Deer producers and hunt farm owners are often at odds over the economics of bucks.
Dave Nowlin buys white-tailed bucks from deer farmers for his hunt farms. Despite complaints from deer producers, who say they deserve a larger share of the pie, Nowlin said the fees he charges people who come to his hunting compound pay for a lot more than the deer.
Only 500 metres from the end of the road heading north, near a bridge over Falling Horse Creek where the Torch River divides a provincially managed forest from rolling farmland of the northern grainbelt, lie 700 acres of trees, meadow and marsh.
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They are separated from neighbouring farmland and the bordering forest by a heavy, grey-brown, three-metre-high wire fence.
Inside, wild boar, bison, elk and white-tailed deer graze until hunters, mainly from the United States, pay an average of $9,500 to shoot prized trophy animals.
One kilometre across a pasture, overlooking a new trout pond, skinned, white logs form a five-bedroom lodge that serves gourmet-class food.
Nowlin and his partners in Northsask Frontier Adventures Game Hunting Preserve of Love, Sask., have more than the land, fishpond, lodge, fence and licences to pay for from the fees they charge their hunting customers.
“The deer farmer sees how much we charge for a 170 or 180 buck (scored according to Boone and Crocket standards) and they figure that because they grew it, they should get a much bigger piece of the pie.
“But our (operation) is a lot more than sending somebody out onto our land with a gun,” said Nowlin.
He said about one third of the price of a hunt is the cost of the game animal.
“We built a lodge. We have guides to pay. Staff to pay. We have to look after these customers as well as any five star hotel…. It’s the hospitality industry.”
As well, he said his company spent $85,000 on marketing last year.
“U.S. dollars sound good when you’re bringing the money in, but when you’re buying an ad in an American hunting magazine, ouch.”
Northsask generally buys mature stock from game farms that can produce the necessary antler genetics and heavy bodies hunters seek.
But in the past few years the company has bought younger bucks in hopes they will grow into trophy animals because prices for good mature bucks exceed what many hunt farm operators can afford.
“High-wire hunting (the industry term for hunt farms) is expected by our customers to be a high quality hunting experience. But they also want to sightsee.
They want to hunt some birds. They like to do a bit of fishing. It’s a vacation experience for them,” said Nowlin.
Nowlin said competition in Saskatchewan from deer farmers who “fence off that back 30 acres and just send out a guy to go and shoot a deer eating a feeder, undercutting me all to heck, is bad for all of us in the end.
“It means I’m making less money and Saskatchewan gets a bad name for what could be a great industry for all of us,” he said.
Nowlin estimates that in 2002 hunt farms brought $4.5 million into Saskatchewan.
Saskatchewan Agriculture has estimated that 265 trophy white-tailed deer, five years and older will be shot on hunt farms this fall.
