Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 526: Foundations - The Realities of Buying Your Own Deer Ground

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Ep. 526: Foundations - The Realities of Buying Your Own Deer Ground · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better dear hunting, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Wire to Hunt
0:14
Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
0:17
Speaker 1: This episode is dedicated to buying deer ground, which maybe
0:23
Speaker 1: is more doable than you think. Listen, I know most
0:37
Speaker 1: folks will never do it. Some because it's just a
0:40
Speaker 1: financial impossibility, that's just life. Others because they believe it's
0:45
Speaker 1: a financial impossibility, which is different. Others yet won't consider
0:50
Speaker 1: it because they don't have to. If your grandma owns
0:52
Speaker 1: five acres of prime ground and has promised to leave
0:55
Speaker 1: it to you in the family, then it might not
0:58
Speaker 1: be a smart idea to fork over some serious stough
1:00
Speaker 1: for a little slice of deer heaven. Well, there are
1:03
Speaker 1: a lot of ways to look at this, and I
1:04
Speaker 1: get that, but I want to detail my own journey
1:07
Speaker 1: a little bit and then talk about the pros and
1:09
Speaker 1: cons of considering a land purchase for yourself. I grew
1:24
Speaker 1: up with a poor attitude and I fight it to
1:27
Speaker 1: this day. By poor, I mean two different things. I
1:31
Speaker 1: mean feeling like I'd never be rich, but also just
1:35
Speaker 1: kind of a shitty attitude. If you have my genes,
1:38
Speaker 1: and by the looks of it out there in social
1:40
Speaker 1: media world, the genes that millions of us possess, it's
1:43
Speaker 1: really easy to fall into a victim mentality, the kind
1:47
Speaker 1: of mentality that just says life sucks because someone else
1:50
Speaker 1: did something. But life really doesn't suck. It's pretty amazing,
1:55
Speaker 1: and it doesn't do any of us any good to
1:57
Speaker 1: dwell on the success of others or own lack of success,
2:01
Speaker 1: when the only things we can really control our daily decisions.
2:06
Speaker 1: So that's my Tony Robbins pep talk for you, I guess, folks,
2:10
Speaker 1: because I want to get into a topic that some
2:12
Speaker 1: people want to hear and some won't. Land ownership. Now,
2:16
Speaker 1: when I was about I don't know, seven or twenty
2:18
Speaker 1: eight years old, one of my hunting buddies called me
2:21
Speaker 1: up and told me he had just bought eighty acres
2:23
Speaker 1: of land in Wisconsin. To me, that was about like
2:27
Speaker 1: one of my friends telling me he just got drafted
2:29
Speaker 1: by the Patriots to be their starting quarterback. It was
2:32
Speaker 1: so far into the realm of never gonna happen that
2:35
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it had actually happened. Now I knew
2:38
Speaker 1: nothing about the area where he bought his land, and
2:41
Speaker 1: nothing about anything other than it was amazing that he
2:44
Speaker 1: had just gone for it. I couldn't believe it. And
2:47
Speaker 1: then a little while later after he bought it, I
2:49
Speaker 1: met up with him at a roach motel in northern
2:51
Speaker 1: Wisconsin to help him cut some rifle shooting lanes and
2:54
Speaker 1: mostly just check out his new place. And it all
2:57
Speaker 1: became much much clearer after walking his land for the
3:00
Speaker 1: first time. The land is about half swamp, which means
3:04
Speaker 1: it's about half useless. The other half is a mix
3:08
Speaker 1: of high woods and some egg fields. That was much better,
3:11
Speaker 1: but it wasn't great. It also made a lot more
3:14
Speaker 1: sense on how my buddy could afford it. And as
