How to Find Deer Land to Hunt
Determine Where to Look First
 Editor’s
Note: Some years ago I almost dropped the telephone
receiver when I heard the words, "The landowner
has sold the land, and our hunting lease has been cancelled."
I'd called the secretary of our hunting club to let
him know that I planned to go to our hunting camp three
weeks before deer season started to check several of
my stand sites and get ready for the opening weekend
of bow season. I wanted to scout the areas where
I'd taken bucks before, cut shooting lanes and make
sure that the deer fed on the same nut trees they had
in the past. I enjoy scouting for deer because I consider
it the true essence of the sport of hunting. Scouting
means learning where the deer feed and bed and which
trails they travel on and then prepredicting where a
deer may appear. When you hunt, you actually climb into
your tree stand and wait on the shot. But this year
instead of scouting for a place to put my tree stand,
I had to scout for new land to hunt.
The search for a place to hunt that season began with
my friends and my local sporting-goods dealer. At the
store where I bought my hunting and fishing gear, the
salesmen knew me, how I liked to hunt, what kinds of
places I enjoyed hunting, and which people I'd get along
with the best. "If you know anyone who has an opening
in a hunting lease, anyone who will lease land or anyone
who will take pity on
a hunter without a place to hunt, please call me, and
I'll get in contact with them," I told all the
salespeople and the owner of the store. I realized I
had an almost-impossible task of locating a good hunting
lease to join or quality deer land to lease three weeks
before deer season arrived. Although the store clerks
and my friends failed to come up with a lease option,
one of the salesmen suggested that, "You ought
to talk to Richard Adkins, the local conservation officer.
He knows every piece of property in the county and every
other game warden in the state. If anyone can help you,
 he
can."
Use The Law Solution:
In thinking about my situation, I decided that two types
of law-enforcement officers would know almost every
landowner in a county – the conservation officer
and the sheriff or the deputy sheriff. These law-enforcement
officers would understand each landowner's attitude
toward hunters and know whether or not I'd have a reasonable
chance of gaining permission to hunt any land in the
county. Luckily my conservation officer knew another
conservation officer in another county who helped me
find a place to hunt that season. Because I never wanted
to not have a property to hunt during deer season again,
I started researching how to find hunting land when
I didn't have any.
Tomorrow: Decide Who Knows the Most Land and the Most
People
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