Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, I'm joined by Tony Hansen to break down everything you need to know to find a hunting lease. All right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and their CAMO for
Conservation initiative. That means that every time you purchase I'm going to try and say here, every time you purchase a piece of first Light gear in the Specter Whitetail Hunting Camo, a portion of that sale is donated to the National Association, which is a pretty darn cool program in my opinion. And today, as I just mentioned, we're joined by my pal, Tony Hansen. Tony has written for all the major hunting publications. He has done a lot of hunting TV work, he has been in real estate.
He's kind of been all over the place when it comes to the hunting world, and he's one of the best whitetail hunters out there. He's someone who I have followed since the early two thousands and have learned a lot from. And the topic that we're discussing today is one that I want to cover for the next couple of weeks, and it's related to access, access to places where we can hunt. It's becoming more and more of a challenge every year. I think, if you are a
avid deer hunter, this is obvious to you. If you are a new hunter, this might be something that's kind of daunting to you, and so I want to break that down and explore what our options are. There's a couple different things out there. Right you can hunt public land, you can get free permission somewhere. You can buy land, or you can lease it. And that's our topic today. Today we're going to talk about leases because that's something that Tony in particular has been thinking a lot about lately.
He's been stewing on, spitballing about and brainstorming if and how he might want to utilize leases more in his hunting kind of quiver of access solutions. He's in the past spent a lot of time in public and he's still doing that, but he's looking at possibly leasing more, and so that's the topic we're going to dive into.
Why Tony's considering that, What circumstances have pushed him to explore leases more, and what has he learned over the last ten twenty years of leasing many different properties in many different circumstances. What's he learned along the way that he's going to be taking forward with him now in this next phase of his hunting journey. And that's something that I've been going through too. I've done the public thing,
I've done the permission thing. I've done well. I've sort of had some land only our family's owned land, and I was on own that we land, or I was on land that Meat Eater owned for the back forty also leased ground in a number of different states in a number of different ways. So I've learned a thing or two over time as well. And the thing with leases that I found is it's not as easy as just saying, oh, I have the money to get a lease, now I'm just going to go get it. There's actually
more to it. It's harder to find leases than you might realize. It's harder to determine the value of a lease than you might realize. It's harder to get a fair price on them than you might realize. There's a lot more gray area, there are many more questions when it comes to the details of actually getting a quality lease and getting the most out of it. So all of these topics and more are covered today with Tony.
I guarantee you're going to learn something today. If you are in the market for new hunting properties, new access, and the lease is one of the things you've been considering, definitely give this a list, and I think it'll help you understand whether a lease is a good fit or you for you were not in how to go about getting one if you decide to. So with that out of the way and without further ado, let's get to
my chat with mister Tony Hanson. All right now, with me on the line as a returning guest, I've got mister Tony Hanson. Tony, how are you good?
How's it going?
It's great. I appreciate you making the time to do this. It's been a little while.
It has been I enjoy it. Anytime you call, I have to answer that's how it goes well.
I do appreciate that, and I'm selfishly picking your brain today because I, as well as a lot of other people out there, are at that time of year where we're thinking, like, where are we going to hunt this come and fall? It's inevitably spots come and go right. And I just had a pretty darn nice piece of property that I had gotten permission on last year. Just a couple of weeks ago, I found out it's getting sold.
I lost access to two hundred acres, which is by far the biggest property I had access to anywhere gone. So I'm back at square one thinking about how I'm going to get access to new places, kind of get permission? Is there new public or do I want to explore lease? And that brings us to our topic here today. So does any of this sound familiar to you? Have you been in a situation late that before?
Yeah? For sure, and actually like more times than I carried account and actually more like scenarios are different now. So the way that I look at Lisa's ten years ago is different than I looked at it five years ago, and it's different than how I look at it now.
You know, Lisa's have definitely been the tool that I use, but I would not say that the primary focus of my hunting season at each year is on property that I it's not, but here in Michigan, it's kind of what I mean, you kind of have to except for some very rare special circumstances that I don't have, I'm just not able to do the things I do in other states here at home. So leasing is kind of what I've had to rely on.
Yes, So what's that history look like for you? It sounds like you've kind of been like on leases off leases. I know you've done a lot of public I know you've owned land. Can you just kind of recap folks on what your kind of land access journey has been this led you to this point?
Yeah, I mean, obviously, like so many other people, I don't know how many years ago, let's say fifteen, I was able to get permission a lot of places, and growing up in Michigan, I had, you know, properties that essentially were like mine even though they weren't. They were neighbors or whatever that I've hunted on ever since I was a little kid, and nothing had really changed with them until it did. Grandkids get old enough to start hunting those types of things, and everything about it switches.
At the same time as just a lot more focus on kind of that exclusive place to hunt. It just got a lot harder to find ground. So I probably probably about fifteen years ago is when I first started being able to afford a lease and to know what to do. So I started leasing some places there around Michigan, and it was probably seven or eight years ago or so I just decided I'll still do some of that here in Michigan, but I'm not going to really get into it like I was before because I kept losing them.
So over the pandemic there, I wrote a book just trying to get my thoughts together on deer hunting, and one of the things that I said in it is I'm just not going to invest heavily into something that I don't own, which you know, I own public land, so I will definitely spend the time and learn that, and of course private land that you own, but when it comes to leasing, I just wasn't going to go all in and devote too much time because every lease
I've ever had, I've lost. I mean that's just and that's like a guarantee everyone you ever have you will lose someday. So at some point, yeah, so where I'm at now is I haven't really backed off that approach of like, I'm not gonna invest a ton of money and energy and resources into leasing, especially out of state, where I feel like you can get on some good
deal without having a lease or private. But the last couple of years I've had to really re evaluate as the public has just it's much, much, much different than it was. So I'm right there with you. I'm currently actively trying to find a lease for Michigan and deciding what I'm going to do in other states where I normally would have probably relied one hundred percent on public, I might I'm not sure I can do that anymore.
