What Mistakes Did You Make When buying Your Hunting Property?

[TreeDaddy]

topo and soil maps

bill

 

[MoBuckChaser]

"What Mistakes Did You Make When buying Your Hunting Property?"

I bought deer hunting land in MN

But I was stupid to try and make it work for 30 years in MN, You still have time to get the hell out not wasting as much time as I did!

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Ya...after coming in from hinge cutting yesterday I decided that this is "it". I'm not doing all the tree planting/hinge cutting/trail making/etc. on another new property. This is as "good" as it's gonna get for me

You come down to Missouri with me one time stu, bet you will be thinking......

 

[MN Slick]

My biggest mistake was buying with partners.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

My biggest mistake was buying with partners.

Aint helping anymore or they not paying their fair share?

Anyway to end the pain?

 

[H20fwler]

Biggest mistake I made with the last property I bought was selling off twenty acres of the tillable property. I kick myself now for not keeping it.

 

[buckdeer1]

Agree make sure you have some form of ag history,can be forestry or crop,CRP.Neighbors and it's nice to have areas to hunt that run east-west also along with N-S so you have more options to hunt in different winds

 

[swat1018]

Edge is what makes smaller farms hunt bigger. I like to see a myriad of fields, draws, timber, etc. Just a big square block of timber makes hunting different winds with good access tough. I always want a stream, creek, river too, when I can.

 

[bueller]

Speaking of smaller parcels. Don't buy on a corner. Having roads on two sides will make the place hunt a whole lot smaller than it really is.

 

[MN Slick]

Aint helping anymore or they not paying their fair share?

Anyway to end the pain?

Selling and buying on my own is about the only fool proof option but I'm not quite ready yet. One farm is in a great neighborhood and cash flows so it's very hard to think about selling that one. I've tried buying my partners out but no luck. The other I own with my brother so I have to consider what would come of our relationship if I move on. However, I also have to consider what will come of our relationship if he continues to leech off all my hard work, strategy, equipement, LOL. He bow killed his 3rd buck over 147" in the last 4 years and with it has officially out punted my generosity. He needs to start bringing value to our partnership which I will address with him in the coming months.

 

[Mortenson]

Speaking of smaller parcels. Don't buy on a corner. Having roads on two sides will make the place hunt a whole lot smaller than it really is.

Good point. And along those lines, say you're buying an 80, half mile by quarter mile, it's probably better to have it go deep rather than half mile of road frontage.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Selling and buying on my own is about the only fool proof option but I'm not quite ready yet. One farm is in a great neighborhood and cash flows so it's very hard to think about selling that one. I've tried buying my partners out but no luck. The other I own with my brother so I have to consider what would come of our relationship if I move on. However, I also have to consider what will come of our relationship if he continues to leech off all my hard work, strategy, equipement, LOL. He bow killed his 3rd buck over 147" in the last 4 years and with it has officially out punted my generosity. He needs to start bringing value to our partnership which I will address with him in the coming months.

Don't know what to say other than it sounds like you are going to continue to be unhappy if you stay in a partnership on both properties. And if you sell, you will be unhappy because you sold out.

I will say this, people usually don't change. What is going on today, will be going on 2 years from now. Good luck Dave, I hope I am wrong, and they will come around.

 

[rocksnstumps]

Speaking of smaller parcels. Don't buy on a corner. Having roads on two sides will make the place hunt a whole lot smaller than it really is.

Actually depends on the road/how busy it is. I have a road on one side that really is just a short section of town road that turns into a farmers driveway. It's blacktop but pretty narrow and other side is a fenceline and farm field. It does have the advantage that the neighbors or their renters can't set up and hunt the line on you. Cause with small parcels surrounded by other small parcels, the tendency is to hunt right on your boundaries ALOT. In fact the only sides of my land not having a neighbors stand close by are the sides with roads. Town roads don't seem to restrict movement of the critters very much but can understand that a more major road with all the right of ways cleared does take away from your total acreage and likely restricts the flow of critters.

 

[MN Slick]

Don't know what to say other than it sounds like you are going to continue to be unhappy if you stay in a partnership on both properties. And if you sell, you will be unhappy because you sold out.

I will say this, people usually don't change. What is going on today, will be going on 2 years from now. Good luck Dave, I hope I am wrong, and they will come around.

You are right, they won't change. A wise man once told me "you get what you put up with". Well, I'm getting it.

