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This was in Sunday's Forum (local paper).
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Fee hunting means for survival
Associated Press
The Forum - 03/24/2002
REGENT, N.D. - The Cannonball Co. is housed in a doublewide modular building, just off main street, one of the newest buildings in town.
Manager Pat Candrian explains that it was bought in Grand Forks a couple of years ago - flood-related housing, repossessed by a bank and then moved to Regent to be headquarters for the fee-hunting operation. During the pheasant season, the building is the dispatch center for the company's 13 guides and as many as 70 hunters a day.
In the past several weeks, Cannonball Co. has been at the center of a controversy. Its members successfully lobbied Gov. John Hoeven to move the pheasant season up a week, so that corner of the state could serve more clients.
A promise from Hoeven, however, put him in political hot water with state resident hunters who are upset with the proliferation of out-of-state hunters.
Seven of eight advisory board members rejected the governor's proposal for an earlier date, and Hoeven one day later announced he would scrap the plan. Some hunters said they should have been consulted earlier.
"We didn't want to be at the center of things," Candrian said. "Maybe we're just the most visible."
Candrian, 48, knows something about surviving on the land. He lives on the home farm place, about five miles east of Regent. His family has been involved with the Cannonball Co. for all of its 10 years.
His wife, Linda, was one of its organizers and was chairman of the board. Pat, one of its first guides, has managed the company for six years, with Linda's help.
Pat, the youngest son in a dairying family, moved to California to work on a dairy farm there, but returned to North Dakota.
"California had 'different' people,'" he recalled.
"You can't beat North Dakota people," he said. "My heart is in North Dakota, and it's the people who make the state what it is."
The Candrians milked cows for nearly 22 years, until 1997.
"It was always a downhill battle with the farm," Candrian said. "It was either quit and salvage the land and keep on going with your life, or keep on farming and maybe lose it all.
"If I'd known there was such a good life after milking cows, I would have done it 10 years earlier," he said.
"That's except for the last few weeks (of controversy)," he added.
The Cannonball Co. ran its first hunt in 1991.
"The company started with a group of local farmers, basically, who got together back in tough times and low commodity prices," Candrian said. "They said, 'We've got these pheasants; we've got a resource we can market.'"
The group set up the company as an S-corporation, meaning income passes through to shareholders who are taxed individually on their corporate income, according to accountants. A common goal in an S-corporations is to pay less Social Security tax than in other corporate forms.
There were 18 stockholders. Original stockholders each received 100 shares. People contributing land, lodging or guiding received another 50 shares.
In its first year, Cannonball handled 54 hunts. A hunt is one person hunting one day. This past year, Cannonball handled 1,200 hunting days and sold about $20,000 in hunting licenses.
At $200 a day, the activity produced roughly $250,000 in revenue a year, spread among 50 different people -shareholders and guides.
Candrian draws a sharp distinction between Cannonball and others who simply lease the hunting rights.
"We do not control their hunting rights," he said. "The landowner still has his hunting rights."
Board member Barb Mayer and her husband, Vern, farm and own the Dancing Dakota bed-and-breakfast. They were among Cannonball's early organizers.
The Mayers own 1,250 acres of land, and about 250 acres are heavily hunted by Cannonball.
Barb Mayer estimates the income from the hunters - the land and 150 "hunter nights" in their bed-and-breakfast -accounts for about a fifth of their family's net annual income.
Cannonball brings in the clients and assigns each to a guide and a place to hunt.
The guide keeps track of how many birds are harvested off each landowner's land, and the company pays the landowner accordingly. The compensation rate was $15 per bird last year and is going to $17 a bird this coming year.
Landowners enrolled 25,000 acres in Cannonball in the mid-1990s. Today, the company involves about 40,000 acres, including three-fourths farmland.
Candrian notes that of the 500 or so hunters last year, about 60 were from North Dakota - about 10 percent. About two-thirds were corporate hunts.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, airports in Dickinson and Bismarck would have had slower going without hunters. About 90 percent of Cannonball's clients fly in, totaling more than 400 flights.
Initially, the federal government subsidized much of the development through CRP and other conservation programs. In recent years, landowners have been financing their own planting so they can control it and maintain it for maximum pheasant habitat. One landowner planted 50,000 trees on his land and installed water holes.
"He's developing that section of land primarily for pheasants because it is poor cropland," Candrian said. "And he's doing it without government payments."
Candrian said some North Dakota resident hunters have developed strong relationships with farmers and ranchers. But in general, he said, North Dakota resident hunters "have to get away from the mindset that they have the right to hunt your ground.
"They have to realize they need to develop that relationship, or you're not going to get to hunt on it," Candrian said.
Barb Mayer said the resident hunters often drive up in a $40,000 Suburban and don't want to pay to hunt. "We're driving a 1989 diesel, and the doors fly open when we turn the corner," she said.
"Well, what about the privileges we've lost?" she said. "We've lost our high school. We've consolidated our teams, so we don't have people coming to town for games, stopping at the co-op or the library. We don't have UND (University of North Dakota) in our back yard with students coming, buying stuff.
"This is all we have," she said. "We finally found a product that has value that we can be proud of."
