Hunting Market

Steven, Thanks for being so honest. I have to also be honest that is what I thought was the problem also. Harvest facilities can only harvest so many bucks at the good price for all of us. Now they have to play the numbers game and sell for less but try to make it up on volume due to the economy just to get clients. We are top heavy in shooters and breeders. This industry has grown so fast we have exceeded the number of animals needed by our shooter market. Just the plain and simple fact of it. The bulk of the shooter market will always keep close to what they could get in the wild and really only want 140 to 200 inch deer.



Before Montana put all shooter facilities out of business this was the size of deer my clients wanted so I also know both sides of the breeder and shooter market.

same topic, new direction!



If market is saturated with 150s laws of supply and demand, should deer farmers like myself possibly focus on something different like genetics, herd improvement and such.



I guess what im trying to say is besides prices dropping, where is the market going? What is the shooter look that is selling? and will it change in the upcoming year or two? Bottom line what is being bought?

I agree with Bruce and Liveoak about the dilemma. We would be better off going to hunting shows and farm bureau meetings to talk to landowners with large tracts of land. If you talk to small land owners and get them started you are just adding to the problem. True hunters are frustrated with the rule-breakers that call themselves hunters (who are anything but) and the fish and game departments that keep putting out an inferior product that is fed by the American farmer for FREE. Some hunters get apathetic and need to be reminded that it doesn't have to be this way. That is the only reason I started raising these awesome antlers 10+ years ago. Once these large tracts of land are broken up and developed and paved with asphalt it is too late.



More new preserves would at least take care of the problem of excess bucks. We are still all going to have to bite the bullet and cull females out of our herds that are beyond producing what the market needs or unproven does that eat away at the bottom line. If you are from the north the genetics are there to produce mature bodied bucks at 3 years of age with large massive antlers. Soon that age will be 2 and it will only add to the excess. Work needs to be done now on a national level to expand the end market or the preserves will just get pickier for no fault of their own.

Very good point Joe, there in lies the problem.....I dont know what the exact number would be but out of 200 people only 30 would hunt behind a fence, just based on my notes of hunters spoken to about the subject in the last year. Because of some reason or another they have gotten the impression its not ethical. The main point of controversy comes more from "hunts" they see on TV. TV has hurt fenced hunting more than anything in my opinion. Wether its a deer letting someone walk 30 feet of it before standing up and the camera man zooming in close enough to see the hole in its ear or showing someones breeding and bottle raising facility then showing a hunt there on the same ranch. Every one knows its done, most just dont want it to be public knowledge that way they wont be judged by their buddies.



I dont hide anything from anyone who asks me a question, but I dont publicly advertise it either. No one really wants to shoot a deer thats had a bottle in its mouth and been given a name, if they do they dont want to tell their buddies about it. Nothing against bottle raising, I do it myself and I have bought shooters before that were bottleraised, I made the decision not to ever do it again based on my experience.



My thoughts on what deer breeding organizations should do.....



Poll the hunting public, not at breeder conventions or deer auctions but at hunting expos and non breeder trade shows. These are the end user people, what they think about our industry will determine our industries future. Don't try to convert the non fence hunters to fence hunters at an expo. Find out why theyre against it.



Here, take this 25 question survey and youre name will be entered to win one of the following hunts of your choice at the end of the expo. (I'd donate a free range and fence hunt to give someone that choice) Ask yes and no questions with a space for a brief response and be done.



That to me is where a code of ethics for our industry should come from, not from within thought up by a few people who dont have much to lose. For me personally nothing aggrivates me more than to pick up a hunting magazine and see breeders in it, especially if theyre advertising hunts with pictures of their breeder bucks. just my opinion and that has been told to me to be a major turn off for someone looking to buy a hunt..... Advertise breeding in breeding mags and hunting in hunting mags. If you want to sell release deer use pictures without tags or big breeders. I know that will probably offend some but thats what hunters, the end users of our products have told me.





Its America and everyone can do what they want how they want. But if you really want to keep our industry going you have to justify it to the end user which is the hunting public. There was a time when the only thing wrong with hunting behind a fence was that the animal couldnt be recorded in B&C or P&Y, maybe we should ask ourselves and the people that judge us and use us how we got to this point......

