I know a degreed couple that lives in Wy. They work as a part time carpenters, part time bar tenders, part time yard boys, you know, whatever it takes to catch the possum. They have two kids and live a very modest lifestyle. Why?? They love to hunt and fish and camp and hike and etc. With their degrees, why don't they get better jobs??? The jobs would demand that they work during hunting season and would impose a 9-5 regimen on them that they don't want. So they are willing to pay the price to get to do what they love. Are you? Are you ready to give up the new car every two years? The cell phone? The house twice what you need? Own two rifles instead of a dozen or more? Instead of whining and calling someone a whore because they don't give you a free ride, why not shuck off all the frills in your life and move somewhere where there is lots of land, free land, and live a subsistance lifestyle so you can do what you want or shut up.

Guys,

The Texas Parks and Wildlife thinks they are in control of game in Texas as the state agents for the public who are the actual "owners". Check their website if you don't think so. They are even setting seasons and issuing licenses.

Do you see any federal agency doing that in Texas?

The landowners in Texas who sell hunting leases on their lands, but who do not buy and release game for that hunting are in fact stealing public animals to sell for private gain. Just because the "good old boys" have been doing it for time out of mind does not make it any less stealing.

The feeding business is irrelevant. If I put gas in your car, could I then drive it away?

Nobody would pay to go on that land if the animals were not there.

jim

HJ: Webster defines stealing as "to take another's property dishonestly, or unlawfully." Under the Texas leasing system, the native game technically belongs to the state but access to private property (at least for now) is controlled by the landowner. The system is legal and has been operating for some time within the scrutiny of the state's legal system. Therefore, there is no stealing involved.

You may think the system is unfair, and you certainly have a right to your opinion. But I, as a landowner, resent the implication that I am stealing. I am working lawfully within the system that our elected government established.

Interesting thread. Hunting is getting more expensive everywhere and Texas is obviously no exception. Someone mentioned that there are youth hunts available in Texas. That's true. Some are organized by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, others are sponsored by private charitable organizations. Most of these hunts take place on private land, free of charge. No, they typically aren't trophy hunts, but if your argument is that hunting is dying for lack of acccess due to cost, then you're not altogether right, where Texas is concerned. There is also public land hunting available in Texas, you just have to apply and hope to be drawn.

Jim, your comment about ranchers stealing deer for personal gain is flat wrong and belies a lack of understanding of our system. First, stealing implies that a law has beeen broken. The system of paying for access to private land to hunt animals that are owned by the State has been in place for generations. Free-range native animals like whitetailed deer, turkey, mule deer, etc. are owned by the State and the hunting of those animals is regulated as to season and bag limit. Season and bag limits vary by county depending on population densities of the target species. If a person pays to hunt a free range animal on private land in Texas, he is in effect, paying for access to shoot what belongs to him as a citizen and taxpayer. It is not theft. He is simply paying a middleman for access.

You are confusing the traditional lease arrangement of paying for access to land with the newer business model of purchasing an animal. Traditional leases are typically on a working ranch of some sort, under low-fence, for native game. The lease allowed access to hunt for animals in season. In the past, these leases were generally run to provide supplemental income for the landowner, often to pay property taxes or for cattle feed or fencing.

The newer business model involves high fence operations where hunters arrive for 1-5 days to hunt native and or exotic species. If a landowner in Texas wants to highfence his property, he has to certify to the State that he has been successful in removing or driving out the native game that previously existed there. Therefore, the rancher is not legally allowed to capture game like whitetailed deer under a new high fence. From a practical standpoint, doest it happen? I'm sure it does. But if the landowner knowingly confines native game, THEN he has committed theft.

If the landowner wants to restock his place with native game, he must purchase the stock from a licensed breeder who is regulated by the State. Depending on genetics, a bred whitetailed doe can fetch $1500 + and the sky is the limit on proven bucks, but $5000 is not unusual for a youngster from a good family. Exotics are another issue and run the gamut of type and expense.

Once you have a high fenced operation in place, you have to a certain extent taken over the role of God in the management of the place. Being God is not cheap. Fencing, water, range management, feed, equipment, marketing, staff, stock, vehicles, taxes, not to mention the note on his property - Gatogordo and Harry- feel free to add anything else I've missed here. The entire balance of the little ecosystem you've created depends on how you run it and the animals in your kingdom look to you for survival.

So, why create such a terrible, high cost model for hunting? DEMAND! We want bigger trophies, shorter hunts, guaranteed kills, high volume, low intensity. We might not like to admit it, but a big part of hunting, at least in Texas, is made up of fat-asses from the cities who want to sit in heated blinds over a corn feeder and shoot a deer or a hog, or whatever, and call it hunting and go home. The other side wants to be catered to in expensive lodges on big spreads and have a high quality experience. You can do that too. Bottom line, ranchers are providing what the market demands and a lot of them are doing it to hang onto their land. So what if a guy wants to make a buck off of his investment? As Gatogordo and Harry said, you can't hardly make it running cattle or sheep or goats alone.
If anyone thinks this is a uniquely Texas thing, take a look at RSA and Zim. The markets and the economics are the same.

Paleo, you should quit whining about no one wanting to sell you land here in central Texas. For a lot of us still, land isn't a plaything to be traded lightly. From the sound of your soapbox handwringing, you wouldn't make it here anyway. I suspect your whole tirade doesn't have much to do with the future, but with yourself. If you're really concerned about the future of hunting, take some kids up to your place in OK for some fishing or duck hunting.

