I've been reading a few books on hunting recently, with the latest being "Whitetail Access" by Chris Eberhart. He talks about hunting cheaply, but most of his hunting consists of private land. In the last chapter I read, he talks about how he is worried that hunting is going the way of the English; being for the wealthy. All this is in reference to the fact that you used to be able to just walk up and ask farmers for permission to hunt, and they were fine with it. Now, everyone wants to make money.

It's cool to read about his adventures and being able to hunt these amazing places without spending a dime, but it sure does seem like a dream.

Well not nearly as much ag anymore, alotta the old ag has been planted for timber harvest and or bought up by timber companies for this purpose. When they do this an you got tons of land just idlin you might as well lease it to somebody, then folks get stingy and lease wars start and drive up prices so your individual land owners see this and trhink well somebody is payin them X amount so i can get that to. Also theys alot more people huntin nowadays then the glory days of Hey you care if i hunt... Not a bit go right ahead. I wish it was different but really you cant blame folks. Thats why ive mostlty hunted public land, and mostly hunt with a bow because i never had anywhere to rifle hunt. Permission to hunt private land for free is pretty special in todays world.

Since I picked up bowhunting, its opened several doors to hunt small, private properties. Most people don't want a stranger on their property with a gun. I always call ahead a day or so before I go hunt, just so owners can be expecting me.

...and don't wear out your welcome. Over do it and you might not get invited back.

I enjoy being in a HC but my best hunting is on 20, 40 and 55 acres

I know in the Midwest like Ohio and Michigan there is still a lot of private hunting available. Most of the guys I know there get farmer's permission to hunt. Apparently there is a lot of state-owned land too that is free for hunting.

It seems like the common non wealthy working people are going to be hard pressed to find good quality land in the closer than I want future.

Helmet on for the onslaught of rebuke I'll get for this (always do), but it's very simply a matter of supply and demand. When I hear people these days pleading about "we must get our children into hunting or we're gonna lose the sport" I bug my eyes out and burst into laughter!!! Everybody hunts, and all the land is leased.

Similarly, try taking your bass boat to any lake on a Saturday now. And the fishing isn't as good anywhere as it used to be because every fish has a dozen hook holes in it's lips and has been dragged to the other end of the lake in a livewell. It's pretty much the same with deer hunting....few people will say that hunting is as good today as it used to be.

Since there are 75 different Bass trails now

That's where most of his hunting was done. His specific example was finding a farmer that gave him permission to hunt, but after he called a week before going out there, the farmer told him he didn't realize people were so interested in hunting so he was going to start leasing the land. He still allowed Chris to hunt, but leased the land the day he was done.

It can be done, but takes a lot of research and persistence. Last year I got access to a 20 acre piece across from my house in exchange for keeping any eye on it. This year I am working on a 40 and 50 acre piece that adjoin the 20 acres.

Yep I hunt 120 acres around my house with an absentee land owner for free. In return I keep people from dumping trash and cooking meth in a old abandoned house on the property. I also assisted the timber cutters find corner posts and property lines. With a little Google stalking, and property tax map research you can find some land.

Yup, this ^^^^

Hell, public land isnt even free anymore. In MS you have to buy the WMA endorsement on your license. $15

How old is Eberhart's book? i can't believe a farmer in this day and time wouldn't know that people would be "that interested in hunting" and would pay for the rights.

Bowhunting will open more doors than you realize on probably smaller tracts that could have big deer (if that's what you want) or enough to keep you interested and happy. Find five or six or more of these smaller tracts, cultivate relationships, etc. and always keep looking. Sorta like turkey hunting. You can never have enough contacts or places to hunt.

It was published in 2008. It makes sense in his book, I just don't want to type out the whole chapter. He was an old dude that got his wife's fathers farm in the middle of no where and didn't hunt at all himself.

To me this notion is silly. Is premier hunting in top notch managed land with exclusive access for the wealthy....yea. But this state and nearly every region of the country has hundreds of thousands of acres of public land open to anyone for free. I don't understand the people who whine about the challenges of public land hunting, and then also whine about how expensive it is to lease private land or join a club. If you want free or cheap hunting.....well expect some difficulties. Fewer and fewer people are hunting public land while more and more are complaining about how much they hate their club or timber company.

Blame the State. We've got about the lowest amount of public land set aside in the country. And we've got terrible hunting on that land because we have terrible management of our natural resources. The deer don't belong to the landowner they belong to the State.

Other than that the days of knocking on doors to deer hunt are pretty much over. You can still get away with it with waterfowl but that is because birds are here today and gone tomorrow. "Hey can I go out here behind your house and shoot these ducks" in this field or snow geese... the answer a lot of times is "Yes" in places like S. Dakota.

Deer the answer is almost always "No".

Bowhunting can open a lot of doors though to smaller tracts in suburban areas.

How so? Find me one place in this state that is not within about an hour drive of thousands of acres of public hunting land.

While I agree that it's tougher to find private land for free or very low cost, comparing what we have now with the English/Euro feudal system is silly. I've heard that for 30 years and it hasn't happened, and I'm sure it was said in the 1970s and '60s and prior.

It's supply and demand. I know a few places that are small, wooded, would be great for hunting with a bow and crossbow. If the owner had Me vs. Paying Hunter, even if it was a modest payment, chances are good he'd probably take the latter. Money, unfortunately, talks when it comes down to it in a lot of cases.

I know a guy who bowhunts exclusively and he used to do this. He had access to small parcels, didn't hunt them often, kept in touch with the owners, and if he lost one he didn't fume or get pissy about it. He thanked the owner, said if things changed to let him know, and wished him well.

Just part of it. Unless you're in a special location, have awesome relationship skills, or the world reverts to 1948 again, we're not going back to the days of patchwork farming, a handfull of shells in the coat pocket to potluck a rabbit or a few quail and Ol' Mitchell letting you hunt and roam on the farm.

In my nearly 20 years of doing "farm" insurance (I work with Alfa) I obviously make many relationships with many farmers and other large landowners. In all that time I've only had ONE farmer say YES I could hunt on his land. And even that guy apparently let everybody hunt there...heck it was worse than a WMA. The common denominator with all the NO's is that they hunt themselves, or their family hunts it. Literally, every-dang-human in Alabama apparently hunts.
I have a lady near Talladega, AL who owns 800 acres (about half pasture and the rest small pines). She's 77 years old, widowed for years now. There are always turkeys in her pasture, and I "jokingly" asked her about letting me hunt those turkeys and she said "My grandDAUGHTERS would be so mad, they hunt those turkeys!" She also joked that everybody in the county has asked her to hunt. Which substantiates my point--when you get asked by everybody, you basically have to allow nobody.

Yep. Put up or shut up. We are in sue happy 2017. People rarely let people frolic or piddle on their land for good reason. How in the hell can somebody expect to hunt another mans land free of charge? 30-40-50 years ago maybe so.


Hunting has become so popular that you'll rarely find a piece of unhunted land. I know of a 500 acre piece in north port that the owner let one guy hunt it for free for 4-5 years under one condition. No guest at all for no reason. Well, the dumbass let a couple of his buddies secretly hunt it and guess what happened, bye Felicia! Now he won't let anyone hunt it for any amount of money. I've known this man and done business with him for 16 years. Very nice Christian man but I've learned not to even bring it up. My point is, people can't follow simple instructions and do what they're told.