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.

This is true, too.

When I had my visit with Tom Kelly, we talked about the access to hunting land. His opinion was that basically within our children's lifetime, hunting will be only for the privileged and wealthy, much like England. I actually could see that happening in 2 more generations.

Dr. B

I have been told that anything "free" loses value to those using it. Only property that people have invested in will be worth anything. Don't expect someone else to provide something you want . Would you prefer a version of the ACA, or AFFORDABLE HUNTOING ACT ? I personally don't want a single provider hunting land option. Then I would get priced out.

In the Mid-west often the WMA's are better or as good as private land. The hunters don't kill as many young deer as done here. The farmers lease their farms to the state for hunting. Most of them are not as good a hunter as hunters here.

The land is not free even for the landowners. Property taxes go up every year so I can't blame landowners for charging for hunting rights if they need the money.

Yep. And even if I was offered land to hunt for free, I'd probably spend lots of dollars to maintain and improve it for mine and the owner's benefit. If some little old lady was your Grandmother, would you want guys hunting her place for free. I think a few bucks per acre is fair and reasonable.

Years ago when I was in my early twenties, people would ride, hunt and do whatever on the pipelines back home in NW Florida. Well, a guy I grew up with went out there with a bunch of buddies drinking and set several hundred thousand dollars worth of earth moving equipment on fire "for fun". Shortly after, the dirt road that allowed access was mounded over and they completely restricted access. One idiot in a million screws it up for everyone.

The examples provided by MarksOutdoors and EHH are just two of many and why a lot of landowners say, "No" when asked. They fear that stupid chit will eventually happen or the guest will violate intentionally or accidentally one of the requests/requirements for permission to be there.

It used to be "Close the gates, don't let the cows out, keep only what you need" and you'd offer to help around the property, take them some ducks or deer or fish or whatever, make damned sure the gate was closed and locked or bolted, and you always stopped by to say thank you when you were done.

Plus all the sue happy people in this world. If they got hurt on your land whether their fault or not they can own you

As others have said, its simple supply demand. Most don't realize, but in the last 65 years the population of the united states has DOUBLED. Even with a drop in the percentage of people that hunt, there probably hasn't been a drop in the number of hunters. I could be wrong on that, just a WAG.

l have a buddy that is a master at getting permission on little private honey holes. He has the golden touch, no doubt!

And again. Find an out of town or elderly land owner. I've got permission to hunt 600 acres near my house. And he initiated the talks.

I would like to know this as well. Just look at Oak Mtn St Park. You can join the Bow Hunters Association and hunt for $3.00 a day I think. And that could be the highest population of deer in the state. Remember bringing in the night hunters with rumors of killing thousands? Now you have to work for it to kill one.

Wonder if I know her. I bet they bought pumpkins from my granddaddy. That could be your in!

Gone for good in Jackson County I'm afraid.

You can get access, killed 3 turkeys this year on a 80 acre plot im allowed to hunt. But I started with over 300 acres to hunt, then 250 of it got leased and I couldbt pay it. So I got the 80 acres. But Im happy to have it, and will be giving the wife a flower bouquet and the husband a jar of homemade bread and butter pickles.

Based on percentage of land in the state designated Public access to hunting, it is about 7% of all land in Alabama. It is one of the lowest in all of the US. Steven Rinella's book "The Complete Guide To Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game: Volume 1" covers it in more detail in regard to where Alabama ranks among other states.

Up until a few years ago I would hunt on a farm in Kentucky every year for free. Farmers wanted all the deer killed as they were eating up all their profits. That all changed and now they all lease it out and are making some good money on it. Free hunting is quickly going down the drain. Hunting lease prices are fastly going up and up.

"How the outdoor channel killed hunting for the common man". There's a book for ya.

I fish after work on weekdays. Guntersville is a madhouse on the weekends. I need to do a little recon and find some out of the way spots, but not sure they exist.

This is the lamest excuse people use. If it's your land you can let the first person who asks hunt, or the 279th person who asks. If someone told me "if i let you i have to let everybody" I'd tell them they must not own the land if they can't decide who does or doesn't hunt on that property

I use to hunt a small farm back in the day for free but actually worked my ass off to hunt it. I volunteered my time to help the farmer with his farm and he took advantage of my help. I didn't mind because of the deer I was seeing and killing when I did hunt it. I also gave him generous portions of processed deer meat that he & his wife greatly appreciated. I always knew where the deer were because he would tell me what he saw in between my visits. I lost that farm when his grandsons got old enough to hunt. If one puts in the time and studies the property maps, those nuggets of hunting land can still be found.

The agreement I have with the land owner of the property I hunt is to kill a few deer and hogs for their freezer and to take care of keeping the fields and roads clean up.
Its about 300 acres and gets to be a lot of work sometimes but that only lasts for a couple weeks out of the year.
I would start hunting WMA's more if I lost this land because the thought of being in a club is not appealing at all to me.

GONE

I'm content hunting public land. Tried the door to door method, was just too much hassle and too dissapointing

That certainly may be true. However I would rather have 7% of Alabama to hunt with liberal seasons than 50% of Utah with highly restricted seasons. 7% of Alabama is still 2.3 million acres of free hunting land. And ours is much more accessible and closer to population centers than most of the land out west.