"If a person pays to hunt a free range animal on private land in Texas, he is in effect, paying for access to shoot what belongs to him as a citizen and taxpayer. It is not theft. He is simply paying a middleman for access

David the way you state this well, its just evil and wrong! It akin to saying, "I bought food at the store its mine I paid for it but I have to pay a middle man say 1,000$ to use the road to go to the store." I know, I know thats what taxes do but with taxes you get more that just the right to use the road.

"I suspect your whole tirade doesn't have much to do with the future, but with yourself."

If thats what you want to belive go ahead if it makes you feel better about yourself.

"If you're really concerned about the future of hunting, take some kids up to your place in OK for some fishing or duck hunting."

I take my own kids to both my lease in TX and the land in OK. Any Dad or Mom is welcome to use my land in OK to hunt or fish as long as they ask 1st, in the 11yr we have had this land I have never told anyone know who asked to use it!

Oh FYI I do not stay in a hotel or 30' trailer or cabin I tent it, I do not hunt over feeders I tried it one year and even though I fill my tags I did not feel good about it, and dont do it anymore.

Hey Paleohunter

Where is your land in Oklahoma? I have 12 and 14 year old sons and a wife that love to hunt and fish......we are always looking for places to enjoy the outdoors!

SW OK kinda in the middle between Ft Sill and Chickasha and south of Ft Cobb lake.

I know the area....I grew up in Lawton....don't live in that part of the state now but get down that way a couple times a year to visit my brother in Cache.....how is the dove hunting on your place?

Good if the farmers are planting Millet any other time its just ok.

David W.....well said and thank you.
Hunter Jim,
I know you personally but evidently I don't understand you. It must be a Calif. thing.
It is for damn sure you are not a ranch owner in Tx or I am pretty sure you would have a much different outlook.
Come on down and I will let you run one of mine for a year or two and that means you get all the expense too and we will see if you have any kind of attitude adjustment.
I am old enough to remember when there were few deer in the state of Texas and all the rancher worked with the then TX Game & Fish Comm to re-stock deer and to protect them for 7 years before any hunting. Now we have deer all over the place.
We also stocked every puddle of water that would hold and now there is good fishing.
If my dad and my grand father were alive along with a bunch of other old crusty rancher from the 1930's,40's and 50's they might want an conversation with you up close and personal.
If you like breathing and eating regular the last thing you want to do is to tell an old Texas rancher in his 70's or 80's that any critter running on his ranch is not his....deer, horse, hog, coyote, sheep,coon or dog. Don't make a damn to them. If if is inside their fence then it belongs to them.
The ranch and farm land in Texas was not paid for by a bunch of panty waisted liberals. This is America, the land of free speech and idea but you just have to learn where and when you can express all that thinking you have going on. Hard scrabble Texas is most likley not the place to say it out loud anyway.

Harry wrote:

quote:

---

If you like breathing and eating regular the last thing you want to do is to tell an old Texas rancher in his 70's or 80's that any critter running on his ranch is not his....deer, horse, hog, coyote, sheep,coon or dog. Don't make a damn to them. If if is inside their fence then it belongs to them.

---

Tom,
Evidently I don't know what hunting is. I have only hunted four continents so far but I am sure you could teach me plenty.
What is it about hunting a big Texas ranch with a 48" net wire fence you don't understand? I did not say anything about any critters tied down with a rope. They are all free ranging. A 4 foot fence is no obstacle.
Matter of fact...I didn't say anything about hunting...I was talking ownership of critters on land.

[ 06-30-2003, 21:38: Message edited by: Harry ]

HunterJim, et al:

I posted this in another thread, but since you seem to keep repeating the same refrain about "the state owns the game", I thought you might gain some insight into the true ownership of game by reading it and doing your own research. Therefore, I'm posting it here as well.

xxxxxx

I've posted this before, but I'll post it again, the idea that the game belongs to the state is based upon some flawed Supreme Court rulings of the last century. Which have since been found wanting by later Supreme Court rulings. Now, everyone goes along with this legal fiction, except for the Feds when the various states (there was a well known case involving New Mexico, but I don't have the case number in front of me) obviously overstep their authority, (BTW, see the latest Appellate, not Supreme, Court ruling vis a vis out of state hunters treatment vs that of residents for more information as well), because most people recognize that there needs to be some legal oversight for the game inside the various state's boundaries. But, in fact, the states, or by extension, the citizens of those states, do NOT own the game, and never did.

Here is a more concrete example of a Supreme Court decision illustrating what I said above:

In Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385 (1948,) Justice Vinson made the statement: "The whole ownership theory, in fact, is now generally regarded as but a fiction expressive in legal shorthand of the importance to its people that a State have power to preserve and regulate the exploitation of an important resource." To this he footnoted:

"See, e.g., Pound, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law, 197- 202. The fiction apparently gained currency partly as a result of confusion between the Roman term imperium or governmental power to regulate, and dominium, or ownership. Power over fish and game was, in origin, imperium.

I think it is interesing to see the differnt thoghts on the money side of hunting. I think it is just a problem in all sides of life now days. The small farms are being squeezed out land prices are through the roof but so are cars and houses. The states that have elk raise tags my own state raise tags so the guy at the bottom of the money scale is being pushed out. That really bugs me tag prices I rember when I was 13 and my dad bought my brother and me a jr hunt license and a tag it was a big invetment then. I am lucky enough to hunt on a uncles farm but he is getting own in age his land is worth five times what he gave for it several years ago so I cant buy it.
So demand /market/money is squeezing out the guys at the bottom who cant afford to spend thousands on a hunt. So like my buddy and I have talked about put in for all the tags for the hunts you want now becasue I think we will see shrinking chances from here on out.
I also would like to say I dont blame anyone for using there land whether it is selling or fencing or having hunts for charging all they can get after all I sure am not going to work for less just becasue I could and neither should they.