-------------------------------
Fee hunting means for survival
Associated Press
The Forum - 03/24/2002
REGENT, N.D. - The Cannonball Co. is housed in a doublewide modular building, just off main street, one of the newest buildings in town.
Manager Pat Candrian explains that it was bought in Grand Forks a couple of years ago - flood-related housing, repossessed by a bank and then moved to Regent to be headquarters for the fee-hunting operation. During the pheasant season, the building is the dispatch center for the company's 13 guides and as many as 70 hunters a day.
In the past several weeks, Cannonball Co. has been at the center of a controversy. Its members successfully lobbied Gov. John Hoeven to move the pheasant season up a week, so that corner of the state could serve more clients.
A promise from Hoeven, however, put him in political hot water with state resident hunters who are upset with the proliferation of out-of-state hunters.
Seven of eight advisory board members rejected the governor's proposal for an earlier date, and Hoeven one day later announced he would scrap the plan. Some hunters said they should have been consulted earlier.
"We didn't want to be at the center of things," Candrian said. "Maybe we're just the most visible."
Candrian, 48, knows something about surviving on the land. He lives on the home farm place, about five miles east of Regent. His family has been involved with the Cannonball Co. for all of its 10 years.
His wife, Linda, was one of its organizers and was chairman of the board. Pat, one of its first guides, has managed the company for six years, with Linda's help.
Pat, the youngest son in a dairying family, moved to California to work on a dairy farm there, but returned to North Dakota.
"California had 'different' people,'" he recalled.
"You can't beat North Dakota people," he said. "My heart is in North Dakota, and it's the people who make the state what it is."
The Candrians milked cows for nearly 22 years, until 1997.
"It was always a downhill battle with the farm," Candrian said. "It was either quit and salvage the land and keep on going with your life, or keep on farming and maybe lose it all.
"If I'd known there was such a good life after milking cows, I would have done it 10 years earlier," he said.
"That's except for the last few weeks (of controversy)," he added.
The Cannonball Co. ran its first hunt in 1991.
"The company started with a group of local farmers, basically, who got together back in tough times and low commodity prices," Candrian said. "They said, 'We've got these pheasants; we've got a resource we can market.'"
The group set up the company as an S-corporation, meaning income passes through to shareholders who are taxed individually on their corporate income, according to accountants. A common goal in an S-corporations is to pay less Social Security tax than in other corporate forms.
There were 18 stockholders. Original stockholders each received 100 shares. People contributing land, lodging or guiding received another 50 shares.
In its first year, Cannonball handled 54 hunts. A hunt is one person hunting one day. This past year, Cannonball handled 1,200 hunting days and sold about $20,000 in hunting licenses.
At $200 a day, the activity produced roughly $250,000 in revenue a year, spread among 50 different people -shareholders and guides.
Candrian draws a sharp distinction between Cannonball and others who simply lease the hunting rights.
"We do not control their hunting rights," he said. "The landowner still has his hunting rights."
Board member Barb Mayer and her husband, Vern, farm and own the Dancing Dakota bed-and-breakfast. They were among Cannonball's early organizers.
The Mayers own 1,250 acres of land, and about 250 acres are heavily hunted by Cannonball.
Barb Mayer estimates the income from the hunters - the land and 150 "hunter nights" in their bed-and-breakfast -accounts for about a fifth of their family's net annual income.
Cannonball brings in the clients and assigns each to a guide and a place to hunt.
The guide keeps track of how many birds are harvested off each landowner's land, and the company pays the landowner accordingly. The compensation rate was $15 per bird last year and is going to $17 a bird this coming year.
Landowners enrolled 25,000 acres in Cannonball in the mid-1990s. Today, the company involves about 40,000 acres, including three-fourths farmland.
Candrian notes that of the 500 or so hunters last year, about 60 were from North Dakota - about 10 percent. About two-thirds were corporate hunts.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, airports in Dickinson and Bismarck would have had slower going without hunters. About 90 percent of Cannonball's clients fly in, totaling more than 400 flights.
Initially, the federal government subsidized much of the development through CRP and other conservation programs. In recent years, landowners have been financing their own planting so they can control it and maintain it for maximum pheasant habitat. One landowner planted 50,000 trees on his land and installed water holes.
"He's developing that section of land primarily for pheasants because it is poor cropland," Candrian said. "And he's doing it without government payments."
Candrian said some North Dakota resident hunters have developed strong relationships with farmers and ranchers. But in general, he said, North Dakota resident hunters "have to get away from the mindset that they have the right to hunt your ground.
"They have to realize they need to develop that relationship, or you're not going to get to hunt on it," Candrian said.
Barb Mayer said the resident hunters often drive up in a $40,000 Suburban and don't want to pay to hunt. "We're driving a 1989 diesel, and the doors fly open when we turn the corner," she said.
"Well, what about the privileges we've lost?" she said. "We've lost our high school. We've consolidated our teams, so we don't have people coming to town for games, stopping at the co-op or the library. We don't have UND (University of North Dakota) in our back yard with students coming, buying stuff.
"This is all we have," she said. "We finally found a product that has value that we can be proud of."
uke:
