Could You Repeat That?

Roundtrip ticket to Nairobi, Kenya………………....... $3,000

13 Day African Safari with accommodations........ $4,000

Realizing you just saved $500 by not leasing

a West Texas area ranch for whitetail deer.......PRICELESS

Recently, I was shocked to learn that leasing a local parcel of land this Fall was worth $7,500. To be fair, the acreage was a full section, heavily wooded, included a trailer home, and close to my home with a round trip travel time of about 30 minutes by truck. (Honestly, it sounded like a dream come true for this die hard hunter.)

Let me say for the record, I don’t have $7,500 on hand to spend for either excursion. I was simply juxtaposing the ridiculous idea of my spending that largesse on a local, somewhat ho-hum hunting experience when compared with my idyllic dream of hunting the Dark Continent. Even if I were to go forward with the local lease deal and somehow managed to take a 180 B&C trophy whitetail - it still wouldn’t be worth the extravagance on my part.

Worse, my fears were realized when the landowner I was communicating with told me that last year a fellow from the Metroplex, along with his two children, paid that amount for the right to hunt his property exclusively. He did not ‘split’ the fee among several buddies- he ponied up the entire amount for he and his two kids. (I learned they didn’t bag a trophy.)

Was I concerned that my potential, future landlord was trying to gouge me? Not at all, but I was rather shocked that the market was willing to bear that amount. (For days now, I’ve been wondering about the former client’s career niche.) How could one possibly fault the landowner for asking for the current market value of the property? He obtained it once, it is reasonable to assume he will obtain it again. Hunters in Texas are crazy- and will spend inordinate amounts of money for the opportunity to kill The Big One.

After I picked myself up off the floor upon hearing the landowner’s response to my inquiry, I started realizing how I could best spend $7,500 of my hard-earned money. The above analogy quickly came to mind and I hit the internet looking for pricing. Who knows, maybe an African Safari is not that far out of the realm of possibility? One day perhaps…

How would you spend $7,500?

-TMS