So see that that brings up an interesting question, which is you know how you look at least as differently on your in your home state versus out of state. Why do you why do you look at them differently?
So the number one thing is I don't look at it necessarily differently. I look at the available ground to do the type of hunting that I want to do, and I realize not everybody wants to hunt the way I do. Like I want to be in a tree stand. I don't want to do spot in stock. I don't want to I'm pretty mobile with a stand or saddle or whatever, but I like to hunt them elevated. I like to hunt kind of scrape related activity. And I really don't have a whole lot of interest in shooting
anything that's less than four years old. It's not it's just not what I do. I can do that in other states. I can hit four year old and older deer on public ground, not as easily as before, but I still can. I can't do that at Michigan. I really can't do that on most of the private either.
So the difference is in order for me to have a season where I'm at least pretending to hunt the way I want to hunt and the type of deer I want to hunt, I kind of have to have some private ground, and the only way I've found to get it consistently is to be willing to pay the landowner for the option, because knocking on doors doesn't work anymore here, at least within reason, and it doesn't necessarily work for what I'm looking the type of deer I'm looking to hunt, and I mean last year I spent
a lot of time in Michigan on public scouting. I didn't hunt it, and I did learn a lot, and there's a lot more there than I thought. I still never got a picture of a three year old. So it's kind of where it is out of state I can get. It's not that I'm unwilling to lease out of state, it's that I feel like I haven't had to previously. That's changing a little bit, though.
Now what about you know, the comments you made in your book and when we talked last time was kind of around this, like you didn't want to invest in something that you couldn't guarantee you'd be able to use in the long run. So what about this idea of like leasing versus owning, Because now, I mean, it sounds like it's getting to the point a lot of people agree with this. It's getting harder and harder to get
access without paying something. But why would you look at a lease versus, you know, buying a small property again or something.
This is especially true. So this is where I've totally changed. Seven or eight years ago, I had two small pieces, actually I think I owned three at one time, but whatever less than twenty anchors, like one was seventeen, one was like seven, one was nine. You could own those for the cost of or less than leasing someplace because I was getting I got those at like eleven hundred bucks an acre. You cannot do that any They were just like they were garbage ground, Like you couldn't build
on it. It's just swampy, wet stuff. Even now, the stuff you can't build on is it's I mean whatever, it's stupid. I mean, why would someone pay for grand and acre for something like that? I don't know, but they are so the economics of owning even a very small piece, it's not the same as leasing. So you can lease and hunt one hundred acres that you probably or at least for me, like I'll never likely want to buy that much land or afford to be able
to do that. So that's where the math really works out. Also out of state, and I've kicked this around forever, and I really use a piece of ground that I own in Kansas. I mean, how often can I actually get there and utilize it? And then am I gonna have to get into a situation of doing other things like whatever lease in it for farming or just all that other different weird stuff. It's like, I don't I don't know how much I want to get into it. So that's where a lease out of state is a
smaller financial investment than trying to own it. Is it the smartest thing long term financially, I don't know, But practically and logistically for me, the owning right now is just not It doesn't compare.
Yeah, so you've leased stuff off and on over the years. If you were to put together like a pros and cons list from your experience to this point with your leases, how would you break that down for yourself?
Yeah, Well, obviously the pros are and I'm I'm going to primarily relate this pretty heavily to Michigan, which it can apply to any place where there's a lot of hunting pressure. The pro is like you legitimately legally have a say and how much hunting pressure is on that property. That's by far the number one thing, and that's for me,
that's worth almost the cost of admission. It's a big deal because even if it doesn't have the deer that I want, I can in my mind think, well it might next year or something can move in, but I'm kind of left alone, and that's the most important thing to me. That's definitely the biggest positive, the biggest con for sure is you know, you're putting money and time and energy and effort into something that likely is going
to go away. And I'm not saying what you learn or experience there is worth nothing, but it's worth a lot less when you take it away and then try to go apply it to another property or something. Just the one I had in Michigan that was so good, and I had it like probably ten years, Like I knew so much about how those deer moved and where they were betting and what they were doing. I can't duplicate that anywhere, and so I went in and I'm
still learning, even four years after I've lost it. I'm still trying to figure out what the best setup in situation that I have of the places I have to hunt right now. So I feel like I've been chasing my tail for four years. Whereas if I had, of course owned the property that doesn't go away, or if I had invested it into public land that I know isn't going away, I still probably wouldn't have any three year olds to hunt, but at least i'd know where those two year olds are going to walk, So you.
Know, Yeah, So with the public land thing, you know a lot of folks look at public land as that best alternative if they can't. You know, a lot of people don't want to knock on doors. They're not comfortable doing it. So they if they're they're gonna pay or they're gonna use the public access thing. Has it how seriously of a decline in quality do you feel like we've experienced over this last five to ten years? I mean, is it has it been? Has gone down from a
B to a D? Was it that? Yeah? I mean just that experience and from your perspective, how drastic of a issue hasn't been for you? That's steering you now towards or towards the lease.