3:16
Speaker 1: we worked away on his land so he'd be able
3:18
Speaker 1: to shoot some swamp bucks with his rifle while hunting
3:21
Speaker 1: with his dad and his brother, he kind of laid
3:23
Speaker 1: out his plans. He had big ideas for planting tree
3:27
Speaker 1: rows to screen the fields from the county road. He
3:30
Speaker 1: also planned to put in a couple of acres of
3:31
Speaker 1: food plots and to dig a pond and plant a
3:34
Speaker 1: whole bunch of apple trees. Will you hear a plan
3:37
Speaker 1: like that, you can kind of conjure up images in
3:40
Speaker 1: your head of what it might look like, but you
3:41
Speaker 1: can't really see it now, you know, I don't know
3:44
Speaker 1: fourteen years later. So some of the first trees he planted,
3:48
Speaker 1: we've put tree stands in them. The deer obviously feel
3:52
Speaker 1: safe there because the hunting is steadily gotten better, but
3:55
Speaker 1: it's by no means amazing. He's killed some big bucks there,
3:59
Speaker 1: and so is his ad, but he's also killed a pilot,
4:01
Speaker 1: little bucks, some bears, a bunch of grouse woodcocks, ducks,
4:05
Speaker 1: and mostly just had an amazing time there with his
4:08
Speaker 1: family and some of his lucky friends like me. And
4:11
Speaker 1: seeing what he did with that marginal ground kind of
4:14
Speaker 1: little fire under my ass, and I started to look
4:16
Speaker 1: for land up there as well. My budget was a
4:19
Speaker 1: lot smaller than his, but I just wanted something to
4:23
Speaker 1: call my own. Eventually I saw a listing for twenty
4:26
Speaker 1: eight acres that was priced at thirty five thousand bucks.
4:30
Speaker 1: But the land on the aerial photos and in the
4:32
Speaker 1: listing it looked like half low, half high. It was
4:35
Speaker 1: a really odd shape. So, in other words, I don't know,
4:38
Speaker 1: it didn't look like it was worth. It looked like
4:39
Speaker 1: it was overpriced, so I didn't even drive over there
4:42
Speaker 1: to look at it. But a month later that friend
4:44
Speaker 1: of mine who owns the land there, called me up
4:47
Speaker 1: and he said that that property had dropped to just
4:49
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand bucks. At that time, my wife was super
4:54
Speaker 1: duper pregnant with twin girls, so it was about as
4:57
Speaker 1: bad of timing as you could possibly imagine to spend
5:00
Speaker 1: money on so so dear ground. But the price was
5:03
Speaker 1: so low, I drove the two hours and twenty minutes
5:05
Speaker 1: over to look at it. What I looked at that
5:08
Speaker 1: looked horrible from the road actually turned into something decent
5:11
Speaker 1: on the back side of the property. And there wasn't
5:14
Speaker 1: a ton of usable ground in that but it would
5:17
Speaker 1: hunt big due to its shape. Plus it was listed
5:20
Speaker 1: for just over five hundred bucks an acre. I didn't
5:22
Speaker 1: really think I could lose money on it, and I
5:25
Speaker 1: offered him five hundred and I got it. Afterwards, the
5:29
Speaker 1: realtor told me that a college kid had inherited it
5:32
Speaker 1: and he just wanted anything he could get out of it.
5:34
Speaker 1: That was in December, and if my little girls hadn't
5:37
Speaker 1: decided to show up six weeks early, I probably would
5:40
Speaker 1: have been able to get over there and hunt it then,
5:42
Speaker 1: but I didn't. I did have something on my own
5:45
Speaker 1: to start working on, and I found a new kind
5:47
Speaker 1: of passion that I'm mostly terrible at, which is land management.
5:52
Speaker 1: I also had done something I never ever thought possible,
5:56
Speaker 1: which was by my own dear ground. Since then I
5:59
Speaker 1: found other small properties that were too good to pass up.
