Buy your own hunting land?

[Propforce]

Hi guys,

I am fortunate that the land prices around here borders on affordable that I am considering buying my own land for hunting, mostly on deers & turkeys.

I can use your advices as to what to look for when shopping for land. Is there a minimum acreage I need to have? Having streams on the property? If the property is part of a mountain, is it better to have the land on top?, midpoint? valley?

I am not thinking charging others a fee to hunt but will probably get 3~4 buddies to share the maintenance duties, growing feeds, etc.

Most likely the land will be out in the boonies. Should I worry about poachers & others use my land for illegal activities? Will I need to "enforce" my property rights?

What do you guys think?

 

[horsemen61]

I also would like to hear the answers to the questions you asked

 

[savanahsdad]

as much as people like to own land on lakes and streams , great for camping land and other uses , but for hunting land I'd stay away from lakes and streams you can't/don't own the water, poachers/trespassers can walk the shore line right on to your land and there not breaking any laws in tell the get so many feet from the shore line , and I don't know about where you live but water front property has a higher tax here ,

 

[JRH6856]

I always thought 40 acres and a mule would be good. If nothing else, I could hunt the mule. ::

Seriously, I too would like to see the responses as I have been thinking about the same thing.

 

[toiville2feathers]

1. What kind of access is there.? Does it border a public road.
2. Does it have any covenants on it? Ingress- egress to other properties
3. Are the mineral rights with it and also the water rights?
4. Are there any hazardous waste site on it? (old meth labs-pot gardens)
5. When was it last surveyed by a CERTIFIED, LICENSED surveyor?
6. What kind of deed covers it, abstract deed, warranty deed,quit claim deed?
7. What kind of tax base applies, agricultural, recreational, developable, forest?
8. Any land use restrictions?
9. Was the land ever included in a treaty with native american tribes and once considered "ceded land"
10. Are there any pending public projects in the coming future that the property would be part of?

Thats all info you will need to negotiate or arrive at a price. I would STRONGLY advise you to buy only by land that has been recently surveyed. All sorts of EXPENSIVE problems arise over boundary and usage lines if it has gone uncontested for several years. Squatters do have rights i a lot of states.
If and when you do purchase, get title insurance, That initiates a search to make sure there are no liens, judgements and all previous transfers of owners were done correctly
Last, but most important, If you don't have a real estate agent of our own working in your behalf, consider getting yourself a lawyer to help with the closing? .
I own a fair sized chunks of land in 2 states and have experienced all the problems mentioned. Land is a good investment, they aren't making any more on this planet. It's a good feeling to own it, but it can and will cause you some grief once you own it.

 

[BigBore44]

I happen to have friends and family with substantial acreage. As little as 20 acres, all the way to several thousand acres. Some of the farms/ranches are primarily pasture and agriculture, some "mountains", and some is just old family land that is dense forrest and scrub brush. Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. It all has good populations of deer and turkey.

If I were in the market for hunting land, I would be looking for the following:
1. No less than 40 acres.
2. A maximum of 2 access roads.
3. A small creek or pond.
4. A couple acres of pasture or clear cut.
5. Not within 1/2 mile of major body of water (River or Lake)
6. Some kind of draw system.
7. Know the area around your parcel. What is around you determines what, if anything you need to do with your land.
8. Natural food sources or the ability to readily impliment food plots or feeders.
9. Posted signs everywhere.
10. Randomly placed trailcams to catch potential trespassers.
11. A few acres of heavy brush.
12. Go in and get rid of coyotes, bobcats, and fox.
13. This is just a preference. Have land close to a management area. When all the hunters pour in for season, they will push deer right to your property.


Your land needs the ability to either funnel deer between properties, the ability to provide bedding or safety for deer, or the ability to provide a healthy sustinance for deer. You don't have to have all 3. The most important is safety for the deer. So many people think food is the most important. They are way off. Think about this..... Would you be enticed to eat your most favorite meal if you had to walk through the middle of DMZ to get it? Of course not.

With 40 acres you're pretty much guaranteed to not be able to provide 2 of the 3. Now a couple hundred? Much more attainable to get 2 of the 3. But focus on safety.

The turkey aspect of it? Well, turkeys will cohabitate with deer. Creeks to ridges. Doesn't matter. But the couple acres of pasture will help hold them assuming they are already in the area.

 

[41 Mag]

All of the above sounds great, also consider mast type trees in your area. Oaks or whatever. If there are some you will have a better chance of holding some deer year round. Not necessarily to live there but they will hang tight to it.