Yeah, So I want to be careful because I don't want to. Public land is still awesome. It's an amazing resource. I'm glad we have it. I know I will still spend a buttload of time hunting public ground. I drew and i wa tag last year. I looked and looked for lease and couldn't find one, and really thought, I'm fine. I mean, it's Iowa. They're everywhere. It's super hard to draw. It's almost one thousand dollars now for that deer tag.
By the time you add up your points, surely, and I have what I've been there three times bow hunting, so I have experience, like I'll be fine. I was not fine. I hunted thirteen days and I never I think I saw one buck that I would shoot, And in previous journeys to Iowa, I would have never considered shooting that buck. Yikes, it's now. They did have CWD, and that certainly played some sort of a role, but there was too many people and the quality of the bucks was half of what it was. And I've seen
that in Kansas, and I've seen it in Nebraska. It's definitely not what it was. Still can be good, still can be fun. I'm still gonna you know, I've got to find those places. But the hard part that I will want to such a good example because in my mind, I'm thinking I really should get a lease because I'm not gonna get this license maybe ever again, I mean, five six years down the road, who knows. I don't know that I want to put on my eggs in
the basket of public and it's what exactly happened. You know, I'm there. I've got four days into trying to find a place where I can be left alone and couldn't find it, and yeah, public is definitely harder than it was.
Yeah, so if someone's in a similar boat, they're lacking access or maybe they do have acces. You know, there's plenty of public land, but to your pot, like, there is like an experiential difference. Yes, right, I mean yes, if you are willing to suffer through some stuff on public land and deal with other people and really, yeah, you've got time and all the effort, like, yeah, you can find deer, like you said, you can have a
good hunt. But some people might simply not want to have to worry about seven other trucks of the parking lot every day, or worry about bumping into people like that just might not be fun. Ye, I mean, hey, sometimes I absolutely feel that way. I am very I have a very different level of stress when I'm going into a public land hunt versus when I'm just going to go into a spot where I know, like it's just me, I'm just hunting. I'm hunting deer versus I'm
hunting around people, Like those are two very different hunts. Yeah, So I think it's not always. I think some people just assume, like, oh, if you have a lot of money you can get at lease. If you don't have a lot of money, then you're stuck with public land or something. But I think it's also like just what
you want your hunting experience to be. But That'll said, probably the biggest thing, at least for me, has been even when I've had money, like I've saved the money or had money for a proger, so I had like something to pay someone, I can't even find someone to pay, Like, I can't even find a lease. What's been your experience over the years of how to actually find one of these suckers?
Yeah, so I'm probably the worst person asked for this because I haven't figured it out either. I can tell you how I've got mine, So let's I've just to make it round numbers. I think I've least eight different properties, and I think like five of them were in Michigan, two of them were in Ohio, and then I did at least once in Missouri. All of those except for one were like people that I sort of knew or they knew friends of mine, and then like they just
talk to them. The other one in the way that I have tried to make this work, and I'm pretty much convinced that it doesn't. I don't know how. I don't have the skills of leaning those guys off SEQ one. I just don't have it. But I've sent hundreds of letters to landowners saying, this is what I want to do. You know, I see your property on the map, would you be interested in leasing it? And I did get one response, and I got a lease out of that.
That's it.
I've been doing the one I did get a lease last year through base Camp. That's how I prefer to it because I do not like I mean, this is shocking, Mark. I don't like talking to people I don't know.
So I'm right there with you.
You know, I'm not good at knocking on the doors. I'm not good at that stuff. And just like the cleanliness of the transaction through something like that is really worth it to me. Here's the downside of that. So they have I don't know if people are familiar with base Camp, but you know, you've got different levels of subscriptions, and you get access to the to the leases earlier than other people. And I'm at the highest one, and so three times a week they they release these things.
They're all gone within sixty to ninety seconds of release. Really just terrible, you know, unless it's like a cow pasture, a forty acre cow pastor with not a tree on it. Anything decent is least sight unseen within ninety seconds.
Who's doing that? Like, who can least something without even knowing what they're getting themselves into?
Apparently a lot of people wow and it so here my like the way I got the one in Michigan is it looks terrible. It's exactly. I mean, it's one that sat there for three weeks before even I went and looked at it, and it was not that far from my house. So that's kind of the approach I take to them now, and even with public too, Like I am no longer searching for the premium stuff. I am searching for that one overlooked thing that nobody knows
is good until you figure out that it's good. And the one I got here in Michigan, I think is it's really good, but it's one hundred percent reliant upon the neighboring properties being good. Like I'm never going to hold a deer or produce a deer. I'm going to basically shoot the neighbor's deer when they come through. But you know that's what it is.
Something now that piece, that piece was a base Camp piece, or that piece is a word. Okay, So I'm curious about what that experience was like. So I have looked at base Camp and there's I can't remember. The other net, the hunting Leaset Network, I think, is another one. I've looked at them over the years. I've never actually followed through on one, but I've always thought two things. Number one, either both or at least one of them is like an auction based model. So it seemed like the price
has got crazy. That was one thing. And then the second thing that worried me was that I, at least in the past, when I try to understand the system, it seemed like you had to rebid and go through an auction again the next year too. So it was never like you could just like feel confident you'd have the place again next year or the next year. It could just the price could just keep on going up, up, up up. And all that made me uncomfortable is what
was your experience of that? Was I reading it right? Is that now? How it worked different?
