Who leases land? And why?

[oldfireguy]

It seems to me that there is an abundance of public land in North Dakota open to hunting. Federal, State, along with PLOTS.
Why would anyone need to lease land to find a hunting spot?

[Plainsman]

They dont lease it only to have a spot, but more important to them is to keep others out. Mostly its outfitters and guides thst lease. More recently people that come from states like Texas where leasing is prevalent are also leasing.

There are many types of leasing. Lets tske a hypothetical look. Farmer A wants to get a guide license, but he cant pass the first aid requirment. Still he has hunters coming thst he guides. He goes to his neighbors and tells them to post their land, dont let anyone else hunt it and I will pay you $200 for each deer we shoot on your property. Then proceeds to tell them they got two when in reality they got ten.

This whole leasing problem started about 30 years ago when a legislator who lived a block from me in Jamestown wanted to be a guide and pushed for new laws in the legislature that opened the gate to commercialize our wildlife.

It depends on what part of the stste your in if you think there is a lot of public land in North Dakota. When I was in my 20s North Dskota had less public land than any other state west of the Mississippi. At that timd I believe it was three percent. Since then some school land has bedn sold off, but the U S Fish and Wildlife also added land. Specifically around the active wetland aquisition offices which were in Devils Lake, Jamestown, and Kulm area.

Much debate arose over how much land the U S Fish and Wildlife had during the 1970s when argriculturd and anyone concerned with wildlife concerns clashed over Garrison Diversion. In 1977 North Dakota passed a law requiring vojnty commissioner approval for non farmers to aquire land. Unfortunately those who owned land werd then also denied sald to the highest bidder and land aqisition ended. Unfortunatdly the U S Fish and Wildlife had taken the fast and easy route describing land they owned. Fof example if the puchased a 40 acre Waterfowl Production Area on the border of the NW and NE quarter of section 21 Township xxx and Range yyy they described it as not the coordinates of a proper survey but simply the NW and NE quarter of section 21. So whike realitg was they osned 40 acres the agriculture interests that claimed there was already to much land claimed the Fish and wildlife owned not 40 acres but 320 acres. Sk they convinced our legislature that is composed of mostly those linked to agriculture to hinder greatly all those tbey portrayed as "environmentalists" ffom purchasing land. Since that time they have used the word environmentalist as a dirty word to keep old outdated land practices. If you dont like farmers pushing their cow manure into the river so it floats away you automatically were labeled an environmentalist.

[Sasha and Abby]

Outfitters and just to keep pressure off...