Steven I couldn't agree with you more....you are 100% on target. I am sure there will some that may disagree (I don't know how or why they would) with some of the things you said above. You could not have been more spot on with what you wrote. The hunting expos are a great idea and the survey is also an awesome thought. This is where are future is and we should be focusing our attention there. I think a lot of us are afraid of what we might hear from the hunting population.......but if we want to have a future we need to listen to what they want and accomidate. we only capture a very small percent of the hunting population right now and this is a population that is declining every year. So we need to do what ever it takes to increase the percentage of the hunting population we deal with and need to start focusing our efforts on this now.

This thread was started last summer. The situation was about the same with bookings very slow in the summer and early fall. If my memory serves me right many of the preserves sold the hunts once season got started. I think this is due to people being uncertain about Obama and the economy. Hopefully the hunters will turn out this year as the season draws near.

I still have not seen any preserves post their prices only speculations of what prices are going to be. If people would stand firm on their prices maybe things aren't as bad as we think but as soon as people get scared and dump deer next to nothing thats when things go down hill. With that bein said I still think the market is flooded with deer. So just to warn new guys comeing in YOU CAN NOT SPEND BIG MONEY ON DEER AND SEMEN AND EXPECT TO MAKE MONEY. I don't care what anyone says unless you can find someone who doesn't know any better to buy your deer for big money your not going to sell your deer for big money. There are lots of good genetics out there for fair prices and if one sticks to them they will be alright. A lot of people have and many more will loose money by spending to much on their breeding stock. Buy good genetics cheap and build your own heard it doesn't take long to get big bucks out of it.

All right now you big wigs or so called big wigs can slam me and tell me how wrong I am. I really don't care I'm just being honest and telling it how it is. I have seen to many spend their life saveings or retirement with big expectations and now kicking themselves for spending to much.

You can see my prices at www.AlabamasFinest.com

And when I buy shooters I pay 50% of shooter price no more.

Some farmers try to get 70 to 80 % of shooter price and that has made more preserves go to breeding there own.

Those are all what i would say are fair prices to bad the borders are closed.

I have friends on both sides of this issue. My friends that spend big money are also very good at promotion of their stock and do make their money back. But there are many that don't have the ability to do promotion and fail. The days of preserves coming to us for shooters are over. We all have to make our ties with preserves to move our shooters at the best price.



I advised a young friend that talked his family into mortgaging the family farm for his investment in deer. This person was not as good at promotion and was not doing well getting the money back. Supper great genetics so I thought he should put all of the animals he had produced back into one of the auctions. He did this and was able to pay off the family loan and keep some of the new genetics. The next year he had problems with EHD and lost most of what he had kept. Had he not made the move to sell he would have been in a bad fix.



Virgil is right for those of us who want to sell to the harvest facilities which is the true industry reason for being in this business. Without the harvest facilities we have no business, that is the plain and simple truth of it. Without the harvest facilities we will have no breeder market. Montana lost all harvest facilities from a public vote made on emotion and that has made what I love to do only a hobby in Montana. In this State there is no breeder market, no movement of any animals due to a lack of new farms, and no harvesting of animals by hunters. It is a dead industry in Montana.

virgil said:

So just to warn new guys comeing in YOU CAN NOT SPEND BIG MONEY ON DEER AND SEMEN AND EXPECT TO MAKE MONEY. I don't care what anyone says unless you can find someone who doesn't know any better to buy your deer for big money your not going to sell your deer for big money. There are lots of good genetics out there for fair prices and if one sticks to them they will be alright. A lot of people have and many more will loose money by spending to much on their breeding stock. Buy good genetics cheap and build your own heard it doesn't take long to get big bucks out of it.

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No one will buy good, nice looking shooter producing does anymore. The does that we want to sell produce exactly what the preserves want and we are offering to breed them to any buck on the farm....cheap.....2 responses.



So, we are sending alot of good does to the hook this fall.