Now? So Hunting Lease Network is an auction it has a minimum bid and then it auctions. I don't I've never leased from there, so I don't know what the renewal is. Base Camp is just it's a listed fee. Once you lease it, you have you get to renew it and it can increase, but no more than five percent of the year, and if you don't renew it within your thirty day window, then it goes back up. So from that perspective, it's been really it was really easy,
you know. Every Yeah, there's a lot of like confidence in it for me because like here's the document, they signed it, I signed it. This is what I've got. I don't have to deal with you know, are they going to be sending their son in law out there to hunt and pretending like you know that sort of stuff, Like it was great. The pricing is crazy, like I mean, my, my, the probably at least like you would. You would totally I'll show you someday the aerial like you'll totally laugh.
And it was cheap and it's not good. But there's like one tree on it that's good and that's I mean, that's why I'm leasing. I'm leasing one tree. Wow. So it's totally fine because I know for most of the rut, I'm going to be somewhere else, so I only needed it for a certain timeframe.
Interesting, what a wild world we're in now where this is becoming necessary.
And so I've actually written about this a little bit before too, and had conversations and people are like, oh, well when you and I'm afraid they're probably some of that'll come out of this conversation. People are like, oh, you're you're making it so may the rich guys can hunt. Well, A, I'm not making it anything like the market's doing that. B. Everybody has a truck or a car. If someone came up to you and said, hey, I need to borrow your truck for a week, wouldn't you expect them to
pay for the gas or something. So for me, I don't like that I have to do it, but I don't feel like it's, you know, kind of selling our souls to the devil by paying a landowner a little bit of money to help with the property taxes and all of that stuff. So the hard part, the hardest part for me though, is I never I never used to have to worry about going somewhere else. I was just gonna hunt public ground and I almost feel a little bit like, I don't know, almost dirty, because I'm like, man,
because it's exactly like you said earlier. If I have a week to go, I kind of just don't want to have to really kill myself. I'm fine killing myself ninety percent of the season, but I do want one week where I can just go in there and jump in a tree stand and watch dear b dear.
Yeah, you know that's how I felt two years ago or something I was. I just remember thinking to myself, like, I just want to have at least one place where I know, like I can see the show and it can be like what you really hope it will be okay, So the rest will be a suffer fest, but I at least want one place where it's gonna be like this is just like type one fun. Yep. And like
you said, see deer being deer. That is a really fun, unique thing that you can usually see in Iowa, but you can't usually see in Michigan unless you've got a good spot's kind of locked down. And if you're fortunate enough to have the means or have the opportunity to get that, like that's a it's a worthwhile thing to experience for sure, So you can't fault anyone for wanting that. And like you said, it's easy to bemoan the state of things, right, I've done it too. I've complained about it.
But you make a great point, like it's not unreasonable to think, like, hey, there is a very there's a resource and high demand here, and there's limited supply of it. Why should we feel like entitled to have it for free? Like we've had an awesome privilege that that's been the case for so many years, Like we've been so lucky that's been the case. But you know the fact that that's not always the case moving forward. I don't while we may not like it, it's kind of hard to
deny that it's gonna happen. It's like you said, it's the market. The market will bear with. The market will.
Bear for sure, And I do feel that same way. I'm public too, Like I know some states do have like a habitat stamp or something like that. But I've benefited an awful lot from public ground. I don't have problem paying a little bit for it if I have.
To, So I agreed. So I have least three or been a part of three properties, maybe four, and one of them came through like just a buddy who found a lease through like word of mouth, and then I just chipped in on it. One of them can through a piece that I had by permission property, just like they're getting to know someone, and then eventually they said, hey, I need to start making some money from this, so would you pay a lease fee? So that's how another one came to be, and then a third one came
to be by talking to realtors. I talked to realtors and expressed like interest in maybe buying, but also like if you ever happen here of leases in that area, I'd love to get to know the area better to kind of like fact check or ground like ground truth the area before I invest in buying something. And that ended up leading to a realtor finding a place that he was kind of trying to see if they would sell, and they weren't ready to sell, but they did say
they would lease, So that one worked for me. But I do feel like it seems like the online thing
is the isn't not easy. It's not even easy. It seems to be a way to get access to a larger number of properties, but the price is like the downside, right, And and like you said, like the fact that you don't get much time to look at them anymore, it seems like if I kind of look at least as now the way I looked at knock on door permission, which was just like I always have my feelers out, and like anytime I happened upon someone who maybe owns land or has a family farm, or if somehow hunting
comes up in the conversation and they mentioned land but they don't hunt it, I'm just always just like kind of asking around and just kind of hoping that one of these days and I kind of start with like permission, and then if that's not an opportunity, then it's like would you ever be willing to accept a little bit of money to help with taxes or something like that, And like that's my hope is that that kind of stuff will work. It hasn't worked for me in recent years.
Although I just mentioned that one piece that I had permission on that I just lost to because I got sold. I am trying to get in touch with the new landowner who by way of the old landowner, it sounds like he does want to lease. So now I'm going to see if that's something that maybe I can afford that lease or not. But you know, do you have have you had any of this kind of word of mouth stuff leasing, word of mouth leasing success? Do you
have any tips? I guess what I'm getting at in a very unwieldy wayers, Do you have any advice for people who want to try the word of mouth friend network, family network approach to trying to get a lease.
So, even though I've sent lots and lots and lots of letters and I've only had the one that was positive, I have gotten I don't know, probably fifteen to twenty responses, which I think is a lot. I mean that's like maybe twenty percent of the people I'm contacting, because I probably sent over one hundred letters. In my letter, I always say like I'm looking to hunt. I primarily hunt. I don't have to gun hunt. If you don't want me to, doesn't matter. And I say very early on,
I'm not looking to take someone else's spot. So if you already have people hunting, if you have family, whatever, thanks for time. It's not what I'm looking to do. I'm just looking for those places that maybe they had a bad experience with hunters or they haven't allowed them. So that hasn't helped me, but it might help the people who are a little bit concerned or just maybe don't like the approach of leasing in general. I'm not
trying to take somebody's spot. I'm trying to find one that you know, access to a place that has been locked off. The writing letters, to me, is the best way to find people that you aren't going to see face to face. The better approach is if you have people in your community that you want to talk to that you can actually go and visit. That's going to work better or having you know, the ones that I've got through word of mouth have been because someone talked
to them directly, that knew them. Yeah, you have to use that relationship. I just everybody I know hunts. Everybody around here hunts, So I mean the best, the best chance I'm going to have is is finding that one person that's had a bad experience with hunters or something, or who just they just want to have one single person in there and they want to be paid for it.
So you keep slicing the percentages of properties, every little stipulation, it's like smaller and smaller than number of them that are available.
Yeah, you bring up an interesting point. Maybe we just need to start making more non hunting friends. Like we're hanging out in the wrong circles, Tony. We got to start hanging out with doctors or someone from Detroit. These these guys that aren't interested in using their family inheritance.
You know. The other thing that is super import and I think seek one. If they like on their YouTube or whatever, they mentioned this quite a bit, they might have a series on it. The liability thing is real, Yeah, even though it's not. I mean the way I understand it, there's not actually a whole lot of liability risk to a landowner if you're on their property. So you just have to offer to buy insurance or get something, you know, in writing that says this is how we're going to
handle the liability thing. Because every lease that I've had, the landowner has asked about that. Yeah, and so that is definitely something they think about. So I try to address that too. In any letter communication. I always say, hey, there's really not any liability risk to you, but to you know, give you peace of mind. I'm going to sign a waiver and I'll get insurance.
How have you gone about getting that insurance? How you who've done that through?
Yeah, I just do it like there's a if you just google it, there's a bunch of them. But generally, like the American Hunting Lease Association, they probably sell the most policies just for that. So but your own agent probably can do it way less. I think it's like thirty dollars for the year. It's not it's not anything expensive.
It's good to know. What about pricing, that's a big one. I mean, how do you go about determining whether this is a fair price or what's fair for an area?
Yeah, there's no right of reason. So you will see if you start looking at some of the base camp things, like, it's crazy some of the pricing that's totally market driven and demand driven and it's not reflective. That's like they're serving a market of people who are there specifically to lease, and they're specifically competitively leasing against each other, so obviously
that's going to have the most inflated prices. The way I've always approached pricing is I go to them, and I will know how much their property taxes are, and I basically will offer very close to what their taxes are. So in Michigan, roughly one hundred and fifty ish acre farm is roughly going to be fifteen hundred to twenty two hundred bucks for property taxes. And you can see it. It's I mean, it's public knowledge. You can see it
on the BSA. The I can't think of the name of it, but when you go to the county's site, you'll be able to look up all of their tax records. So it's a very good idea that I do, and I may I mention it. I'm like, hey, I know your property tax is there this much? What if I paid half of it or all of it, or depending on how good the property is above that. It's just I mean, as much as I love to, I'm not gonna spend ten thousand dollars a year on a lease.
I'm just not going to do it. So you know, fifteen hundred isn't cheap, but I feel like I can play with that. So that's generally where I'm going to be offering is roughly their property tax.
When you're going about, you know, signing one of these agreements, whether it was their base camp or through these various other handshake deals, word of mouth deals and all that kind of stuff. Is there anything you've noticed over the years as far as it red flags to look for in lease agreements or particular clauses that you definitely do want to include in an agreement.
So I always like make it very clear that it's exclusive access and nobody else is hunting at all unless there unless there was an agreement you know prior, like they say, oh, my grandson wants to hunt, I'm way more willing out of state to do that. Like I don't care if you hunt during gun season, going to be there, and I'm probably not going to have this as a multi year thing, so that's fine, but I definitely get in there the that I'm doing this exclusive
if you can. I always tried to like say this is a five year agreement, like you want to lock it up for as many years as you can, unless you're worried that like you're taking a little bit of a flyer and you don't know how good the place is going to be, then don't lock it up for that long. Probably another thing that you really want to
pay attention to. And this this does happen a lot on the base camp, like there'll be trail camp pictures or pictures of deer, and it'll be like the landowner has shot some great bucks over the years, why the hell's he leasing it? Right? Like to me, that math doesn't add up. Clearly, I'm not going to lease it. I'm not going to lease the property where the landowner is hunted in the past, because I don't know anybody who's ever said I don't want to hunt anymore.
Right, just kill a bunch of big bucks there and it's a great spot.
Yeah, So that is definitely, I mean, of the online ones, that's a real red flag. Another thing, it's not really a red flag. It's just an annoyance. And I'm sure I'm going to offend somebody, but I don't mean to eight of the pictures of their giant buck robes. They're not rubes, They're not They're just like bad spots on the tree or something.
Anyway, Yeah, speaking of that, and I guess that, well, this is obviously not possible with online services. But in the past, have you ever tried to get an in person like look at they before leasing it. It's like in these cases where it's through a friend or word of mouth and stuff. Is that something that you recommend that you've done the past or is that even like these days?
