loosing hunting property

[wrenchman]

It looks like i might be loosing the largest piece of property i hunt on i was told it was put up for sell.
the property owner has been selling off a little at a time and i cant blame him with the costs of the property taxs and the way
property prices have been going in the area we have been seeing houses growing almost as fast as corn.
we will still have some small sections to hunt if he does sell it but it wont be the same.
He is already getting offers and it dont look good i will loose my best spot.

[8X56MS]

I sure know the feeling.

Some time back, the timber company that leased land for one of the most productive Wildlife Management Areas in North Florida leased the choicest spots to a hunt club. The members of the club included top State officials, including the head of the Fish and Game Commission. My info tells me that the lease was a dollar a year, and in return, the timber company got some preferential treatment with State Business and regulation. Guess the truth will never be known, but thats the word on the street.

[fabsroman]

Yep, I am going through the same thing. The only good news I have heard on this subject recently is that new home sales decreased by 5% this January compared to last January, and the decline has been occuring for the last three months. Maybe, just maybe, house and land prices will come back to a reasonable level.

Me, I am seriously thinking about dishing out $1,800 to join a hunt club. The club seems really good, but I just hate the thought of spending that kind of money to hunt. Over 10 years, it will amount to $18,000, probably $20,000 if you take into consideration the interest I could earn on that money.

However, the reason I am thinking about joinging this club is because they assure that I can hunt any day of the season I want, they have a good amount of ducks, and it is a lot cheaper than paying per hunt. Now, I just need to sell it to the wife.

[wrenchman]

I have talked to the wife and we have been talking of buying some property i just cant stand the prices but like fabs said new home have been slowing .
On the side note with fabs the economics in mich are slideing with the closeing of large factorys and cost of gas i might be abel to get something

[gd357]

In know what you guys are going through. Last year we lost one of our best hunting spots. The absolute best place to turkey hunt in the area, and we took a few nice deer there too. I've got a few places that will be there for a while, but its still disconcerting to see the direction things are heading.

gd

[Dom]

I know I'm out of touch, but every time I'm back in the states to areas I grew up I can hardly believe the change. Housing up the yahoo, new supermarkets and shopping centers -- and hey, I grew up a country boy -- up in the Thumb or 100 miles North of Detroit.

I've thought of property too -- trouble is, you pay taxes on it every year and the bigger it is the more tax you pay. You might get off cheaper if it's farmland with some brush and lease the farming, but still . . . you gotta have tax bucks available to hold onto it for a lot of years. Hope you can keep what you got wrenchman, I feel for you.

Fabs, yes, be great to have a piece of your own, but that money you spend in taxes to hold it can be applied to joining a hunt club, at least that's how I'd look at it, Waidmannsheil, Dom.

[Skyline]

Every time I read a thread like this it depresses me. I feel for you guys that are living in areas where these problems exist.

It makes me appreciate living where I do, where I and can walk out the back door and hunt moose, elk, bear etc.......not to mention living in the mallard capitol of North America.

I know it is tempting to try and buy a piece of land near where you live, but maybe you boys would be better off investing in a chunk further away in an area that will not get turned into lots anytime in the near future. You may not be able to just go and hunt for an afternoon, but it would be there for hunting trips year after year, instead of constantly fighting the urban sprawl.

[fabsroman]

Skyline,

I have been thinking about buying something a little further away. I was actually thinking about central Virginia, but I don't know what the waterfowling is like over there. At the end of the day, I would love to own something on Maryland's Eastern shore, but only time will tell if that dream will ever come true. I guess I just have to work hard.

[DaMadman]

Well once I move out to my property in Big Sky Country all of you huntchat boys will have a welcome invite to hunt my 23 acres.

I lost 600 acres that I used to hunt about 5-10 years ago and even though I still have a great place to hunt boy to I still miss it a bunch

[Classicvette63]

I've been saying it for awhile. If you want a place to hunt in the future, you better beg, borrow or steal the money to buy a piece of your own land now.

[rubicon]

I bit the bullet and joined the club Fabs is looking at. I thought long and hard on this one but it seemed my only choices living near suburbia were to travel 200 miles each way to hunt the mountains which really limit the hunting days, hunt public land which around here is scary, sit on the couch and wish I was hunting, book outfitters which I cant afford to do very often, or hunt club. The sad thing is these farmers are realizing they have a great resource at their finger tips where they can make money and require the people who lease to carry liability insurance to reduce their risks. One farmer near me has a large farm but he got sixty five thousand a year for a renewable hunt lease. I was told before heleased it he allowed hunting on his property.
Whats a fellow to do?

[fabsroman]

We are faced with a dillemma here. Granted, I don't want to pay for the right to hunt on property, but I also don't want these farmers to sell their land to developers and have houses built there.

I am just utterly thrilled that new home construction is stalling. I think half of this disaster is the construction companies fault. What I really do not understand is why we need so many NEW homes when the US population isn't growing that quickly.

What we should require is that developers re-develop areas that have become "too" old. Plus, what really irritates me is that what wsa considered a great house 50 years ago is merely considered a shack nowadays. Construction companies are making homes bigger and bigger to satisfy the competitive edge that most people have (i.e., mine is bigger than yours).

At the end of the day, I might be going this hunting club, but the sad thing is that I want to do too many things right now with limited funds.

[skeeter@ccia.com]

Looking for land to hunt in eastern Pa for bear season I found if you didn't belong to a hunt club, free land was small. But still available. We found one such free place just outside a hunt club only to find the members of it all parked their vehicles outside the gates and down the road to block the parking area where open land was on the other side of their fence. Low and behold, as the light came on in the morning, our side of the fence was covered with the club members in such numbers, we only hunted there one day. Is this the kind of poeple that join these places?..I want no part of them in that case.
We are better off getting our Game Commission to buy more land and open it to the public before we go the way of the west where you have to spend 65 thousand dollars to lease a farm.
I do have access to 6 large farms from a family that does not believe in selling for housing but one of the best slopes (can watch for hogs from the hilltop) the bottom land joins another farm. Guess where this farmer decided to sell a portion of his land for houses?..Even though it isn't on the land I hunt, it now kills oportunity to hunt that whole portion of the open farm.
I still say even though some might have to be sold just to pay taxes etc, most of it boils down to greed..greed..the almighty $$..grandpappys and pappys worked the land but jr now just wants to sell it off and buy one of those mine is bigger houses for himself..Just last night on the way home I took a backroad past a horse riding stable to check on some dates only to find it closed and (I knew the pappy passed) it now is subdivided into 4 to 40 acre lots..such is America...Land of the free..Land..remember they don't make any more of that either..
so they buy acres of land, build a large building, close it in a few years..put for sale on it..then someone buys the land next to that and does the same thing..guess it is cheaper to buy woods, strip it, build on it than to buy what is already there? Where is the planning commission?