We have 100 acres which has been divided through the years to this size. The surrounding properties are bigger and have more cover as most of ours is pasture. I set aside a 15 acre pasture for nothing but deer and they have responded well. We do not hunt them there nor do we tromp through there. I keep a food plot planted in the spring and fall and two feeders throwing minerals and corn for as long as I can afford to do so. It isn't uncommon to bump 15 - 18 deer out of there when we go in to check the feeders and fill them up.

That said, I also purchased 10 acres up the road. On that place it is thick enough rabbits don't even like it. It also has several big oaks along with some other brush they really like. We also had a friend come in with his bobcat and forestry mulcher and make us a few paths and open up an area in the middle about 75'ish by 300 feet or so. It also has a small pond which stays wet most of the year. On that we go through and throw out some oats or rye grass in the opening, and some peas in the spring. There are just as many deer holding up there if not more than there are on the 100 acres.

Personally if you have an area like above mentioned that the deer can feel safe, and use for a bedding area with some water and some type of food source within they will hang there year round. Look into what the area browse is as well as if there are any mast trees that grow well. planting supplemental foods can be a big plus as well, so you might want to have some portion open that will allow this. Even if you plant fruit trees in it your ahead in the game.

 

[Patocazador]

I bought 160 acres in the 70s in northern Wisconsin for $75/acre. Can't go wrong on that, right?
Wrong!

2/3 of it was marsh and bog but with no ducks. 1/3 was a ridge with red oaks with deer, etc. It bordered a neighbor who treated it as his and he and his sons hunted it whenever I was not there.
Absentee landowners got stuck with exorbitant taxes so the locals could get a break. After 20 years I sold it for $600/acre. I figured up inflation, taxes, insurance, etc. over the 20 years and I actually lost money. I also killed fewer than 5 deer on it due to its remoteness.

Leasing hunting land close to home would have served me much better.

 

[jrdolall]

Don't try to buy land for hunting if that's the only thing you plan to use it for. It is much cheaper to lease hunting rights from a farmer/rancher for the next 25 years than it is to purchase enough land to really enjoy. Now if land is less than $1k per acre this may not be true but paying $1500+ an acre for land that you don't plan to build a house on and just want to use for hunting can get mighty expensive.

With that said you can have enough land to enjoy hunting for yourself with 25 acres or less around where I live. I prefer creek bottoms for hunting but with small plots the creek really limits what you can do with the land.

 

[Lloyd Smale]

I own 80 acres and in my opinion were darned lucky its surrounded by state land. A 40 is about enough for one man and thats if he doesnt like walking much and hunts out of a blind. We actually have 3 blinds on my property. One on the far side of both 40s and one in the middle and the guys that hunt them still see the same deer every day as the other guys do.

 

[buck460XVR]

Around here(West Central Wisconsin) good hunting/ag land goes for $2500-$3000 an acre or more. Small parcels go for more as they are more affordable to most folks. If there is a good building site, or a livable house located on it, price will also increase. If the land has not been recently logged, add the estimated value of the timber on top of the per acre price. The state and local townships have gotten smart lately and if you pay big bucks for rec land they tax you appropriately. You can get tax breaks for forest crop land, but then you open it up to others to hunt. Add to that, the fact that most PRIME hunting parcels at a reasonable price are already gone due to high demand. Whats left are less desirable properties or those with high price tags. I have a good friend that is a realtor and she claims to have a waiting list three pages long to call folks whenever hunting land comes up. She claims that rarely does she ever get more than 10 names down the first page before it is gone. My brother also buys and sell parcels for profit. His name is at the top of the list at many realtors. His best profit comes from those parcels like Patocazador bought. Generally wetlands that can't be developed or built on with minimal hunting opportunities. They still sell for $1200-$1500 a acre, but generally are taxed quite low because of the wetlands designation. If he holds them for a year or two and makes $300 an acre he is happy. Most of the buyers come from Milwaukee or other large metropolitan areas and just want a place of their own and can't afford the same acreage at twice the price or more. They don't want to build anything and are happy to put a old camping trailer on it for deer camp. They generally have no other access to private land and never get a deer on public land. Thus getting one deer every two or three years on their own property is a vast improvement for them. Unless the area is really remote and hard to access I assume the same is true for most areas in the lower 48.

 

[Rembrandt]

Land should be looked at as an investment.....using it for hunting should be secondary. Make sure it can make you money and help your tax situation. By looking at it that way it won't become a money pit.

The tax advantages are substantial, depreciation of fences-buildings-tile, vehicle and equipment depreciation can also help. CRP, woodlands, and watershed programs can also help pay the investment cost.