Yeah, not realistic, honestly. It's why I'm I'm struggling so much with the base camp situation right now. Like I really would like to get something within eight hours of home, So that's Indiana, Ohio and maybe Illinois for us. I can't. I can't pull the trigger on something, even if it's affordable, because I can't look at it. If I go to look at it, I'm going to lose it if I put the That's the other thing too, If you put a deposit to hold it and don't lease it, you
lose the money. It's not a refundable deposit. So I won't lease it unless I've looked at it. And I would not advise anybody unless so maybe like you've hunted the neighbor's place, or you've hunted on that road and you know that property, you know necessarily have to look at it then because you know it. But for me to go to some place, you know, down by Athens, Ohio, and I need to see, like is that thing straight up and down? And there's one trail that a deer
could even balance on? Like I and I can't really tell that from Onyx not well enough.
So, yeah, you mentioned multi year leases. Is that something you've been able to finangle in the past. Is that ever an option with a service like base Camp or is an always single year?
If it is an option in base Camp, they usually say actually, the National Hunting Leaks people will list that in their listings more often than any place else where. It says like potential for long term lease. Base Camp doesn't really say that that I've seen, and I've never seen them offer a multi year thing individually. I've definitely heard a lot of people, mostly when I used to do like media or writer hunts and I would pick
the brain of the outfitters and stuff. None of them were signing leases unless they were five to ten years. Difference is like they were a corporation essentially, and they're probably, you know, leasing one thousand acres at a time for much higher fee than I would ever be able to do, so it was a totally different situation. But they would not lease unless they had at least five to ten year terms. I've never had that.
So I'm kind of bouncing all over the place, but I keep on all these random thoughts that I've had kind of store away in the back of my mind when it comes to my lease, and challenges are now bubbling up as I'm hearing about your similar challenges in one of these things. When I've looked at when I've looked at pieces of land to lease, or even when I have at least a place, and then I'm trying to side, like, do I want to keep leasing this?
Yeah?
I have had a different set of expectations for the quality of a property for a lease. Yeah. So, for example, at least a place a couple of years ago, and it was it was like more money than I really wanted to spend, but I thought like, man, this could be worth it, Like it's in the right neighborhood, it's pretty darn good. And then it just didn't pan out at all. And I remember thinking to myself, Man, I don't want to spend a bunch of money in a
place that's like not worth it. If I'm gonna spend money for a lease, like I want it to be a lease, how's your like when you're judging the quality of a property for lease, has like your calculus changed it all compared to like free permission or or not so not necessarily.
I actually the hardest thing in Michigan. It's harder like I actually let a lease go that is seventy five acres of really good river bottom, and that place sucked. There's no deer, like, there's nothing big and I tried it for two and it's like I cannot I'm not that bad of a deer hunter. I should have seen something in two years. That was really hard to let that go because it's so hard to find it and to get it. But my expectations weren't higher there. They
were kind of normal. Now when I'm out of state, like a place any any of the Great Plain State, I'm I am expecting if I leased a place to get a really good one on camera pretty fast, and if I don't, there's probably a reason for it, and I'm about to find out when I go to hunting. But it was like something going on on that place
that I was not aware of. So but I would feel that way on the public too for the most part, Like I might be instead of seeing a you know, one hundred and sixty inch five year old, I might be expecting to see one hundred and fifty inch four year old. But I still expect to see them, I camp.
Have you had the experience yet of I'm assuming you have based on some past knowledge, but maybe I'm wrong on this. Have you shared leases with hunt buddies or other people?
I'm weird, dude, so like, I don't hunt with other people, mostly because I don't want to ruin their time and I just have such weird, little specific ways that I want to hunt that I don't want to mess it. I did have a shared lease one time with a friend in Iowa, but the place was huge and it worked out great. I mean that's back when like it was so easy. I mean, it took us two days to kill him. Like I shot one that I shouldn't have shot on the first day. It was still a
four year old. But and then he shot like one hundred and ninety I mean, just a giant and it took two days. So that was fine because it was such a large I mean it was like three hundred and some acres I think I can't remember exactly, but the way it laid, we could come in from different sides of it, different roads, and it wasn't like it wasn't an issue at all. But I generally I don't see me leasing in place with somebody else. It just doesn't appeal to me. But the pooling of resources is
a good thing. But think about it. You're now also you need more acres. So if you divide up the acres that each person has, are you better off or not? I don't know, but yeah, I don't. I think for a lot of situations it's great to partner up. I'm just weird and I can't hunt with other people very well.
It is, it is, it's just trickier, and it's like, it seems like you have to set expectations and have like kind of like a setup, like a process in place for how do we decide who's gonna hunt wear and how do we make sure that we never get into a position where we're mad at each other because of hunting? Like, how do we make sure we're all on the same page, comfortable with the arrangement, no questions,
no assumptions. Let's put all on the table and make sure we're all on the same page here so that we're not messing up a friendship over a deal. I think that seems to be the key, right.
And I just get yes, it is, and I just get like I mean, I care about it, probably too much. So if I'm not seeing deer, it's not going right, Like I'm going to be grumpy, and I'm not mad at you. I'm just mad. Like I'm just mad it's not you, it's not anybody else. I'll be fine in the morning or whenever I see a deer. And what happens is like I think I have felt it in the past where people are like, oh, he's mad because I shot this deer, like it had nothing to do
with it. So I just don't just take all that human stuff out of the equation for me, because you're right, like you have to. I spend more time worrying about everybody else because I don't want to. I don't want to mess up their situation. And it was a little different for me back then because I hunted so much because of my job, right, so I knew it was like that person's one week, whereas I'd been going for three months.