6:02
Speaker 1: One I had to split with a buddy of mine
6:05
Speaker 1: because it was closer to the cities and a little
6:06
Speaker 1: more expensive, But after five years owning it, we sold
6:09
Speaker 1: it for a really good profit. The other, which was
6:12
Speaker 1: listed just down the road from that original twenty in Wisconsin,
6:16
Speaker 1: I bought a few years ago for twenty thousand bucks.
6:19
Speaker 1: That property has a little kill plot on it, and
6:22
Speaker 1: it's produced too dear for my little girls, just last
6:24
Speaker 1: season alone. It's not a great piece of hunting ground
6:27
Speaker 1: in any technical sense of the term, I suppose, but
6:30
Speaker 1: it's still pretty special to us. We've got some apple
6:33
Speaker 1: trees on it that we've planted and some that were
6:36
Speaker 1: just there. Got some mode trails on it that I
6:38
Speaker 1: try to maintain every year, and we got that small
6:41
Speaker 1: kill plot to keep us busy. There are always a
6:43
Speaker 1: few deer using it on any given week, and occasionally wolves, bears,
6:48
Speaker 1: bobcats and other animals that make the up North Bigwoods thing.
6:51
Speaker 1: What it really is now, what I've glossed over here
6:55
Speaker 1: is quite a bit, But I want to dive into
6:57
Speaker 1: something that I really wrestled with when I was dying
7:00
Speaker 1: to own land, I was absolutely terrified to get serious
7:04
Speaker 1: about the process. When I bought my first property, I
7:07
Speaker 1: got lucky and that I did it right before I
7:10
Speaker 1: had kids, and I mean right before. Had I known
7:13
Speaker 1: what the real cost of daycare was or just two
7:16
Speaker 1: babies in general, I probably never would have bought that
7:20
Speaker 1: place in the first place. In fact, I know I
7:22
Speaker 1: wouldn't have, but I did. And it was, just like
7:26
Speaker 1: with those two infants, a powerful motivator to pick up
7:29
Speaker 1: any work I could to pay off that land loan
7:31
Speaker 1: as fast as possible. It was also a breakthrough moment
7:34
Speaker 1: for me. I went from thinking that it was impossible
7:37
Speaker 1: that I'd ever owned land to being a landowner. Now.
7:41
Speaker 1: That didn't change the ark of my personal deer hunting
7:43
Speaker 1: a whole lot, because none of my properties have ever
7:45
Speaker 1: produced a big buck for me, but they've got value
7:48
Speaker 1: in so many other ways working on land. It's just fun,
7:53
Speaker 1: it's rewarding, and I often don't give it enough credit.
7:57
Speaker 1: I'm a huge proponent of the process of being a
7:59
Speaker 1: deer hunter, usually through the lens of being a public
8:02
Speaker 1: land bow hunter, and that process requires a lot and
8:05
Speaker 1: I'm eight up with it. I'm biased toward it, and
8:08
Speaker 1: I can get too preachy about it. I know that
8:10
Speaker 1: I love it and I think it produces the best
8:12
Speaker 1: bow hunters out there skill wise, but that also leads
8:16
Speaker 1: me to lean too heavily into it sometimes and forget
8:19
Speaker 1: that it's a hell of a lot of fun to
8:20
Speaker 1: plant some trees, or till up half an acre in
8:22
Speaker 1: the spring, to plant some clover in it. That's a
8:25
Speaker 1: process too, and it can be a lot of work,
8:27
Speaker 1: which I think is the real secret to enjoying deer
8:31
Speaker 1: hunting overall. The more effort you put in, the more
8:34
Speaker 1: you've got at stake. The more effort you put in,
8:38
Speaker 1: the greater the rewards. And no one has to do it.
8:42
Speaker 1: But if you own land, you will be compelled to
8:45
Speaker 1: do that. The whole thing hinges on an individual's ability
8:49
Speaker 1: and desire to make it happen. I'll never forget a boss.
