Montana startup becoming the Airbnb of outdoor recreation

[atlas]

https://www.ktvq.com/news/local-new...ng-the-airbnb-of-outdoor-recreation?_amp=true

This working cattle ranch just outside Roundup now has another stream of income thanks to LandTrust, a Montana-based startup company that’s like the Airbnb for outdoor recreation, connecting the public to private opportunities such as archery hunts.

"We’ve got all kinds of white tale mule deer, elk, upland games, prairie dogs, lots of bald eagles," said Carl Kimmell, owner of Kimmell Ranch.

It's Montana in all its glory.

The massive cattle ranch is about 25 miles north of Roundup. Kimmell is a third-generation owner, but the recent drought cut his herd from a peak of 700 cattle to nearly 130. So he's getting creative with his income streams.

Kimmell is one of several hundred property owners in Montana part of the new online platform, LandTrust. That means people are paying to play here, and they're coming from all across the U.S., including Pennsylvania, Idaho and Michigan.

"We launched in fall of 2019. Since then, we’ve expanded to 34-35 states, just over a million acres of land on the platform. Predominantly our density is going to be in Montana, Nebraska and Kansas," said Colton Dombroski, LandTrust head of customer and landowner success.

The platform has since expanded into five more states, thanks to a $6 million investment from Kevin O'Leary, known for his role on the TV show "Shark Tank", and the Wilks brothers, who are among the largest landowners in the country.

"They recognize the value we’re providing to a lot of generational operations throughout the country," Dombroski said.

O'Leary agrees.

“We believe the Wilks brothers' investment and contribution of their land holdings to the platform will allow LandTrust to scale in an accelerated manner,” he said recently.

It's a big win for landowners and hunter, along with a shot in the arm for rural communities.

"The folks who are coming out, they are eating at the cafe or going to the bar, the diner and helping drive that economy as a whole in those locations," Dombroski said.

It's not just hunters paying to visit places like Kimmel's ranch. Some come for birdwatching or stargazing on the 8,000 acres. It can even be a man cave for overnight stays, which is perfect for Blake Mannion of Bozeman, who's booked about 20 experiences on LandTrust.

"Pretty much deer and elk for the most part, some bear hunting from time to time, turkey hunting," he said.


Another time, it was a day pass for shed hunting.

"They are decorations. I’m not in charge of the decorations, but they get used. I think that one was 20, and you get access to 5,000 acres. Let's say that's yours for the day," he said.

For someone like Mannion, who moved to Bozeman from the Bronx, that access is priceless.

"I think anyone that does not have the benefit or luck in life that has family or friends who have property will understand the struggle of land access. LandTrust really is a pretty revolutionary way of gaining access to private ground," he said.

 

[Schaaf]

They blocked me from commenting on their Facebook posts. Cowards.

 

[atlas]

Have fun with the shed hunting day passes.

 

[TheTone]

I wonder if the family invite I’ve had to one of the mentioned ranches is no good now?

I’d guess they are paying a higher lease rate than state ran programs are. I know a piece of Idaho access yes ground where a small group of locals was contemplating out paying the state to have it to themselves

 

[DFS]

The train has gone off the rails. I’m not sure there is a dang thing that can be done about it.

 

[Jwill]

Ugh.

 

[Beignet]

MFP wasn’t as glowing in their coverage.

Hopefully raising the cap on Block Management payments will take some of the shine off of these pay-to-play schemes.

Monetizing Access Made Easy

https://montanafreepress.org/2022/07/20/hunter-access-montana-approaches-public-private-fork-in-the-road/ I first heard of this Land Trust site last October when someone posted on HT that a friend "didn't have a place to hunt" in MT because the CA ranch was sold. At the time it didn't have a...

www.hunttalk.com

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Been going on for decades in some fashion. This is just another spoke in the wheel that was already invented.

 

[NDGuy]

They with Kevin O Leary just invested into ND as well. Although this was already happening, seeing it formalized on an app makes a guy wanna puke.

 

[nettereo16]

We are turning into Europe. Soon only the elites will be allowed to own firearms and hunt.

