Deer lease

Looking for deer hunting lease lmk what ya got !

Mkfrey96 said:

Looking for deer hunting lease lmk what ya got !

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Me too!

Same here, in the southern part of the state.

Me too

If any of you guys that are looking also find something and need another member hit me up !

I've been asking every single person I know about leasing or getting access to land here. For the last 5 years. Not a single peep of a response. There isn't even a property open to lease at any cost in St. Mary's county, so far as I can tell.

Nothing advertised as being available on the more or less open market .

As a general principle , if you approached enough landowners with increasingly larger offers , supply and demand will eventually cross .

Whether the resulting number is within your budget , or What you abstractly consider such a lease to be worth is another question .

Me too, Calvert County preferably!

I'm not sure about the rest of the state, but much of the eastern shore private land is controlled by a couple of lease brokers. Waterman properties is one of them. they have a bad habit of charging a reasonable lease fee the first year and then crank up the cost the next. We leased a piece (119 acres) in Hope, Md a few years back. Lease was $7500 a year, 10 person max. the next year it was $10000. Since they have contracts with so many landowners it's very hard (boarding on impossible) to find a landowner or farmer that will lease directly to a hunter or hunting club.

The property I currently hunt is being developed starting in 2022. I am seriously considering using the money I would normally pay for a lease to do guided hunts in the western part of the country to hunt animals I have never harvested. Elk, Mullies, Moose...ETC. I was planning to pull the trigger (no pun intended) on a feral hog hunt this year down south, but the NRA show is cancelled so I may have to do my own research or wait...

good luck finding a lease...It's not easy..

I have said this before

Find a farmer and make him your friend

Offer to help out any way you can

Help with farm work, every farmer needs help they may not act like it but trust me they do

Do you know how to fix stuff? Mechanically inclined? No, do you have a strong back snd a weak mind, perfect. Can you drive snd help move equipment. Shit, can you shovel shit or pick up trash that trespasser leave laying around?

I am quitting farming for health reasons but I almost begged for help here and all I got was stuff like” eww, who would do filthy hard farm type labor, it’s easier just to pay money”

That attitude keeps private land PRIVATE

think about it

44man said:

I have said this before

Find a farmer and make him your friend

Offer to help out any way you can

Help with farm work, every farmer needs help they may not act like it but trust me they do

Do you know how to fix stuff? Mechanically inclined? No, do you have a strong back snd a weak mind, perfect. Can you drive snd help move equipment. Shit, can you shovel shit or pick up trash that trespasser leave laying around?

I am quitting farming for health reasons but I almost begged for help here and all I got was stuff like” eww, who would do filthy hard farm type labor, it’s easier just to pay money”

That attitude keeps private land PRIVATE

think about it

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Unfortunately landowners like that are a few and far between anymore. While I'm sure some would graciously accept any help they could get in my experience most would rather have the money. When granting permission to hunt on a hundred or so acres can get you six or $7,000 a year which is way more than enough to pay the property taxes that's what they opt for. Least brokers like waterman pay landowners well for permission to sublet their property to hunting clubs. There are also quite a number of landowners who simply refuse to allow anyone to hunt on their property. Not because they are anti-hunting but because of liability concerns. Have somebody accidentally get shot, fall out of a tree stand or get injured in any other way and you could lose your farm. At the very least it could cost you a bundle in legal fees just to clear your name. I've been hunting in Maryland on private property since I was 12 years old. Back when I was a kid it was nothing to go knock on a farmer's door and trade labor for permission. I worked two whole Summers on a 12,000 acre dairy farm in Culpeper Virginia. I worked my ass off tending to the dairy herd, humping bales of hay and moving farm equipment but it was worth it when you knew you had permission to hunt 12,000 acres with only six other people. Those days long gone.