8:52
Speaker 1: I had one time in a past life who told
8:54
Speaker 1: a woman who was inquiring about having us cater and
8:57
Speaker 1: event for her, and he said this line to her.
9:00
Speaker 1: He said, you know, you've got champagne tastes and a
9:02
Speaker 1: beer pocketbook. She didn't like it, but he wasn't wrong. Now,
9:07
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with being a dreamer. But if you
9:10
Speaker 1: want to own land and you're unlimited funding, consider how
9:13
Speaker 1: to work with that beer pocketbook and forget about those
9:15
Speaker 1: champagne dreams. That might mean you're looking at a small
9:20
Speaker 1: property of only a few acres or ten or twenty maybe,
9:23
Speaker 1: or land that's a couple hours from home in a
9:25
Speaker 1: spot that isn't known for i don't know, high deer
9:28
Speaker 1: densities and top end genetics. That's a deal breaker for some,
9:32
Speaker 1: but shouldn't be for everyone. Buying land is often buying
9:36
Speaker 1: peace of mind. If you're the title holder, you make
9:40
Speaker 1: the rules, you do the habit at work. You want
9:43
Speaker 1: to hunt only on the weekends, but have a place
9:45
Speaker 1: to yourself, well, go nuts for doughnuts, my friends, it's yours.
9:49
Speaker 1: Do what you want. If you want a place for
9:51
Speaker 1: your little girls to hunt, as a totally random example,
9:54
Speaker 1: but you don't want to worry about hunting too close
9:55
Speaker 1: to other people. Then you've got your spot. In all
9:59
Speaker 1: of the things I've enjoyed since buying my first property,
10:02
Speaker 1: that's the biggest. Last summer, I spent several weekends setting
10:06
Speaker 1: up blinds and hanging cameras and just being with my
10:09
Speaker 1: daughters in the woods. Sometimes we'd quit early to go
10:12
Speaker 1: catch some brook trout or maybe try to find a
10:14
Speaker 1: bear to photograph or whatever, and in the process we
10:17
Speaker 1: ate a lot of junk food, We spoiled the dogs,
10:19
Speaker 1: and we just got out in nature. When fall came around,
10:23
Speaker 1: I didn't carry a bow for the first month of
10:24
Speaker 1: the season. I just took them hunting, and it was
10:27
Speaker 1: so fun and so rewarding, and knowing that no one
10:31
Speaker 1: was gonna legally anyway mess with our hunts that was huge.
10:35
Speaker 1: It was huge for peace of mind. We just needed
10:37
Speaker 1: to do our things correctly and then hope the deer
10:40
Speaker 1: did their thing enough so that we could connect with
10:41
Speaker 1: a few of them. And owning land also came with
10:45
Speaker 1: a pretty big surprise for me. I almost never hunted myself.
10:49
Speaker 1: I've killed a handful of deer on each of my properties,
10:52
Speaker 1: but my buddies and my daughters have killed more. I
10:54
Speaker 1: find myself saving my ground for someone else and going
10:57
Speaker 1: to hunt public land for myself. And I know that beard,
11:00
Speaker 1: but I just love having both options. Hell, I just
11:03
Speaker 1: love having deer hunting options in general. That's why, just
11:07
Speaker 1: like with the traveling hunting thing, i'd encourage anyone with
11:10
Speaker 1: an itch to buy some hunting land to start getting
11:13
Speaker 1: realistic about it. This is not something i'd encourage impulsivity in,
11:18
Speaker 1: although if I'm being honest, I'm a pretty impulsive guy
11:20
Speaker 1: when it comes to hunting. I'll tell you a few stories,
11:24
Speaker 1: horror stories I guess next week about that unenviable trait
11:27
Speaker 1: that I possess when I really break down the things
11:30
Speaker 1: that can go wrong with landownership. But for now, I'll
11:32
Speaker 1: say this, It might be in your grasp. It might
11:37
Speaker 1: not just be the dream dear ground you fantasize about
