Man I've lost so many awesome hunting grounds in my lifetime.

I've been blessed with some awesome hunting grounds in my lifetime. I mean incredible. But they have all disappeared for various reasons. Some are due to controversial reasons that breaks scaps open on this forum. But they was lost never the less.

How many have lost some great hunting spots that still leave a bad taste in your mouth.And cant quite thinking man if I could just hunt that spot.

To be honest my places would number in the hundreds.

Some of my best hunting is a development now days. I have to chuckle with the cedar siding. I was using cedar there way before you was.

It makes you sick just thinking about it. But, it is what it is. I think of lost honey holes that I had barely tapped much less feed trees cut down or girdled.

The world of hunting is changing. If you live in a great whitetail state like I do in Ohio, the last 20 years has been crazy to gradually see more and more property get purchased or leased by mainly out of state hunters. Hard to stomach sometimes, but it’s reality. You could never blame a farmer for getting money by leasing out a property that they had been previously happy to give hunting permission on. At the bare minimum it covers property taxes. I could see this coming, and my wife and I made it a priority to buy as much ground as we could afford, and are always looking to buy more if the opportunity arises. The chunk we have right now is nearly surrounded by out of state hunters. As much as I hate it, I always look at the bright side. These out of state guys don’t really hunt that often, and if anything these properties get less pressure than when they were permission properties and gun hunted heavily using deer drives. However, the out of state hunters do have the luxury of being able to use the great equalizer here, which is feeders full of shell corn. I know just buying ground isn’t a realistic option for a lot of guys, but having ground to hunt was important enough to me, that we made the sacrifice to do it. My dad had thousands of acres of permission ground in the 80’s and 90s. I always heard him say how he could have bought this piece, or that piece, for $50-$100 per acre and he didn’t do it. That was a lot of money then. Now ground around here goes for $5,000 - $8,000 per acre. It rarely goes down in value and it doesn’t get any cheaper than it is right now.

I was very lucky to have a private farm to hunt during the years my grandfather was in his last seasons and my son was in his first. Before that and after that I’ve hunted public land. Where I live in Eastern PA mist hunting is on private land and I don’t want to hunt where I can hear people talking as they leave the house. Public land gets pounded. Hopefully next year I’ll spend more time in central and western PA.

I can tell you the private farm provided a lot of good memories and now I’m on to making new memories.

Last season I spoke to a young guy in an archery shop…. Turns out he was one of several outfitters which had set up shop in a small drainage which my brother, a few neighbors and I used to have pretty much all to ourselves during Archery…. Kind of ironic to hear him say what a shame it is that the area has gotten so overrun that it’s no longer worth even messing with…..

It’s only One small drainage, but it was all I needed, and all I had.

If anyone's concerned about losing access to hunting lands, pay attention to what's coming with this next Administration. You'll soon be hearing more about transferring ownership of western "Federal Lands" (National Forests & BLM land, the latter consisting of 246 million acres)to individual state ownership. All these states are strapped for cash and already can't effectively manage the land that is state owned. If anyone doubts transfer of ownership of the afore-mentioned land does not end with the states selling or leasing them, I have some rice farms in Tempe AZ. I'm willing to sell you!

Save your money and buy some hunting ground now. Even 10 acres can be great hunting. I have 10 acres that I bought about 12 years ago. I’ve bow killed 9 deer on it including 3 P&Y. Do it now, before the price goes up.

I was one of the last bow hunters to hunt 2 different huge tracts of land that had never been cut and had monster Cypress and oak trees ,straight up wilderness full of wild boar,deer,turkey.Nothing but woods and swamps for miles! Both wound up getting clear cut to the ground nothing but desert far as you could see. I felt special and blessed to be one of the last bow hunters to hunt these beautiful wild lands and will always remember how sad it was to see them vanish forever.

When I was in my mid 30’s, 15 or so years ago, I finally got spooked by so many stories from older guys with nowhere left to hunt that I decided to commit to owning some hunting ground. I don’t own any large acreage, my biggest place is 87 acres, but I now own good hunting ground in Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. There is a lot of comfort in knowing I’ll always have somewhere to hunt. I know plenty of guys that waste as much money in a month on Starbucks, eating out, and movies/entertainment than I’ve ever made on a monthly land payment.

