has anybody allowed people to hunt for money?

i cant hunt right now and there r tons of deer and i was wondering about the legalities of allowing someone to bowhunt for some bucks for a few days. do i have them sign a wiaver so if they shoot them selves i have nothing to do with it?

Hey Cole224. Even with a signed waiver, I'd be very concerned for my liability. Most insurance carriers would view this as a commercial risk, and would be totally excluded from any personal liability policy you may have. Check with your agent, as coverage varies between companies and/or states. Bret

If there are so many deer, why not let people hunt for free?

Never charged anybody to hunt on my property, but every year my brothers and I spend a week deer hunting in Michigan, and we pay the farmer for the rooms and he lets us hunt on his property.

I just don't get the American fixation with liability, but we probably have a lot less lawyers per square foot up here. I've never heard of somebody being sued because somebody who hunted on their property got hurt or killed, but then there is a first time for everything.

In any event, you could start by asking some neighbours how they handle it & manage to escape the liability issue.

I can not tell where you are but it is done all over Texas. People get $20 to $100 a day per gun or lease the land by the year. Now if you tried it here in Arizona you would probably
get lynched. In Arizona most all state owened land is open for hunting even if it is grazing leased to someone else.

Jim, I've not done any hunting in many years, but you're right that it's common for some people to pay an annual lease to the landowner to hunt all they want to during the season, and to pay on a daily rate for other hunters. And way back 40 years ago, my Dad and I hunted on a ranch in central Texas that was overpopulated by deer. The landowner had some hunters who paid the annual lease and wanted trophy type bucks. But the landowner also wanted the does thinned out, and at that time, you were allowed to take 3 deer, as long as only one was a buck. So our deal with the landowner was that if we shot nothing, we paid nothing. If we shot a buck, it was $50; if we shot a doe, it was $20, a second doe was $15, and a third was $10. That was in 1963, so I'm sure prices are considerably higher now. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

Many states have enacted laws to protect landowners from liability suits in order to encourage them to permit hunter access. Check with your states Fish & Game Department.

I read this thread when it was first posted, and didn't reply because you guys pretty well covered the question. But then today, I looked at it again, and I read the subject question in a completely different way. A friend of mine who has his grandfather's ranch told me how his grandfather supposedly dropped a bag of gold in a fence post hole many years ago. It was an effort to keep the money from being stolen. My friend has hunted for that money many times and never found it. I've never asked him if he'd let me hunt for money, but I'm thinking maybe I should ask [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] I doubt that he'll be advertising a treasure hunt on his property unless he decides he wants his fence torn up. Then, maybe it would be a good thing.

Hunting is a big part of my farming business. Where I live a hunting lease typically goes for 10-28 dollars per acre. I plant greenfields for the deer and the hunters provide the money for seed/fertilizer.
Pay by the day hunting is usually around 350 to 400 per day in my area.
As far as liability, I require the hunters to carry a insurance policy in my name. Alabama forest Owners Association offers very reasonable rates on insurance designed specifacally with the hunter/landowner

Treasure hunting: If you do your search with a sensitive metal locator instead of a shovel, you won't be digging around many of the postholes. Uhhh, hope he didn't have T-posts and pipe posts.

I'm pretty picky about who hunts on my place. So far one of my carpenters is the only one because he is a real safety minded guy. When he enquired about what it would take I told him, no charge. He volunteered to bring us a hunk of venison when/if he scored. He got a buck a few days ago and we'll be having a venison supper soon. Slow moist heat will prevent it from being too challenging to chew. Post any improved methods over in the cooking section.


[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

A few years ago the Mayor of our County made the assumption that ; as a friend of a relative, hunting on the farm was his perogative and right.

He exersied his perogative within several hunderd feet of the camper while I was showering in an area I had been working in 20 minutes previously.

His self image of importance was definetly ebbing as he left the property via the most direct path. For some reason he seemed to have a very Red Face.

Ugh- relative seems to disaprove of me now but so be it.

Egon