11:40
Speaker 1: or see on the hook and bullet outdoor channels where
11:42
Speaker 1: fifty seven deer a night storm into a food plot
11:44
Speaker 1: and fight over the calories. You might have to lower
11:47
Speaker 1: your expectations and reframe your desires around your financial situation
11:51
Speaker 1: and where you live and what you're really looking to
11:53
Speaker 1: get out of the purchase. If you do and it
11:56
Speaker 1: all starts to seem a little feasible, it's time to
11:59
Speaker 1: start look. Hell, if you don't think it's feasible, you
12:03
Speaker 1: should start looking anyway. It's pretty hard to predict what
12:06
Speaker 1: real estate prices will be in the future, but it's
12:08
Speaker 1: sure looking like the market could soften up a bit
12:11
Speaker 1: for a while. Inflation and a rising interest rate environment
12:14
Speaker 1: could do the potential land buyer a favor by scaring
12:17
Speaker 1: some folks out of the market, or by convincing others
12:20
Speaker 1: to sell the forty acre chunk that they only hunt
12:21
Speaker 1: a few times each season because it's not worth paying
12:23
Speaker 1: on the taxes every year. The best way to stay
12:27
Speaker 1: tuned into those trends that I've found is to download
12:30
Speaker 1: a realty app on your phone, set your parameters around
12:33
Speaker 1: price and acres, and start looking. Then you should be
12:36
Speaker 1: able to filter between new properties have been enlisted in
12:39
Speaker 1: the last week and properties have been reduced in price recently.
12:42
Speaker 1: I'll show you the whole picture after that. Keep an
12:46
Speaker 1: eye on them wherever you think you might want to buy.
12:49
Speaker 1: I'm almost compulsive about this, even though I have zero
12:52
Speaker 1: plans to buy any new land anytime soon. But it
12:55
Speaker 1: just keeps me in the loop, and every once in
12:57
Speaker 1: a while I see a parcel pop up and it
12:58
Speaker 1: looks like a really good deal. In the last several years,
13:01
Speaker 1: those properties have gone almost instantly, But that could slow
13:05
Speaker 1: down here, and it could slow down where you live.
13:08
Speaker 1: And of course, unless you got the money ready to
13:11
Speaker 1: go or a lead on how to finance a purchase,
13:13
Speaker 1: it doesn't do a ton of good to find a
13:15
Speaker 1: property that you want to buy if you really have
13:18
Speaker 1: no way to buy it. This part, in my experience, sucks.
13:23
Speaker 1: Banks and credit unions do not want to own hunting
13:26
Speaker 1: land in general. Trust me, they have zero desire to
13:29
Speaker 1: take on the risk of a loan on an asset
13:31
Speaker 1: that they do not want to have to unload. You're
13:34
Speaker 1: not going to find too many banks and credit unions
13:36
Speaker 1: out there that would love to try to sell hunting land.
13:39
Speaker 1: They don't understand it. So this means saving up a
13:42
Speaker 1: decent down payment is usually a must. It also means
13:45
Speaker 1: that you might have to get creative financially to find
13:47
Speaker 1: a loan if you need one. The last property I
13:50
Speaker 1: bought when I went into my credit union was a
13:53
Speaker 1: perfect example of this. Since I've got a good relationship
13:56
Speaker 1: with that credit Union and I could meet with a
13:57
Speaker 1: banker I've worked with a few times in the past.
14:00
Speaker 1: We got to go through some creative solutions considering they
14:02
Speaker 1: wouldn't give me a recreational land loan, and since I
14:06
Speaker 1: didn't need that much money. The banker asked me about
14:08
Speaker 1: my truck. I told her I was about to pay
14:10
Speaker 1: it off, which was one of the reasons why I
14:12
Speaker 1: was in the market for land in the first place.
