Business Accelerator Cohort No. 3: Easy Access Hunts

SBJ photo by Wes Hamilton

Joey Pate and John Moore, Easy Access Hunts

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Living on a 400-acre family farm in Macon County, Joey Pate says hunting and fishing were big parts of his childhood.

“When I moved to Springfield, I had a problem,” Pate says. “I didn’t have access to hunting or to fishing like I did before, like I had my whole life.”

Easy Access Hunts was born, and like many startups, it’s a merging of passion and problem solving.

Pate says the majority of hunters own or lease private land for hunting, and Missouri alone has more than 40 million acres of private land.

Typically, hunters lease land for a year, which prices many out of the market, he says.

Easy Access Hunts provides short-term hunting leases, reducing the cost for hunters and providing landowners with more leasing options.

The company charges the landowner a 3 percent fee and the hunter an 18 percent fee, based on the amount charged for the short-term lease.

The business launched Feb. 1 and has three employees, Pate, co-owner and Chief Technology Officer John Moore and Director of Land Services Luke Shoemaker.

“We’re trying to reconnect those family traditions,” Pate says. “We want to get more people in the outdoors.”