R

I made the mistake of waiting to buy land with cash. Unfortunately prices here are 5x-10x what they were just 5 years ago (pre-Covid). If I had then what I have now, I could have bought a nice +100 acre farm. Now I can't even afford a 40 acre cliffside with no access!

I always look forward to it in a way. Don't get me wrong it can be disappointing but it's also the beginning of trying to figure out a new piece of ground . This is my last year hunting a piece that has been productive for the past 15 years. I have had a great time hunting public land this year. I don't know the names of the deer but it's more of a adventure and I prefer the flavor of that type of hunting.

I did the same as Ryan. I have my own land. You can do it. You just have to sacrifice and want to do it.

Had a 'back door' entrance into some state property. Private but not posted. New owner built a $600k house right where I'd turn off to 'the funnel.'

More recently, new property owners/builders have closed another great access point to a ridge where I hunted turkeys for years.

Problem here is land costs through the roof, high demand, lots of open spaces are landlocked by development.

I have been in a number of clubs over the years, I ran one with 4000 acres and 50 members, I got fed up with the members unethical, illegal hunting practices and walked away after 15 years.

My next club was a small one with 12 members, good land and only one bad apple in the bunch, the state bought the land and clear cut it so that one was gone.

My next was 340 acres that a friend owned, probably the best place I ever hunted. The friend let me have run the place and decide who could hunt it. I invited my best friend of 30 years, he was the best deer hunter I ever knew but I didn't know he was a slob hunter that took any shot he saw no matter how much brush was in the way. He hunted with us for 3 years and lost 8 wounded deer, three of them were 160" deer or better. I tossed him and told the land owner why, he in turn tossed all of us off his land.

This stung me because I have a tractor and chainsaw and had kept his land and roads up for 12 years on my dime, I did everything, the land owner stayed up and his house and got drunk and never helped me even though he had a huge tractor with all the equipment. I had a compact tractor with a 4' bush hog and worked my tail off.

I got old and don't hunt like I once did, no more clubs for me, I hunt my 4 acres out of my back door now, my neighbor has 50 acres he lets me hunt but for does only.

I guess it isn't so bad, the view from one of my lock-on treestands on my place, my house is in the background. I keep meat in the freezer by killing a few deer every year off of this tiny patch of land.

I am torn with this ALL the time. Would unloved to own my own piece or ground and could I? I could, but then I am just another guy who bought a chunk of land and made it not accessible to other hunters.

I am blessed. I have a lot of good hunting I have worked to get. I just sent out 22 thank you letters with gift cards today. Are they all big buck havens? Probably not, but i have a lot of choices and I am very thankful for that.

Never thought it would happen to me, but it did. In fact, several times. I currently hunt an old farm now, but the surrounding property has been purchased by several Amish families. I am sure it will change the hunting there soon too.

I moved from my farmhouse and 6 acres with 6 more acres next to me my neighbor let me put a ladder stand on. The new owner of my property allowed me to hunt but was constantly working outside until dark. The deer stopped coming through the property. He took my ladder stand down claiming it was unsafe for his young boys (can't blame him there).Then my old neighbor died and his son moved in turning the his land into a 4 wheeler track. I just stopped going there.

Yes....back in the day brother,cousin and I were given permission to bowhunt almost anywhere we asked...even properties that landowners family gun hunted...it was great...deer numbers were no where near what they are now ...different people own those properties ....many more bowhunters out there....many more gun hunters out there...and lost permission to hunt those properties ....all of them.

These little sloughs used to have thousands of ducks, all across Camrose, Bashaw and New Norway in Alberta. All plowed over into usable farmland. They also changed the flyway by shaking eggs, more geese the last 20 years.

It is definitely shrinking ~ fortunately for me now that I am retired i have gained a few new places but i do a lot of work for them and help them out with anything they need and if they call i am right there with a hand

It is definitely shrinking ~ fortunately for me now that I am retired i have gained a few new places but i do a lot of work for them and help them out with anything they need and if they call i am right there with a hand

we are very fortunate here in south central iowa to have thousands of acres of public hunting ground! many thanks to the iowa dnr and corp of engineers for making all this land available for us to enjoy hunting on! also to many landowners who have opened their lands to hunting in this area. like i said we are very fortunate and thankful.