Muleskinner said:

Unfortunately landowners like that are a few and far between anymore. While I'm sure some would graciously accept any help they could get in my experience most would rather have the money. When granting permission to hunt on a hundred or so acres can get you six or $7,000 a year which is way more than enough to pay the property taxes that's what they opt for. Least brokers like waterman pay landowners well for permission to sublet their property to hunting clubs. There are also quite a number of landowners who simply refuse to allow anyone to hunt on their property. Not because they are anti-hunting but because of liability concerns. Have somebody accidentally get shot, fall out of a tree stand or get injured in any other way and you could lose your farm. At the very least it could cost you a bundle in legal fees just to clear your name. I've been hunting in Maryland on private property since I was 12 years old. Back when I was a kid it was nothing to go knock on a farmer's door and trade labor for permission. I worked two whole Summers on a 12,000 acre dairy farm in Culpeper Virginia. I worked my ass off tending to the dairy herd, humping bales of hay and moving farm equipment but it was worth it when you knew you had permission to hunt 12,000 acres with only six other people. Those days long gone.

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You gotta look harder and try harder

We have always had farmland but I have never, ever, been told no if I wanted to hunt any farmland in southern md. Maybe it’s because of my name, or reputation or the fact that my family has always helped other farmers.

But befriend a farmer, help out , really help out and see how it turns out.

We always needed help. Always. Cutting tobacco. Hauling corn and beans. Moving equipment. Repairing equipment, working on junk. Grading roads, siding barns, cutting tire poles bailing and picking up and stacking hay.

Shit work? Every bit of it, but it’s all gotta be done.

Like I said, I begged, here, and no one wanted to help do “filthy farm work” because giving money was easier. Plenty people offered money, I didn’t need money I needed help. Plenty people just wanted to hunt, no help and no money, hilarious

Wanna hunt, find snd help a farmer. And don’t be the dick that hurts himself or others and sues. You are correct, idiots are a liability not worth taking on

Would be very cool to find. If anyone is interested in co-op, or working with others on this kind of thing, I might be interested....

44man said:

You gotta look harder and try harder

We have always had farmland but I have never, ever, been told no if I wanted to hunt any farmland in southern md. Maybe it’s because of my name, or reputation or the fact that my family has always helped other farmers.

But befriend a farmer, help out , really help out and see how it turns out.

We always needed help. Always. Cutting tobacco. Hauling corn and beans. Moving equipment. Repairing equipment, working on junk. Grading roads, siding barns, cutting tire poles bailing and picking up and stacking hay.

Shit work? Every bit of it, but it’s all gotta be done.

Like I said, I begged, here, and no one wanted to help do “filthy farm work” because giving money was easier. Plenty people offered money, I didn’t need money I needed help. Plenty people just wanted to hunt, no help and no money, hilarious

Wanna hunt, find snd help a farmer. And don’t be the dick that hurts himself or others and sues. You are correct, idiots are a liability not worth taking on

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44---glad to hear that someone still thinks this way. I have run into a lot of what muleskinner mentions. I don't blame someone for wanting the money instead. I have had success on a VERY limited basis fixing equipment for one gentleman but, through no fault of his, the relationship was soured after less than six months. His neighbors threw a fit about me blasting groundhogs and the odd crow. Between "interview the officer" sessions and similar, I decided to dagger the arrangement. He wasn't interested in telling them off and I wasn't going to engage them in any verbal interaction because that would cause him trouble. Most simply say no, or the land is being leased via one of the management firms.

For about a year or so, I was shooting groundhogs and other assorted pests for a livestock farm but they insisted that I use only a .22 mounted with a suppressor. Given the size of the property and its layout, this got old fast. I demonstrated the ability to precisely engage a groundhog sized target (using a suppressed varmint rifle) at a distance selected by the property owner (just over 400yd, what he had in his front pasture) and offered to limit engagements to that but that didn't fly. He was surprised by the impact but otherwise unmoved.

I understand both sides of the argument here. It is a shame that some jerks have sued, littered, caused neighbor problems (cardinal sin in the outlying areas), and otherwise abused the good nature of farmers.