Is hunting just for the rich now?

Hunting isn't necessarily for the rich. It's for the landowners,and those wealthy enough to lease from the landowners.
Around here, most farms are either hunted by the farmer and his friends/relatives, or leased out to someone. There's no particular incentive to allow someone to hunt it.
Public land here is typically logged over garbage woods with no food potential. Deer and turkeys are usually found on the margins with farm property, or are found in very,very low density with no centralized food sources, making hunting them a difficult prospect for someone with a 40hour+ work week. I hunted public land for years in MD and VA before I realized that a small plot of tended clover/oats/beans brought in 10x as many deer as I ever saw in even the most fertile oak groves on public land. There are some nice deer way up in the hills,but your odds of ever seeing them are slim to none w/o weeks of scouting time available every year.
 
I think the question we all may have to answer is "If I bought, was able to buy, or inherited, a nice big plot of primo land with a bunch of game on it, would I allow guys like you (and me) hunt it?"

Let's keep the question rhetorical...

Tom
 
A couple of fellow Iowan's are under the impression we have ample public lands for hunting.....in reality, Iowa has the least amount of Public land of any state. Part of the reason for this is the high quality and value land has for crop production. It's fast becoming difficult for CRP land to compete income wise with crop prices at an all time high. Farmers are planting everything they can from ditch to ditch and fence to fence.

"Is Hunting for the Rich now?"......no, just that the cost to play has increased as land values and crops have. Smart hunters can beat the system by buying their own land and renting to farmers. There are also a number of tax advantages and landowner programs to help offset the investment. In the end you can hunt, own the land, and make money at the same time.
 
Another way to put it: Economics 101. There are approximately 14 million deer hunters, nationwide. (I won't swear to that number, but I vaguely recall it from articles about the hunting population.)

A much higher percentage of them live in a city, now, compared to "the good old days". As I said before, far fewer with direct connections to rural hunting lands.

That means increased demand for hunting space on the part of these "outsiders". But there is no more hunting land, today, than in the past. Much has been lost, in fact, to some sort of development.

So, demand goes up, supply is in slight decline, the price must go up. Pick the commodity; Economics 101 always wins.
 
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