By The traditional way of securing hunting grounds is to arrange a long-term lease with the landowner. Hunting leases have been the industry standard for generations. Still, there is always room for something new. Nowadays you do not necessarily need a seasonal hunting lease to enjoy a day in the outdoors looking for deer. You can just show up and hunt.
Hunting leases are by no means dying. In fact, the benefits of having an exclusive lease are such that it is getting harder and harder for hunting groups to find available lands. The industry has stepped up with some creative solutions as a result. One solution is to offer day leases the same way a hotel offers nightly rooms. Another option is for landowners to sell hunting packages.
The package concept is a good deal for landowners because it allows them to maintain complete control over their land while still enjoying the financial benefits of offering it to hunters. Doing business this way is a little bit costlier, but hunters who want the convenience of just showing up to hunt are usually willing to pay the price.
Packages vs. Leasing
The American Hunting Lease Association (https://ahuntinglease.org/hunting-lease-insurance) assures hunters and hunting clubs that there is plenty of leased land in America. They also say that a growing number of landowners are opting to forgo leases in favor of offering hunting packages.
Owners with extremely large pieces of land may not be able to lease every single acre to a single hunt club or group of hunters. The result is that the land is only partially managed. Likewise, it can be dicey to lease a portion of land with a seasonal lease and use the rest for day leases. Package hunting is a great compromise between the two.
Landowners benefit from package arrangements by being able to bring in as many groups of hunters as capacity allows. Hunting fees not only cover administrative costs but they also cover the labor required to maintain the land. Hunters benefit from a package arrangement because nothing is required of them other than showing up ready to hunt. They do not have feeders to fill, fences to maintain, and hunting cabins to keep up. In many cases they do not have to worry about liability insurance for deer hunting either.
How the Model Works
The best way to think of package hunting is to imagine a large ranch subdivided into parcels by way of physical fencing or landmarks. Let’s say you had a landowner with 500 acres subdivided into 100-acre sections. Each section would have its own hunting cabin along with one or two tree stands and a couple of blinds.
Upon arrival, a hunting party would be given a tour of its cabin and parcel of land. They are free to hunt on that parcel for the duration of their stay. Upon checkout, the property owner’s crew would come in and do whatever was necessary to get it ready for the next group of hunters.
Landowners provide their own liability insurance as a prerequisite for doing business. Hunters would only have to worry about insurance if they wanted additional coverage in the event of injury. Everything else is taken care by the landowner, including land management, maintaining food sources for the chosen game, up-keep of the hunting cabin and tree stands, etc.
These days, you don’t have to have an annual lease to enjoy a good hunting experience. Now you can just show up and hunt. All it takes is a landowner offering package deals to groups.
