of the roads. Around 200,000 acres; 1,100 miles of roads.

Art

 

[X-Rap]

I know the feeling

Here in Colorado we were first hit with the second home in the country real estate market, then the big money hunting leases, now the energy companys are buying every ranch that they can find. We have had the ranch land we rented cut by 60% in one sale and are worried about the rest of the rented stuff. The worst part of all this is that most of the new owners are anti or just don't want anyone on their land.I don't deny their right but it still hurts to see places that nobody cared if you hunted locked up.The energy companys especialy since they don't ranch and don't live on the property.