I didn't have any bucks old enough to sell in 2009 as I was sold out and I didn't set up any for sale this year as I wanted bigger bodies for the harvest preserves. This year there were 45 three year old bucks from 130 to 200 SCI. These bucks are wide open frame typicals 4x4 to 6 x 6 mostly with a few non typical 20 pointers. I would hope I could sell them in groups of 15 as that is what my trailer holds in the year 2011 and I would put in a shooter mule deer with each 15 sold. Hope the shooter market is a little better then. If any of you harvest facilities look that far in advance and would like to help me, feel free to contact me.

Mark, Steven, Dennis, Virgil, and Jack

I like to see logical postings on this topic. There is a nice mix of ideas surfacing. I just want to add a couple more things to my last post.



1. The first rule in business is location, location, location. The first rule in deer farming ,ranching. breeding, or raising should be end market, end market, end market. Nobody I know would wish Jack's predicament on their worst enemy.



2. Measure twice, confidently promise, and over-deliver. This is what I do when it comes to shooters as well as breeding stock. When every shooter you sell is healthy and scores 3" to 7" (average of 5") higher than you told them, you will get you return customers. I have talked to end market guys later and when that gross score of 240" is as solid as granite it goes a long way in the future. They deserve to get what they ordered and they could care less about the sire of that buck they are buying.



3. I have customers like me (a small breeder) that have deer I keep track of that were born on my farm. These customers don't know it yet, but I am only breeding now to produce bucks to replace deer that they deem unsatisfactory. I will only breed one doe this year due to the fact she had a very nice buck fawn this year for me and I wouldn't mind getting another one. If these customers are satisfied with what they got from me, I keep the replacement deer and raise it myself. I call it the accountability factor. I learned this from an older gentleman from Indiana years ago that sold young bucks and guaranteed them to score 200" @ 4 or he would replace them. That was when feed prices were half the cost they are now. Good customer service is one thing that will never go out of style.



4. My smaller herd is allowing me to spend time on creating a larger end market in this area. I am working with landowners who are hunters that are tired of the over-harvest of young bucks in their area. They are also tired of seeing these clowns on TV shooting two yr. olds and hypeing themselves up. If they have the resources I am trying to convince them to fence off portions of their land, but not totally so it will allow young bucks to live longer. I am counting on them fencing off the whole thing in time when they finally realize their herd with age still won't produce the quality of deer they are looking for. I see in many areas that deer that are called wild are anything but wild. A better title is loose and under-managed with way too high of a doe to buck ratio. Baby steps to get the ball rolling I feel will work better than the one time large investment with some of these landowners. Meanwhile it keeps the perceived value of their land in their eyes high and less likely to be destroyed by a developer in the near future. In time managing sub-par deer will get old for them. I would be happy to assist them with their culling just to prove a point to them in the future. I will keep you posted on this project.

Susan, You squeezed in a post before I was able to get mine in after Jack's. I hope your bottle-feeding duties are lighter now in August. I hear ya on the doe dilemma.

Jack, Sounds like a good game plan for 2010. It's never too early to think about 2011. Stay strong as a lone representative. No hunting ranches in your state must be why so many MN residents flock to your state every fall. They call it a loop-hole in the law that keeps us barely open here.

Joe,

I kept my harvest facility open for four years after the new law. I was booking 160 clients a year for deer and elk and another 50 for buffalo. I helped many breeders when I was in business by selling their animals.



Like you said loop holes. I sold trespass fees for land use and lodging and gave my animals away. I was the only farmer that didn't get a ticket in that four year time frame. I don't understand why others in this Montana industry didn't also try this method as they all got tickets for harvesting their animals on their harvest facilities..



This State didn't want to prove that a trespass fee was the selling of an animal because that would mean when private ranch owners sold a trespass fee they were selling a State owned animal. This would open up the antis a way to stop wild hunting and the State knew it would turn out bad for them so they didn't go after me. This is only how I look at it.



I did quit when the State started calling all my clients and indicated they might have done something wrong but didn't want to give them a ticket at this time, but might in the future if they came again. Most clients were one time users at the end because of fear from this Sh** State DNR. I had to close the doors because of that. You might ask how did the State know who to call. We had to generate State paper work on who we gave the animal away to for State records.



I love this industry and will not quit raising these great animals till I want to quit. Well enough venting about this problem.