 

[Booner21]

Actually depends on the road/how busy it is. I have a road on one side that really is just a short section of town road that turns into a farmers driveway. It's blacktop but pretty narrow and other side is a fenceline and farm field. It does have the advantage that the neighbors or their renters can't set up and hunt the line on you. Cause with small parcels surrounded by other small parcels, the tendency is to hunt right on your boundaries ALOT. In fact the only sides of my land not having a neighbors stand close by are the sides with roads. Town roads don't seem to restrict movement of the critters very much but can understand that a more major road with all the right of ways cleared does take away from your total acreage and likely restricts the flow of critters.

I second this is love having a country road that borders my property, no easement needed. I have a good screen so no poaching great access and a bulletproof stand for any sort of West wind as it blows it right to the road. I can hunt 1 stand every day of the year as long as there isn't an East wind and not educate a single deer.

Two things I was really lucky on and didn't know at the time was make sure you can access several sides of the property with different wind directions and buy a property with some separation from your neighbors, I have it on 3 sides would really prefer 4. I almost made the mistake of buying property with family. We both have very different opinions on what it takes to kill mature bucks. We each bought separate places and are much much happier.

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[Freeborn]

For you absenty owners who own land out of state, what is your strategy for getting work done on your place and monitoring your properties? Do you hire somethings done and do others yourself? How many times a year do you travel to your property and how many days do you spend each trip? Seems like it would be a pain to hall equipment back and forth plus time consuming?

I own a place in north central Minnesota but am interested in another farm but have little time for two places.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

For you absenty owners who own land out of state, what is your strategy for getting work done on your place and monitoring your properties? Do you hire somethings done and do others yourself? How many times a year do you travel to your property and how many days do you spend each trip? Seems like it would be a pain to hall equipment back and forth plus time consuming?

I own a place in north central Minnesota but am interested in another farm but have little time for two places.

Do what I did Jerry, abandon the MN farm and concentrate on a place that has enough deer you can enjoy. Sounds like you and Stu need to take a trip down to Mo's!

Edit: To get work done 400 miles away gets tricky in the spring for me with a spring and summer based business like I have. But if its raining here, and not in Missouri, I take off. Work as many hours as possible. Then head home, but I don't sleep much, so that helps. I spend about 90-100 days a year at our Missouri properties. My fuel bill driving the truck down is about $250 each trip, so you learn which stations have the best fuel prices normally.
I also have a good enough set of equipment in Missouri to get stuff done when I get there. That has helped out a lot. I also have cameras everywhere, but better than that is my only neighbor down the road watches my place like a hawk. She is tough as nails and carries a pistol. So I am lucky to have her there!

 

[MoBuckChaser]

I could never be an absentee owner, the anxiety of not being there every day would cause me to develop ulcers and high blood pressure. I need to live where I own....not sure I can convince the wife to live in northern MO o_O.....not sure I want to live there either

You could live there for sure Stu. Just think about it every time we make out our property tax payment. I do, when I write out a check for 10 times as much up here!

 

[Native Hunter]

This will sound strange to people who follow my habitat work and know how much I love my land - but if being able to continually harvest big ones was the primary goal for me, I would want another farm in a different location. But, my love for my place has more to do with me growing up on it as a child and it being "home" to me.

Mo and others have made some excellent points in this thread about what to look for. Some of those I have as a positive and others as a negative. I just work hard to mitigate the negatives, and some years it works pretty good, but others it doesn't.

Sometimes, deciding whether something is a positive or negative depends on a specific situation. For instance, if you butt up to houses on one side of your property - that may not be a bad thing if people don't let dogs run loose, but if they do, it is a disaster.

Being next to a big wilderness area is a great thing for having a continuous supply of older deer moving in - but if there is a gun in every tree near the property line, I would rather have my situation.

Honestly, what makes my deer hunting good for me is that I'm in an area where most people think there aren't many good deer, so they go to a better place to hunt. Weird, but has worked pretty good since I have generally been able to hold the bigger ones that do happen to be around by providing the best hunting season habitat in the area.

But as Dorothy said to Toto - "...we aren't in Kansas....":)

 

[Freeborn]

I don't have a choice about being an absentee owner as I am still working and will be for at least another 6+ years. I'm OK with work as you got to make hay while you have the opportunity and I don't plan on leaving that opportunity to soon. Being an Absentee owner is not the best situation but I can't let it stop me from doing the things that are important to me. Once I retire having two properties will be fine as I have family and a family cabin near my farm.

If i purchase a place it will have to include a high percentage of farm land as I'm a ROI guy just like you Mo.