Land costs can be offset with cash rent for land or buildings, harvesting woods, easements, and crops.

Amount of habitat and food plots will determine the quantity and quality of the game. I've got 320 acres with about 13 acres of woods.....kicked out over 50 head of whitetails today. Illustration that you don't need large tracks of timber for game.

 

[Propforce]

Thanks guys. Great advices that can only come from hunters who've owned lands. I appreciate you all sharing your experience and sage advice. Please keep them coming.

Jrdolall, I am in N. Alabama so I am looking in this area as well as lower Tennessee.

 

[LRShooting]

Well, I live in Missouri, so I can't honestly tell you whats going to be best. We farm 1000 acres, and every bit of it seems to be good hunting land. However, the areas that look like the best can tend to be the worst. Its very hard to pinpoint what terrain of land to buy. I would highly suggest going out and scouting the areas first, and look at their history as far as deer. No reason to shell out several thousand per acre on land that just "looks" good. Most guys around here that buy land for outfitting or personal use have usually either hunted on it for awhile, or have asked around about what the land has done in the past few years. As far as terrain goes, guys love the bottom ground stuff next to the rivers. I haven't seen to many outfitters buy land unless its bottom ground. All the high ground gets rented. It's just not stable enough for hunting to buy around here. And like Jrdolall said, unless you have money to blow or want to use the land for other purposes, I'd look into renting it or getting hunting rights to it. Land can easily hit 7k per acre around here, and the best land in Illinois tops 10k on a regular basis. I don't know what Alabama does for land, but its not cheap. You may get a deal on hunting rights if you get them on land that is farmed and where deer are doing a lot of damage. Deer cause massive carnage to crops, and some would love to have them gone. If you feel like investing your money, you might consider buying land just because its not gonna go down any time soon, and I'm sure in 25 years, its gonna be way higher than it is now. Remember to account for extra taxes, etc in your price. Good luck.

 

[PapaG]

Bought 45 acres of timber with a creek through the middle and five acres tillable on the bottoms. Lots of terrain change, 80 feet of change, in fact. Paid about $800/acre less than land was going for. Cleaned out tons of crap and metal, rebuilt a junk garage into a comfortable cabin, planted several food plots and have a deal with a neighbor who watches it for bowhunting priveleges. We get five or more deer a year, great mushrooms and doves and a turkey now and then.
Worth about twice what I paid after eight years. Gonna will it to my sons. Less than an hour away, has electricity, a non-safe to drink well we use for spraying, and now have nine ladder stands and one tower blind. Great getaway.
People ask why I'd spend money on it. It is an investment that has appreciated more than anything else but a couple Colts.

 

[Armored farmer]

There are some very good posts in this thread.
I know that it is very satisfying to own your own land. Not just for hunting either. Firewood, mushrooms, atv riding, trapping, camping, timber, shooting, fishing, and so on. You may think that your not interested in those other things...but after you make a commitment to own a property all those other things become more important to you.

Just be prepared to deal with people tromping around on it. It is impossible to keep everyone off. You just do what you can, and learn to not allow it to bother you.

 

[daveinohio]

Buy the best land you can afford not necessarily the most. Scout it well for wildlife. The more diversity the better. Look at the amount of deer killed by EHD over the last few years, water is super important. Look for food sources and bedding areas. If the land been timbered there may not be many hardwoods. Scout the neighborhood for potential problems thinking of the present and the future. You don't want a neighborhood or highway to built outside your back door.

Don't rely on others to help you maintain the property. It's amazing how some folks can't spare a minute all year until hunting season starts.

Poaching and trespassing can happen anywhere. Don't put out high dollar trailcams and treestands until you get a feel for the odds of items getting stolen.

Cross your fingers that a large gas/oil discovery is made. It just may pay for your land, cabin, tractor, truck and put a pile of cash in the bank.

 

[Armored farmer]

Dont forget that Google Earth is a really good way to look at property.

 

[herkyguy]

poachers are a problem. i know because i caught one of them on a trail camera on my land and will see him in court very soon.

 

[Skyshot]

Go meet the neighbor's first before you buy!

 

[bison]

NorCal

I spent a lot of time looking for a spot in NorCal and can share some of my takeaways:

- Be picky. There's lots of land out there. Take your time and make an informed buy after looking at a lot of spots. I probably visited 20 lots and looked at dozens more on the internet before finding mine.

- Location is key. My place is less than a 2 hour drive away and I use it a lot. My buddy has a similar place but it's a 4 hour drive and he rarely gets up to it. At first I thought about getting a place further away but decided to pay up for proximity and am glad I did. If I can't use it, it's not worth having.