Jack, Hats off for you for doing it right. These guys that don't do it right make it tough for the honest ones and give us a black-eye. I am trying to urge people who have a passion for deer and hunting and have many acres of land to not let it go to the state or a developer. These are people that are fed up with too many people not respecting their property rights and several state agencies including the DNR threatening them. Some of the DNR here are so arrogant that they think they have the right to control anybody who isn't a sheep in their flock and anybody that might pose a problem for them in the future. Instead if these landowners have the patience to fence the majority of their land and sit back and wait to see how their hunting improves. These landowners if done right can plant a few trees and pay lower taxes on their land while keeping the public out. The people that will complain the most will be the trespassers and poachers along with the fair weather hunters who want the state who has no idea how to manage a herd to provide a resource for them, for little or no cost. The President of the MN deer hunters has already acknowledged this and is pushing the DNR to buy more private land, which is the same as a developer buying it. The DNR asks the state for millions on top of millions every year to improve and make more biking trails which doesn't help the hunter in the least. Now I feel better after venting.



The truth and reality is that these state agencies don't have the authority they think they have. Two cases would be somebody in the state with failing health that has bogus felonies hanging over his head for over 5 years now and nothing has come from it. He is smart and they decided to wait for him to die rather than treat him like the Mob anymore. Who threatened him, the DNR. Case number two would be a large elk farm that sold out to a developer from out of state for many, many, many millions of dollars. The state didn't like it when a couple of elk out of hundreds slaughtered tested positive for the biggest hype disease of them all. The state pushed the out of state developer to take safeguards when removing fence to keep everything contained and to do things their way. The developer ended up doing it their own way and scoffed at them. The state couldn't figure out why they wouldn't take the idemnity money. Without the idemnity the state lost all control over enforcement which goes back to the beginning of this paragraph. I wish my one side of the family wouldn't have sold out to a developer ten years ago, because I would have pushed the issue HARD! The issue is stop being green with envy over somebody that makes you look like a fool when you are supposed to be the authority and professional at what you do. If a private landowner has a legitimate business and creates commerce for the economy, and is legal leave him alone. MN is getting close to being Colorado East and Colorado is already California East.

There is a movement in this country at this time to put control back where it belongs - in the hands of the people. Big government will hopefully get the boot come November. Keep this in mind when you go to the polls this fall. With the recent supreme court decision on firearms and groups like NRA that support high fence hunting, maybe the worm in turning.

Headley said:

You can see my prices at www.AlabamasFinest.com

And when I buy shooters I pay 50% of shooter price no more.

Some farmers try to get 70 to 80 % of shooter price and that has made more preserves go to breeding there own.

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Headley I wish your boarders were open because I would sell you my shooters all day long based on 50% of your listed price sheet.



Whitetail Deer

Trophy Fees For Whitetail

Score Less Than 120 Gross.. $1,500.00

120-129................................. $2,500.00

130-139................................. $3,500.00

140-149................................. $4,500.00

150-159................................. $6,500.00

160-169................................. $8,500.00

170-179................................. $9,500.00

180-189................................. $11,500.00

190 And Up........................... $15,000.00

Plus $100.00

Per Inch

I still think our main focus needs to be getting a higher percentage of the hunting population to welcome and believe in High fenced hunts. Right now we are dealing with a very small percentage of the hunting population because of all the negative press about our industry. First we need to find out what it is the Hunting population is looking for. (This is why the surveys at the hunting shows would be awesome) Yeah we may not like some of what we hear but we will be able to gather good information on what it is the hunters want. Then we try out best to meet those needs. The hunter is the end market like it or not.....and any successfull business owner know that "The customer is always right".



Today all i see are farmers trying to do what ever it takes to get rid of their deer flooding their pens. Some are giving their animals away, some are eating them.....the new thing a lot are doing is investing in fence and putting in their own little preserves thinking they wont have to worry about selling their deer they can just sell their own hunts.......talk about the market flooding......there will be so many preserves out there competing with one another and you know thats only going to drive the prices down.....not to mention alot of these preserves that are going up are not qualified (in my book) to be preserves......they are small and will only tarnish our image even worse in the hunting populations eyes. If we don't focus on our customer (the hunter) soon we will be slowly but surely running our industry into the ground.

Opening boarders to Whitetails is up to ADA Only I dont have any thing to do with that.