So you know, Yeah, that leads to another challenge too, is like having different amounts of free time available to spend on the least too, Like that causes like, well, hey, like Tony's out there four weeks a year. I only get five days. How's that fair? All that stuff does get complicated. So I mentioned the fact that I've just recently lost a permission piece. Same things happened to me with the least too. I'm betting this the same things
has happened to you. Has there been anything you've learned over the years that have helped you keep a lease, you know, other than just having the money to do it, Any advice on that side of things.
So yes, but it's like common sense, and I don't know if it helps you keep it, but it helps you to know what's going on. So when I lost the lease I had in Michigan, that was the best one, Like I'll never have another place like that here. I never talked to that landowner, like literally, I sent him a check once a year with a letter, never talk to him, and then I got a letter back when
you're saying, hey, I'm deciding to not lease this. I've always wondered if I had been more personable or friendly with the guy, if maybe because it still sits there, like it's still nobody. I mean, he lets some other people hunt it now, like it wasn't a family thing. And I just wonder if I had been a little bit better at the relationship building on that. The other the most recent one that I lost last season, I
had that for two seasons. I had a you know, I would text that landowner and talk to him like there was no surprises. When it came that they weren't going to lease anymore because they wanted to sell it. That didn't help me keep it. But I had a much better line of communication with those people than I did the other one. So I still wonder if I had just been a little more talkative, if it will.
It's hard to do when you're someone like you and me. Wait, Like I always know that I should do that, and I try to do it, but like in my heart of hearts, I'm like, I just want to pull into the drive. I want to go hunt, I want to get back my car, I want to go home. I'm tired. It's so hard to convince yourself to be okay. I got to like psych myself up to have this chat. There's some of my friends, like, you know, I'm sure
some of your buddies too. It's like that's just all they want to do is bs with everyone they see, and I'm just not always like that. That's hard.
Yeah, I think that too. Like I'm and I My wife is very different from me. So's she's saying hello to everybody, and I always say the same thing to her. I'm like, I don't want someone stopping in Walmart and talking to this somebody else.
That's exactly how I feel.
And she's like, that's not how it is, but for me it is.
So yeah. Yeah. So what about the hunting side of things? Is there anything that you think differently about from a hunting perspective when on a least property versus public or by permission. I mean, there's one big obvious one, but I'll let you you know, how do you think differently behind it?
I don't think this way, but I have had people that I know have had leases or whatever that I've talked to and it's like, hey, this is the last year of this lease. Let's kill every buck we can. And I think that there is something in that mindset that a lot of people if they think if they're paying for this, that they're entitled a little bit more. I don't think that, like honestly anymore. I mean, I still want to kill deer, but I kind of don't
care if I don't like. I just want to hunt them, and I want to hunt them in a certain way. So I think my approach on a lease isn't any different than anywhere else other than I I know I don't have to. If I see a good one on public or something, I might be a little bit more inclined to push it and do something I maybe isn't super smart. I'm good at doing that super smart stuff anyway,
But in that's it situation, I might do that. On the least, I'm probably going to be a little less risky, just because I trust more that it's not going to get as messed up. Right, But I don't change a whole lot because I don't, Like I said earlier, I just don't really look at the ground any differently. One is public that has what I need. One is private that has what I need. I just had to pay for it. They're the same thing.
Now this isn't necessarily least specific, but but it kind of is. Is you just described that your overall strategy is mostly the same, public versus private versus a lease. We did a podcast together, I think two summers ago, right, was that when soon after your book came out, does that something right. And one of the things that stood out to me with that conversation and with the book is it's something you kind of just said, which is
you've kind of figured out how you want to hunt. Like, you know, there's a bunch of different ways to hunt. You've tried many different ways success yesfully you've done them all successfully, but you've kind of narrowed down like how you like to do it, yeah, and like the way
that's the right fit for you. So I'm just kind of curious, as you've kind of gone on this journey of access changing and your experience changing on public land and having these leases come in and out over the years, where you are today in twenty four has your opinion on how you like to hunt or how your approach differs, you know, or how you approach hunting is that different now than how you described it in twenty twenty two
in the book and in our conversation. Is there any big change just happened over these last couple of years now?
I mean, I'm pretty dialed in, Like I don preseason scout. I just don't think it's worth it. The only preseason scouting I'll even do this year is when I go turkey hunting this spring. If I'm if I decide to go to a place I haven't been, I'll look at the public and stuff with the eye on deer hunting. That's the extent of my and I'm still going to count on scrapes almost one hundred percent of the time
from September through November. The difference is it's super hard now to get in the truck to drive overnight like I used to get it a place in the dark, a public place and beyond deer within two to three days, because I'm it's taking me two to three days now to figure out am I even going to stay here? Or am I going to drive another two hundred miles to a place where I feel like I can operate
without getting walked in on or something like that. So the only change is this, like I'm more serious now about trying to maybe have one out of state lease than I have ever. I know I'm going to have to do what I have to do in Michigan, whether it's permission or lease or whatever, and continue to learn the public. I just haven't found anything to hunt. I'm still going to have a public land hunt somewhere. Used to have two, maybe three public land hunts. I have
to curb those back now because of the time. I can't spend three days out of five days finding a place where I'm just not seeing boot tracks because that just it nothing spins me out faster than seeing these boot tracks. It just annoys that a lot of me.