14:15
Speaker 1: And she ran the numbers on my truck and told
14:16
Speaker 1: me that if I paid it off, we could refinance
14:18
Speaker 1: that loan and use it for the land. That man,
14:21
Speaker 1: I got a low interest rate, which is pretty common
14:24
Speaker 1: for vehicles on a loan I could use for the land.
14:27
Speaker 1: Now this is important. The options that I had for
14:31
Speaker 1: a loan originally were at like six or seven percent,
14:34
Speaker 1: But because I got to refinance a vehicle loan, I
14:38
Speaker 1: got a one point nine nine rate, a big difference.
14:42
Speaker 1: That truck was collateral, of course, but the process was
14:44
Speaker 1: pretty smooth, if not a little outside the box. Now,
14:48
Speaker 1: like I mentioned before, I'm going to go into the
14:50
Speaker 1: darker side of buying land next week in sort of
14:53
Speaker 1: a buyer Beware p s A. But for now, I'll
14:57
Speaker 1: say that I've had very very few regrets, but that
15:00
Speaker 1: you should also ask yourself why you want land. If
15:04
Speaker 1: you're just kind of sick of fighting the crowds and
15:06
Speaker 1: you want something of your own to hunt, that's a
15:08
Speaker 1: great reason. If you've got a family and you want
15:11
Speaker 1: them to experience decent hunting under your control, that's a
15:16
Speaker 1: great reason. If you just want a little place of
15:19
Speaker 1: your own to experience nature whenever you damn well please
15:22
Speaker 1: way beyond the scope of deer hunting or doing anything
15:25
Speaker 1: related to deer, that's a really good reason. Maybe you
15:29
Speaker 1: want the chance to extend your season and have some
15:31
Speaker 1: good opportunities beyond your home state. That's why I love
15:35
Speaker 1: having land in Wisconsin, even though I live in Minnesota.
15:38
Speaker 1: I love Wisconsin anyway, although I can't really say why.
15:41
Speaker 1: It feels kind of like when I'm down in Nebraska.
15:44
Speaker 1: They're just my people, I suppose, although I feel that
15:47
Speaker 1: way when I'm in Texas and out West and in
15:49
Speaker 1: a lot of places. So maybe it's all in my head,
15:51
Speaker 1: or maybe there is just something to certain places and
15:53
Speaker 1: how we fit into them. Either way, instead of starting
15:57
Speaker 1: the season with one buck tag and maybe some dough tags,
15:59
Speaker 1: I can double my dear hunting opportunities by heading across
16:02
Speaker 1: the border. The season structure is similar, but not exactly
16:05
Speaker 1: the same, and the youth opportunities are definitely different. It
16:09
Speaker 1: opened up a whole bunch of new experiences, new opportunities,
16:12
Speaker 1: many of which are not really tied a deer at all.
16:15
Speaker 1: If that sounds interesting, you might have a similar option
16:18
Speaker 1: for yourself, depending on where you live, So just think
16:21
Speaker 1: about it. If you listen to all of this, you
16:24
Speaker 1: must have some desire, however slight, to consider some day
16:27
Speaker 1: buying some land at your own. And if you do,
16:30
Speaker 1: please check in next week because I'm gonna tell you
16:32
Speaker 1: some of the things I've gotten wrong about buying land,
16:35
Speaker 1: and some of the horror stories of other folks who
16:37
Speaker 1: thought they were getting a dear paradise but it turned
16:39
Speaker 1: out to be the opposite. That's it for this week,
16:44
Speaker 1: my white tail loving friends. I'm Tony Peterson and this
16:46
Speaker 1: has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast. As always,
16:49
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening, and if you want
16:51
Speaker 1: some more white tail content, check out our wire to
16:53
Speaker 1: Hunt YouTube channel and visit the meat eater dot com
16:56
Speaker 1: slash wired. Again, that's the Meat Eater dot com um
17:00
Speaker 1: slash wired to see a whole slew of deer hunting
17:03
Speaker 1: articles h