- Neighbors can be a blessing or a curse. Ask around about them and meet them before buying.

- Water is a huge deal, both for game and for headaches. Water rights are a real issue in many places.

- Don't be cheap. It's a waste of money if you buy a cheap place and it turns out to suck. Lots of land is almost useless due to brush, access issues, lack of critters, etc.

- Simple is better. My place is raw land, no structures to maintain. I thought about moving a trailer to it and decided it would just be an intruder magnet. Beyond a little road work, there's nothing I need to do to it.

- Raw land moves slowly, be patient. It took 5 years to find my place, and I ended up with an ideal spot and paid about half of what the prior owner had turned down at the peak of the RE craze in 2007. Since then I've seen other properties I'd looked at come back to the market at varying prices.

- Make sure you REALLY like your partners and have a firm agreement about how things will be run before you buy. Say you get a small place with several partners… who gets opening weekend? What about inviting friends? Can you rely on all of them to chip in when cash is needed for roadwork or whatever? Friends can turn into ex-friends due to this sort of thing.

- Don't buy as an investment, but because you're going to enjoy it and use it for a lot of years. If it turns out that it increases in value, so be it. I'm taking my daughter and her friend to the ranch today, thats what I consider real value!

 

[Rio Laxas]

Cross your fingers that a large gas/oil discovery is made. It just may pay for your land, cabin, tractor, truck and put a pile of cash in the bank.

Maybe....It is important to know the law concerning severability of mineral rights in the state that the land is located.

Texas, for example, allows for full severability of mineral rights from land, and it is rare to find a piece of land for sale with the minerals. Sometimes it may have a percentage of the mineral rights, but more often it is none. Louisiana & Washington, on the other hand, have laws that allow for the reversion of the mineral rights back to the surface owner after a certain period of time, if there is no active mineral extraction on the property. In the west, a lot of the land had the minerals severed by the federal government when the land was patented and entered private ownership.

If title insurance is purchased, the title commitment should address the mineral ownership of the land. Being a surface owner on a piece of land that somebody else holds the mineral rights to can be a real mixed bag. There are a lot of rights to entry that a mineral owner can grant to a drilling company that will be a real pain for a surface owner. While you may be compensated for surface damages, that compensation pales in comparison to the royalties on an oil well. In terms of hunting, it can also mean a lot of traffic in and out of the property and equipment installed on the property. On the plus side, they almost always improve the roads.

I would STRONGLY advise you to buy only by land that has been recently surveyed. All sorts of EXPENSIVE problems arise over boundary and usage lines if it has gone uncontested for several years.

This is excellent advice. Though, as a professional land surveyor, I suppose I am biased. I often deal with properties in Texas that are being surveyed for the first time since the early 19th century to the early 20th century for the purpose of establishing an acreage for oil & gas royalty payments. Measurement methods and accuracy have changed significantly over the past 200 years. Acreage is the least reliable measurement used to describe land. The 640 acres that you paid $1000 an acre for may really be something like 610 acres or 660 acres, depending on the accuracy of the survey.

If you are borrowing money to buy the land, you will probably have to get title insurance. If you get title insurance, you will probably have to get a survey of the property. In addition to establishing what is likely a more accurate measurement of the acreage, this will also hopefully disclose any encroachments or boundary problems that may exist that are not obvious from visual inspection of the property.

 

[torqem]

if it's a large enough parcel to amount to much, the payments , insurance and taxes will pay for quite a few trips to BLM property, military bases, or paying for hunting leases on other's land. I'd go in with some co-buyers.

 

[alsaqr]

Being a surface owner on a piece of land that somebody else holds the mineral rights to can be a real mixed bag.

This is very true. i own several parcels of hunting land. One 160 acre property did convey with mineral rights. Someone else owns the mineral rights to the other properties.

The oil well and tank battery were removed from a property after i bought it. The oil company pulled the pipe, concreted in the well, remediated the oil contaminated dirt and seeded the area. That action greatly increased the value of the property.

Strange thing, deer and hogs pay little attention to oil wells. When a well starts pumping they will look up and then go back to grazing.

The closing of a piece of property i'm purchasing was held up because of a 8/540th interest that the deed holders do not own.

 

[Hangingrock]

I have land there is an abundance of deer and turkeys. Its a mix of hard wood with a small stream flowing thru surround by agricultural fields. It was surveyed when purchased and we have the mineral rights.

I let people hunt on the land but it became problematic. We closed it down then reopened it. I place a limit on those that are allowed to hunt here. Hunting leases are popular around here but I've never charged to hunt here.

The problem with land ownership are the trespassers.