It's it's not the fun part, that's for sure. No, no, man, Well, this is one of those topics that's like, I don't know anyone who's like thrilled by the prospect of having to do a lease, but you know, it's it's kind
of a reality for more and more of us. And I think, like these kinds of questions are always bubbling around in my mind, and so it's helpful to be able to bounce some of these things someone else who's been through the ring or two, because you know, we're not going to be turning the clock back anytime soon, so you can, like folks can like complain about it all they want and be upset about it if they want, Sure, okay,
But I'm kind of like a pragmatic guy. I'm like, Okay, this is just what it is now, So how do I make the best of the situation. That is on public Now how do I make the best of what might still be available for free on permission? But then also like, hey, lease is our reality of the world, and how can I do it in the smartest way if it makes sense.
So it's a tool that's helpful. Yeah, it's It's a tool to me. It's not my primary tool. I'm still primarily a public public land guy, and I'm still going to be looking for that undiscovered place and figuring it out. But in between, I mean, I have an X number of places and times I want to hunt in the fall. I can't fill all of them anymore with just public I don't feel like I can.
So this is a tool, yeah, yeah, and you can't necessarily fill them with the kind of experience you want to, Like, I feel like that just that resonates a lot with me. Is like, sometimes I want that grueling, mega public line experience, and sometimes I want just a little bit different, which
I'm not going to apologize for. It's nice to be able to have a spot where you can sit and see deer do their thing and not worry about Tom and Jerry and Jarley and Matt and Bob and every other guy walking by so's I.
Mean, there's one more thing that I hesitate talking about because it just feels weird. But I said, I'm almost always hunting alone. That means when I shoot it to an earned whatever pound deer, I have to get that thing out of there by myself. And that's not as easy now as it was ten years ago. So maybe I can haul two of them out, but I don't know if I can haul three of them out, So that that's another thing where I have to plan accordingly. And I'm sure that's like in another ten years, that's
not like gonna be different. So sure, yeah, just the getting around and in and out over the course of the season is a little bit different now too.
Yeah. Yeah, it's just like changes in circumstances and life, you know, phase and then just the changes that are happening across our hunting culture I think are making this.
You know, for for a while, it's been this funny kind of path that the public land thing has gone where for a long time, everyone thought it was horrible and nobody wanted to hunt it at all, and then you know, the last decade or so, it has become very trendy and very popular, and now you're seeing like the backlash where there's like folks that are kind of like realizing, hey, it's great, but maybe it's not for
me all the time or whatever. And you're seeing like there used to be like a within certain sub segments of the hunting world, owning private land or having a lease was almost like like like a scarlet letter almost like oh, well, they're just the one percent ers. They don't they're not they're not good hunters because they just have it all given to them on the silver platter.
And and like there's some like everyone has different circumstances, and I don't like getting into the whole like such and such measuring contests that a lot of hunters get into. But I think what I'm getting at now is like I don't think you should feel guilty if you decide you want to get a lease. I don't think you should feel guilty if you know, however you choose to hunt,
Like it's all challenging in its own way. It's all should come down to, my opinion, like down to like hunting your own hunt, like hunt the way you want to hunt, the way that you find enjoyment and satisfaction from as long as it's legal and you're doing it, you know, in a way that's not damaging others experiences, Like more power to you, and this is this is one of those options available.
Yeah so, and definitely different levels to it, Like you know, the least is if I get any it's it's gonna be like twenty acres, thirty acres that's or it's gonna be like the one in Michigan where it's one hundred acres with two trees. So I mean, it's live, it's it's it's gucci sounding, but it's still uh, it's still pretty duller general, you know.
Yeah. Yeah, I love the fact that you're essentially leasing two trees. That that takes serious dedication, Tony.
And I was, I was literally seconds away from shooting like one hundred and forty five inch year there the first night on it, and it's incredible. I totally screwed up. But that's my That's how I roll. It's always next year, right, Yeah, we'll see maybe maybe there won't be any deer there, but I will sit in my tree and see what happens. That's hunting.
So before we wrap the sucker up, Tony, can you remind folks a little bit about your book and where they can find that, yeah, and anything else you want to mention.
Yeah. So it's called The Antler Geeks Manifesto and that's on Amazon, just self published it. I'm actually working on another one. I don't know what I'm gonna call it, but it's basically like the half Life of a public land Hunter. So it's I don't know, I'm hopefully not quite halfway through my life, but I've no hunted public for over twenty years, which is crazy. And it's just going to outline, you know, how I got into it, what's been different, what's not as good, what is still good?
Just you know, I love reading like Jeen and Barry Wentzel's books. I just love them, and I'd read everyone they wrote. So it's just kind of like that. It's just a collection of stories but also lessons in it too, and hopefully going to have that wrapped up by the end of the summer, but we'll see how many. I gotta start catching small moths, so that might say that might.
I get it? I get it, Hey, you got you gotta live a little Tony. Don't feel guilty.
You're with the trout though, So if I got you in a small mouth, you can never look back.
I know that I would be very susceptible to the small draw, the small jaw syndrome as I've heard some people call it. Yeah, so yeah, I get it. Well, Tony.
Uh.
I enjoyed this chat. I really do appreciate you coming on here and talking through this. And yeah, the the never ending challenge of access, I think is something that we're all going to have to keep on working on over the years. So these are important conversations.
Have Yeah, absolutely appreciate it.
All right, that is a wrap, my friends. Thank you for joining me, thank you for being a part of the Wired to Hunt community. I'm wishing you all the luck in the world in your own access journey, whether that's knocking on doors for permission, sending letters to hopefully get a lease, maybe buying your first piece of ground, or putting in the grind to find some good public whatever it is, get out there, enjoy your time outside, and until next time, stay wired to hung