 

[Jwill]

I really hate that they’re using the name LandTrust, so misleading.

 

[Treeshark]

I’m not seeing anything new here, just more organized. I must say, they did a nice job with their website.

 

[Southern Elk]

Been seeing their ads on Facebook for a while now. Never clicked on it. Honestly, none of us would have ever been able to access those lands anyway.

 

[Nameless Range]

It was an obvious next step for the enterprising individual in a geography with way more demand than supply.

We can’t stop it, and so we have to do our Best to make our access programs genuinely competitive with something like this. That’s gonna take money, and creativity, and probably being more selective with where we put our resources.

I do hate it - this injection of “markets” in to every goddamn thing. I’m not anti-market, it’s actually to the contrary. There’s just some sacred things out there where markets can erode the beautiful.

 

[Beignet]

Honestly, none of us would have ever been able to access those lands anyway.

At least some of it was accessible. From the MFP piece:

"The O’Connors removed their properties from Block Management in 2019.

“Block Management has been a good thing for hunters, but I think it’s getting overrun so much right now with people that a lot of people are looking to things more like what we are doing with LandTrust. They want a little more private hunt than being there with a bunch of people.” O’Connor said."

 

[Treeshark]

We can’t stop it, and so we have to do our Best to make our access programs genuinely competitive with something like this. That’s gonna take money

Yep. It will be tough to achieve that and reduce NR opportunity ($$) at the same time.

Transferable landowner tags are going to kick these types of ventures into overdrive. It would be cool if some of these would be crowdsourced/available to invest into publicly, could be a great opportunity.

 

[Nameless Range]

Yep. It will be tough to achieve that and reduce NR opportunity ($$) at the same time.

I think we can reasonably reduce NR opportunity and increase, or at the very least refocus, the resources we put into our access programs in such a way that both efforts would be largely independent of one another. Lot's of ways to generate revenue/allocate funds.

Transferable Landowner tags are the things we will have to fight tooth and nail forever.

 

[YukonGold]

https://www.ktvq.com/news/local-new...ng-the-airbnb-of-outdoor-recreation?_amp=true

"This working cattle ranch just outside Roundup now has another stream of income thanks to LandTrust, a Montana-based startup company that’s like the Airbnb for outdoor recreation, connecting the public to private opportunities such as archery hunts.

"We’ve got all kinds of white tale mule deer, elk, upland games, prairie dogs, lots of bald eagles," said Carl Kimmell, owner of Kimmell Ranch."


Didn't know we could hunt those now. Saweeeeet.

 

[Treeshark]

Transferable Landowner tags are the things we will have to fight tooth and nail forever.

We’re not going to agree on that one, but not the point of the thread so I don’t want to divert any more than I already have.

 

[Jock Conyngham]

The MFP writer contacted me for a quote, and since I didn’t know much about it but had a very dim view of such efforts in other states (e.g. Donny Beaver’s leasing up a lot of trout water in PA and CO that used to be open) I contacted a couple of the ranches and one of their founders, Jeff Reed from Emigrant, who is a well-regarded and intelligent guy.

The ranchers told me they were very well treated by the main office (the outfit I refer to above didn’t do that and stiffed landowners). One opened his place only to birders and said it was a way to derive some income from non-hunters and to educate people about ag, which was important to him.

Reed, who has his own place in the program, said that its the easiest way for him to control access and that he returns fees to locals and allows local kids on free. He pointed out the program really does incentivize habitat stewardship. To my point about corporate enterprises really being about profit moving away from the landowner and largely out of state, he said the board, at least in the current form, was actively trying to do the opposite. He is anxious to meet and discuss this more.

At the end of my couple of hours of research I felt like it was a slightly more complex subject than I had first assumed and that more than anything, its nascent success speaks to the low rates, labor demands, and occasional to frequent headaches of the Block Management program for landowners. Those are issues we Montana hunters need to continue to address, and we need to figure out mechanisms for non-hunters and non-anglers to help fund FWP. I wasn’t able to connect with the writer before some travel and his deadline. I’m still skeptical but can sure understand the other side’s points.