Like one old guy said to the other, "looks like we are
going to make green grass". With that in mind we better start doing some
of this, or it will be time to go to work and we will not have it done.
As most of you already know,
the business of agriculture has been changing faster in recent past, than ever before. Land prices in Lyman Co. have doubled in the last five years and
tripled in the last twenty. Cash rent
has went from $30 per acre to $75 and every day we hear about a new high. So what does this have to do with us, and
why am I telling you about it. The
hunting business has to compete with
these prices in order to continue to have good hunting. What I am trying to tell you is the price
of hunting is going up. I would like
to think we have been very competitive in our prices for what we offered, so hopefully we have a little room to
move. The new rates are posted on our
web page but when it is all said and
done it will cost you another fifty bucks a day to hunt here. We are changing the deposit from $75 per gun
per day to $100, so you need to inform your group that the deposit for a three
day hunt will now be $300 per gun and the total cost will go from $900 to
$1050.
So what else is
new, it is all good. Everybody here seems to be in good health,
knock on wood. I am sure every one of
you knows someone with an illness that has run up a million dollars worth of
Doctor bills. Our winter has been good,
no really bad storms. We are a couple
of inches ahead of last year in the moisture department, hopefully that trend
will continue through the year. I took out my first load of corn last
Thurs. They were forecasting
a snow storm for the weekend and
we wanted the birds to have a little cushion.
With Jimmy Stockton's story in mind about
grandchildren, I will tell you briefly;
Kellen has been kicking butt in wrestling. He seems to be extremely competitive and
hates to lose. I have no idea where he
gets that from, I keep telling him it doesn't matter who wins, "just have fun". The other three seem to be out of the same
mold and I can't wait to see them all "just have fun"
One other
happening that will affect all of
you. We have leased another hunting
operation: 2500 acres, two houses, some farming equipment, and a lot of really
good deer hunting. The only way you
might notice is hunting that property at some point or going to the preserve
that we are going to have on that property.
Last year we had more interest in"two a days" and preserve
hunts than we could handle on a dry year.
They killed more wild birds on this property last year per acre than we
did on ours. A lot of it is on the
creek and they had water on most of it.
Your hunting will be better!!
Casey is getting
geared up to become a farmer, he is
going to farm all of our ground, lease a couple hundred acre's , and plant all
of our food plots. You have all heard
the story about not being able to get the smile off the guys face, that is Casey.
I am not sure if it is because he
gets to be a farmer or that he no longer has to pour concrete with his
father-in-law. Now we have another
reason for it to rain.