I'm very lucky. Besides having around 150 to 200 acres behind my house that I'm allowed to bow hunt I have a couple farms nearby that I'm also allowed to bow hunt. Also, I have three state game lands only 30 to 45 minutes' drive from my house. And being retired for the last eleven years I don't have to worry about work schedules or getting time off. Seen a lot of deer this year mostly does, but I did see ten bucks. Out of the ten bucks eight were small and some of them not legal by the antler restrictions in my area but two were decent size bucks but they never got close enough for a shot. Now I'm waiting for the late archery season to get here the month after Christmas so I can chase them bucks around again and maybe get a chance at one of them two decent size bucks.

Two small bucks I passed on.

Curious doe.

I lost a lot of good hunting ground. In Ohio 200 acres in North Central Pa more than I could remember. I am down to 2 properties now. One is only 2 acres and the other 50. It is what it is, as the old saying goes " you can't turn back time ".

Hunted a great spot in S.MI. The houses were built at a slow pace. Could still hunt it, then one day I noticed that a carpenter had built a tree fort / stand out of shiny new lumber.You could see it gleaming like a diamond. Never went back.

Nothing like owning your own land and being the boss. And it doesn’t take much to bowhunt on. And you will get your money back if you sell it

I've lost a lot of private hunting property's in my life in WI also. But, I also hunted public forest areas around my home at the same time. So, when I lost the private due to leasing or ownership I did all public. I for years had great hunting on the public and enjoyed the hunting challenge it brought that private farm country did not have. Farm country is not really that hard to figure out. But, the past few years our public deer herd's have diminished to the point of an unhurtable population. Wolves, DNR kill offs, new added high tech weapons in archery, etc have killed it. I go because I have to, but the much of the luster is gone. I hunted many days dark to dark from the beginning of Nov to this past weekend with bow, gun, and ML. I saw 2 animals with a bow, 3 with a gun and 0 with ML. This was in 5 county's here in WI.

Two brothers and I bought our parents' farm, which is just over 170 acres. Forty percent is tillable. One of my brothers is a farmer and uses the cropland. My other brother and I hunt it, and my parents still live in the house. I am very lucky, and do not regret the purchase.

We've been very fortunate to lease a small place in the Texas Hill Country for the last 20 years. It costs us, but the land around us is leasing for triple what we pay. We are slowly being choked out by retirement homes and little ranchettes. Our landowner could become a millionaire overnight if he decided to sell the place. I'm afraid I'll see the end before I'm ready to quit hunting.

My KS hunts I did for ~12 years evaporated because they went lease and I couldn't afford it.

Lost alot of smaller acreage places to hunt. Now it's public land and i just keep trying to find some private place to hunt. Maybe I'll get lucky you never know.

I had access to a little over 1,000 acres of private land for 45 years. Most of the time it was just my dad and me. Sometimes 2 or 3 others the owner knew. For the last 15 years it was me and one other fellow. He got the right half and I got the left. When he got 2 deer he was finished for the season. Then it was all mine. When the owner died his niece and nephew (cousins,not siblings) got the house and the land. The niece got the house (built in 1870) and 10 acres,nephew got the rest of the land. She told me I could probably still get to hunt there but I would need permission from her cousin. Took over a year to see her again. I never got to talk to the nephew. She told me she never said I could still hunt there and never said she would talk to her cousin about me still having permission. And my longtime agreement with her uncle didn't mean spit. Last time I went by there it was mostly clearcut. Made me sick looking at what was.

It's like the song BIG YELLOW TAXI? Pave paradise to put up a Parking lot!" Or words to that effect!

Seminole wind

I think the first guys to notice that they were losing all their good hunting and fishing spots...had names like Lenape, Ojibway, Cherokee, Lakota, etc.

We got 100 people a day moving here(central Tennessee), mostly yankees and californians and have for years. My home is being systematically destroyed subdivision by subdivision. It really is depressing living here now, but I'm glad I'm old and got to see it as it was.

I lost my honey hole years ago after the owners of 42 acres passed away. They said I didn’t have to give them any deer meat, but it was my way of showing my appreciation for them letting me hunt on their property. A guy bought a few different properties in the area, including the one I hunted on and won’t let anyone hunt on them. So now I hunt public lands. Deer are there, although not as many.

