I have never hunted for whitetail. All we had in Northwest Colorado was mule deer and elk, and of course antelope. Never had the desire to go after any antelope.
Antelope are more fun to hunt than eat.
Dad one time took his uncle out to get one, because his uncle never tasted antelope. Dad shot and shot, gave the gun to his uncle and he made several shots. That antelope just stood there. Turned out that the sights were off on the rifle. I guess they did get one eventually. Also when dad worked a Warren Livestock he used to run them thing with the pickup to see how fast, or how long he could run them. He had to keep watch as to when they would get tired, and they would just cross in front of him; he never hit one. The roads on the ranch were just as good or even better than the county roads. Dad said that was the best place he ever worked for. Had the boss allowed him to run some cows with the companies I may have grown up around the Cheyenne area. After we move to Craig the company forgot to put the bulls in with the cows, and had a bunch of very late calves. Dads boss didn't think he would ever leave, and then three years later he was trying to get dad to come back.
So, you will have to pay the seller for this leased land, and rent it from the government as well?
Do you have an opinion on whether the writer of the article might have missed putting a comma in after "deeded", and it might mean there is 96K deeded acres *plus* BLM/Forest Service? The price seems a little steep for Wyoming and that amount of acreage, even if it is indeed 96K privately owned... unless the proximity to Yellowstone brings some kind of development potential with it.
So how long are these leases for? What if someone else wants to lease that land next to a ranch I own. Are they bid out each year? Or how often are they, if not a year?
BLM allotments located within grazing districts are "permits" under section 3 of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. These are predominantly federal land with interspersed deeded lands that were patented under various homestead acts and state parcels that were given to states as land grants upon gaining statehood. There are also BLM leases under section 15 of the Taylor Grazing Act and these are often isolated tracts surrounded by private lands. Functionally they receive the same paperwork. However, permits are issued based upon the grazing preference right attached to private base property. Preference rights were granted after passage of the Taylor Grazing Act under a system that recognized prior use of grazing areas before the free range was brought under government regulation. Adjacent private lands were part of the system of establishing the preference rights. Allotments were established based upon the preference right allocations. Then the livestock carrying capacity was adjudicated for each allotment. Permits are issued for ten years to use the preference rights. There is no bid process when permits are renewed. If a permittee violates a permit to the extent it is canceled, an allotment becomes vacant. A preference right can then be up for grabs, but there is still a system to award the preference right to potential permittees based on several factors, including adjacent private lands and other factors I can't think of the top of my head. However, the feds seem to prefer to allow allotments to remain vacant to "save the environment". In any event, when a ranch has a preference it is very valuable because it is attached to private land base property. To gain a preference right you would normally have to purchase the private land to which it is attached. This is why ranches are sold the way they are -- x number of total acres with x deeded acres, x BLM acres and x Forest Service acres and so on. State leases are different and renewals vary by state. In Wyoming there is a potential that at renewal time a competing bid can be submitted, but the expiring lessee has the right to match the bid. In 99% percent of the cases the expiring lessee matches the bid and just has to pay way more. Having a state lease along a public road sucks because it is more tenuous than federal leases. Federal leases may have a low annual cost as far as the charge for the permit, but it is a constant battle with environmental organizations that want all livestock gone and having to fight the feds continually trying to cut grazing use under one excuse or another. Actual cost to operate a federal permit is just as high as paying for a private lease, but when your state or county is predominantly owned by the federal government, it is the only game in town, so you have to fight like hell to maintain the viability of your ranch.
So something like 4800 dollars an acre for the deeded acreage. That's ridiculously high for that size acreage, and Wyoming country being sold as a working ranch. But I'm sure some rich guy, or a consortium, will buy it just so they can brag it up about how much they overpaid. Probably use it for hunting and might even let the leases expire.
It is a turn key sale -- all cattle and feed included. I think equipment too. $4800/acre isn't out of line for irrigated land, but I'm sure it is not a very large percentage of the 14,000 acres that is irrigated. People don't buy this type of ranch for the productive value anyway.
Kind of sad that this is true...