Private land hunting is big business. Deer leases in AL are still reasonable but, as one example, leasing private duck ground in a flyway state is reaching astronomical numbers. Every year I ask myself, "do I want to pay this much for this experience?" I could spend a third to half as much as go on a public land DIY hunt out west for 2 weeks.

Gary Palmer's office knows me by name cause I frequently light him up on the republican platform issue of liquidating public lands. I will never understand why the republican party has decided that positioning itself against outdoorsmen should be a key issue in their agenda.

Lack of land and high lease prices promotes piddlin

Unfortunately I'm in the category of "I don't even want you looking across my property". And don't think that the property owner doesn't keep a mental list of the guys who only call when they wanna hunt or fish. Happens every year. Without fail. You know who you are.

This is one of the two main problems. Timber companies control a huge chunk of this state's hunting land now. Sure they lease the hunting rights on a lot of it but at a premium price. A lot of lower income people who used to hunt deer primarily for the meat just can't justify paying 1200 to 1700 dollars to join a hunting club where they can shoot 3 to 5 deer tops. If they are hunting primarily for the meat and it's going to cost 4 to 5 hundred dollars per deer then they are better off just going to the meat section at Winn Dixie. LOL!



Well it's a little different. You are free to take your boat to the river or lake. You do have access. Most if not all of the major water ways in Alabama are open to the public. Now how good the fishing is once you get there is another matter. But you can go. Most land in Alabama is private on the other hand and therefore off limits.



This is the second major difference maker in Alabama. Most of the people here that still control some private land are either hunting it themselves or letting other family members hunt it. It was weird when I used to go on bow hunts with a friend up in Illinois. I was amazed at how few deer hunters we encountered in the area we were hunting. Hell, I used to see more people squirrel hunting than bow hunting for deer on the private land we were on. Down here if a farmer with deer rich land like that was as open to letting people hunt his land as that guy was, his place would look like the parking lot at a Pearl Jam concert. Also, farmers up there want deer killed off their place. A buddy and I were eating lunch at a burger joint up there in between hunts one day and a guy noticed our camo clothing. He came over to the table; struck up a conversation with us and offered to let us hunt his place. That just doesn't happen in Alabama folks. LOL!

Todd, I think the big issue with Illinois is the gun season being so short. They only give em a week. To be hardcore up there you have to bow hunt, which requires a lot more skill. Any yahoo in Alabama can tote a rifle for 3 months. But I wouldn't change our seasons. I'm one of those yahoos.

Well shoot me a pm with your number and I'll call ya every week or two and chew the fat for a few minutes if that's all it takes.

We're going the way of Europe. Where hunting of any kind has become a sport of the rich and rarely available to anyone other than upper class eliteists.
Sadly we've done it to ourselves. Dog deer hunters are the number one reason. Land owners were forced to limit access and form hunting clubs to protect themselves from criminal tresspassing dog hunters.
Then along came the Jackie Bushman and Ray Scott making hunting and fishing a fashion statement. Thus attracting the lawyer preppies and ivy league carpet baggers to our deer dense forests. This led to highest bidder hunting leases and here we are. No more free hunting.

It appears to me that there's quite a bit of butt hurt here. Lots of whining about how the rich people got us down and how it's always some other idiot's fault that I can't hunt and kill big deer like they do on TV.

Yes, the dude who has access to thousands of acres and somehow all the time and money to manage it is probably going to see/kill more deer than you. Who cares? Why do you care what he's doing? Maybe you should make friends with him and beg and plead that he takes you with him? Go vote Democrat and we can spread the wealth so you have hunting property too. Except HA! because hunting violates the animals rights and it's mean.

Finally, this hunting for meat thing... I love venison, my kids love venison, but only a fool actually think it's somehow cheaper than buying ground beef. IF (big if here) you were given a gun, with all the ammo and equipment it will need, AND have the means and method to make all the cuts yourself, AND don't ever hunt a stand AND don't ever buy hunting gear (cold weather type, boots, and all the goofy crap we buy) AND your neighbor has no problems with you hunting his property, you may find it cheaper to hunt than roll down to the grocery store. Every person I've ever met who says "I only hunt for meat" has spent a small fortune on deer hunting crap.

Let's say you've managed to find a marlin 30-30 with a decent optic for 350 bucks. The guy was super generous and threw 2 boxes of core-lokt at you. You then managed to be the first guy in the door when gander went to 50% off and you were able to somehow find a set of bibs and jacket that actually fits, with the miraculously untouched size 11.5 hunting boots with gloves, hat, and smartwool socks for an out-the-door total of an unheard of 100$. Just for grins. Throw in the Ameristep climber you got from walmart for 75$ and the 100$ in gas you spent driving to and from the 15 acres your uncle lets you hunt all season. And you got a doe and a fork horn... 120lbs of meat, that you paid 60$ per deer to have cut up for you..
grand total of 745.00...At 2.35 a lb for the cheap stuff at Walmart, you can sure get quite a bit for $745. 317 lbs actually.

I was going to apologize for ranting, but then I thought about it and decided that I shouldn't. I will say this. If you need food and actually will go hungry if it's not for deer meat, PM me so I can help put food on your table. From the grocery store, I sure as hell won't be sharing my venison .

I've never had free hunting land. And I don't mind paying better money for premium land. And I'm fine with everybody complaining about it because that's one less person to compete with. I don't wish land was so pricey to lease, but oh well. Just be glad landowners are willing to lease out rights. If it's such a big deal go buy your own land.