Crookedstix is right.

It's been almost 40 years since I really had any private land to hunt. In the mid 90's (almost 30 years ago) I worked with a guy who took me out to his family farm a few times. That was nice but I was on his schedule, not like just going out hunting.

Since then it's been only public. When I lived in Illinois the public land seemed a lot better. Killing deer wasn't easy but I saw deer. Here in northern Indiana I don't see deer.

A metal recycling scrap yard now sits right where I shot the heaviest weight whitetail I've ever tagged . A farm I hunted on as a young man in southern Michigan is now an expansive sub-division . I keep hearing Tennessee is a great state for retirees , but it sounds like a lot of people are relocating there according to Tembo62 . I love the U.P. but my wife hates the long cold winters and wants to move south . There are already over 7 billion people on this planet and it will only get more crowded .

Same here....the state of Wisconsin has bought so much land over the last 40 years...where I live some of this public land is 10 minutes from my house...there is 10's of thousands of acres of public hunting within 1/2 hour drive of my house...(It's probably closer to 100's of thousands) People in the area I live really don't have anything to bi--- about...but bi--- is what hunters/fishermen seem to do.

I am 77 and have found the longevity of a hunting spot is usually around 10-12 years, then the land sells, is developed is passed down through a family.

Early on I wanted to buy my own hunting land but couldn't afford it. After dealing with trespassing and poaching on several leases I decided I didn't want to spend the money and deal with this type of person, it would drive me nuts because here in Alabama you they are unstopable. Vandlism is rampant as well if you put up structures, the so called "good old boys" are jealous of what you own or lease and feel they have to "get you back" for posting land they once hunted.

When I see the neat famly hunting cabins up north that have been in famlies for generation I think 'that wouldn't last a week down south", it would be stripped of copper, burglarized or burned to the ground. All of the above happend on my various hunting lease structures.

It all comes down to too many people...As folks pump out more & more & more people, congestion, pollution, crime, education, social services, devastation of forest land, destruction of farm land, traffic, hunting, fishing, etc grow more and more difficult as a worldwide calamity. I was born in 1951 and we didn't have those situations then, but like it or not, now we see the effects of overpopulation first hand !!! Want future hunting land.... Better buy it....Leases dry up or become too expensive, family farms get sold to developers , forests get cut down for lumber for homes, farm land is destroyed for housing, rivers & streams are polluted, public hunting land becomes over crowded and so on. I'm sorry to see such a bleak future but I do not see any bright side. Be safe and enjoy the outdoors while you can...Harley

Been lucky so far, joined a club 25 yrs. ago. The worst thing so far is that we don't hold shoots anymore, which is a bummer but, it could be worse. Had a place here on the edge of town, friend of mine's grandad who I'd been friends with for years. Took me longer to get dressed that it did to drive there. 30 acres that butted up against 50 wooded acres on one side and 250 acres on the other two of planted farm land that rotated beans and corn. He passed and the land sold.

I can be at the clubs 200+ acres that buts up against farmland on 3 sides in 20 minutes but with my mom's health declining it's a day to day deal and back at least by 6:30-7:00. Which is fine. Like I said I've been lucky and still am.

I've been blessed to keep our farm together for 5 generations with the 6th coming up. All around the old farmers were taxed off their farms as the land butchers took over. Now there is a shit-house on every 5 acres or less.These extreme houses are not occupied by real people, don't wave, only know me when they need a tree cut or tractor work. I'm 75,just had a great rifle season for fam n friends, 4 of us 70+ in age. We are blessed, hope the boys can hang on to it, bloody taxes. Raise red angus cattle and hay. The Big Guy smiled on me,us. Wish you could all have what I have, only took 65 years of milking cows, cutting logs, teaching english, fixing machinery all night.Some times I wander???

What Crookedstix said. And unfortunately I think jimw is right too

Fifty years ago there was a small public hunting area not far away. It was bordered on one side by a giant Beaver swamp. It didn't take long for us out scouting to realize that it was part of a large piece of woods and overgrown farmland nearly 2x3 miles in total. I could spend a whole week hunting there in October and never see another hunter. It was loaded with Deer, Squirrels and Grouse. Get a deer in there and get ready to drag. Before tree stands, four wheelers and Game cameras. I was lucky to have it for about 10 years before things started to change. enjoy it while You can. My last place to hunt that I could walk to was first overrun by four wheelers and then the owner had it all clearcut. take a walk in the woods now and there are tree stands, feeders and cameras everywhere. Gone with the wind.

