Most of the places you used to be able to do that are no longer owned by people who needed help with that kind of chit. Now they’re owned by people who can hire all that out.
There is a lot of truth in this.
I can remember when the place I am part owner of was open to just about everyone for a hand shake and a little work.
Some of the reasons it is not the same now.
Just about every time we restricted access in the past is related to hunters behaving badly. Using our place to access the neighbors, turning the ranch into a motocross track and outright poaching to name a few. If you let strangers on to hunt sooner or later you are going to get burned. The sure way not to get burned is don't let strangers on.
Now days ranching is far more mechanized, very few jobs are done with old fashioned sweat like bucking hay bails. No one is going to put a stranger in a machine that costs better than 100G.
Even if you want to trade labor for hunting the accountant and lawyer are going to say NO. I am not worried about the liability when someone is hunting, but if you put them to work, you had better have insurance and even insurance may not be enough.
You may want to let hunters on for free, but your banker tells you differently. There is good money in hunting now and if you have a loan the banker may be calling the shots.
Our place is still free to hunt, but if we were to open it to everyone we would be over run by hunters in less than a year. Far more people deserve to hunt the ranch than we have room for so we have to be careful on who we let on.