Its been Europeanized for a long time , now hunting is all the tech you can use and deep pockets, very deep pockets,.promotion of hunting no longer needs to be.

The deep pocket gang is and has been more of the threat to hunting's future than the anti's for the most part.

As a kid, and young man, I could hunt anywhere I could walk from home, and later on, I could park my truck, about anywhere I wanted and hunt, because the old timers who owned the land, didn't care, and most of them knew me, from the time I was a little boy, but as time when the old timers died off, land and home places got sold off and I lost thousands of acres of land I could hunt in my youth.

Now, outside of public land, which I don't hunt, anyway. I am pretty much confined to my own farm. But I am blessed that the deer hunting has gotten better, everwhere, more deer, etc, and bigger bucks than I ever seen in my youth. And hunting my own farm, only, I have learned it, pretty good and know how to hunt it, at least know a few spots that pay off, at least sometimes. But I still have more ground than I actually hunt and need to explore more of it for good deer stands.

Times change.

I had a nice farm to hunt for 28 years and the only thing was we would bring them some deer or squirrels at times or sometimes help with chores. I lost that place when it was sold 8 years ago, so now I only hunt my place. I hunted the other farm because there were so many deer while at my place you were lucky to see one once in a while. That has changed a lot and we have way more deer now so I just hunt out my back door.

Happened to me. I lost two parcels owned by the same guy. A friend of over 50 years. I fought against allowing industrial wind turbines to protect my land and hunting camp and he wanted them. One day he said you are costing me money and are no longer welcome on the properties. I ended up selling the camp and moved on to another county and rebuilt. The friendship ? Seems gone forever.

It's definitely frustrating. I haven't lost as many as most here, but two I've "lost" were due to moving and one when we sold the farm my folks had. That last one really stung, and it took a couple of years before I wanted to hunt much at all after that.

I too own my own 80 land amidst thousands of acres of public land. The vegetation in this area is mostly aspen/birch, which is used in the paper making industry. I have had a lot of good stand areas clear cut over the years. Luckily, there are always other places I can explore. the only drawback is this area is 300 miles from my home.

Things have changed, the days of pulling up in the farmers driveway and getting permission to hunt are over. Trying to secure a lease is out of the question for the average person already struggling to make ends meet. Public land is about all that is left. That is just the way it is.

When it comes to quality hunting opportunities for the average non- landowning hunter so much depends on the ongoing actions or inactions of the Fish & Game agency for your state, a truth that is often overlooked. At this point, memories of past hunts is about all you can hope for hereabouts. For those with well-run state agencies that earn their keep and do their job, congrats to you and enjoy your time afield...while you still can.

25 years ago my son bought a farm with 60 acres. It was enough to keep us happy. He sold that farm, and bought 80 acres, and built a new house on it. It was even better. Before that we struggled to hunt public land in peace.

I only have a fraction of the hunting ground to hunt that I once had. Here in Southern Iowa there is a lot of leasing and out of state land owners. I'm fortunate to still have some private to hunt for free. 1000 acres of public just opened near me. It's very good deer hunting and only a few miles away, so that's a plus. If you work at it, knock on doors, you still can find places to hunt for free. They are fewer, but there is still some. Big bucks and money has taken its toll on our sport. I just acquired permission to hunt an acreage for next year. So they're out there. Not as many but you can still find them.

Years ago when I was younger I ALWAYS kept networking for new hunting grounds. Throughout my life I've always had access to hunting grounds then I could ever hunt. I never thought my honey holes would dry up.

I see several folks say I should have bought ground. That's all well and good. But most of my honey holes dried up because neighboring property owners moved in. Amish. There I said it. I'd be just as pissed if I bought property and my neighboring property owners destroyed it.

To be clear most of my properties I could hunt was lost to other reasons other than Amish. But IF I had bought said property I'd be be pissed.

If you have already registered, please

sign in now

For new registrations

Click Here