Just wanted to let everyone know that I have updated the website to include a couple of pages for people to add their lease listings. I don't know how this will work out but we'll give it a try and see what happens. Also, it looks like we are now at about 110 in our little match maker club so hopefully some good will come from all of it. If you're new to this thread and don't know what website we're referring to just shoot me a PM.

Trey

We took a different approach. 4 like minded, long term friends, formed a LLP and convinced our wives to each throw in the $ we typically spent hunting and we purchased a place. Sold it at a nice profit after several years of work / management and moved to bigger and better. I'm convinced investing with others and buying is better than leasing.. harder to get a lease sold out from under you this way.

Web page update

Thanks Hopedale, we continue to try and improve this thing for everyone involved. Just a few quick stats on our little group:

181 Total Contacts
74 THF Members
5 Firefighters
7 Law Enforcement Officers
1 Game Warden
1 US Marine

I personally would like to thank those last 14 individuals for their service. They are doing a dangerous job in order to make all our lives a little better. I would be happy to share my hunting camp with any of them.

Trey

Just wanted to check and see how everyone's lease prospects were going.

So far not so good.
Ive looked at 6 property's in the last 6 weeks.
2 had no sign of any wildlife or any natural reason for a deer to even walk across the place.
2 were taken sight unseen by folks willing to pay double what was being asked.
1 the price went up $750 per gun from Saturday when I talked to the LO about it to Wednesday when I met with him. Because he had 7 other guys coming to look at it with 2 spots open.
1 I cant even talk about in polite company.

Looks like a good place to post this.....

Me and my wife are looking for 100 or more acres around the Lake Limestone area to lease for Deer hunting. Willing to put up $1,000 (maybe more depending) for the lease. We recently moved and live on Lake Limestone and had to give up our previous lease....too far away. We are honest and ethical hunters, if your tired of leasing out your land to clubs or whiney hunters then were your couple.

Email me if interested ... raymond.a.horrocks@fluor.com

Add me to the list of people looking for a lease. Primarily a hunting buddy of mine and I. Looking north and west of DFW area. 1 - 3 hour drive.

Add me to the list, i'm from nm and looking for something intx. brady, menard, sonora, ozona area. 1000-1200

I'm getting on at the end, but here are some rules on a ranch a few of my relatives are part owners of outside of Rocksprings. The place is 1100 acres and there are 12 owners.

ALL of the stands and feeders are community property. The ranch buys and replaces stands as needed, and the location is done by consensus. If you have a stand you want to put out there, fine, but it is community property.

Each owner contributes an equal share of dues, determined at one of the 2 annual meetings. This money pays for corn, stands, maintenance, etc, etc. You don't pay, you don't hunt until it is paid.

Each owner is allowed 1 hunting spot for the first 2 weeks, and 2 hunting spots the rest of the time. If you have more than 2 hunters, you have to "borrow" a guest spot from another owner.

Adult children are considered "qualified members" and can visit the property without the owner, but their behavior is the responsibility of the owner.

Each owner is allowed an allottment of deer. 4 white tails, of which one can be a mature buck, 8 points or better. Only owners can shoot "culls" or spikes, which count as one of the 4 deer. There is also an allottment of 4 Axis deer, (2 bucks and 2 does). Your guests deer count against your allottment.

At 9PM each night, the owners meet in the main camp house and draw cards. This determines the order of "tagging". All stands are mapped on a big board and there is a hook at each stand. Each owner has a dog tag for themselves and one guest tag. All stands are tagged and considered to belong to that person until the next night. This way everyone has equal chance to get the "best" stands, and you know where everyone is. You can hunt however you want in your tagged area as long as you don't screw up anyone else's hunt.

No shooting during season or the month leading up to season, except for between noon and 1pm at the designated target area, and then only to sight in guns.

You drive only on existing roads and trails except to retreive game, and no riding around during hunting season.

No loaded weapons in the camp area, and everyone outside of the camp area must wear an article of orange.

All people on the property must sign in and sign out, and all kills must be logged. Guests must sign a liability release upon arrival.

There may be more rules, but that's all I can think of right now.

i think you messed up that shooting rule and if you did get it right i dont think i want to be apart of that hunting club.

oops, you are right. I meant no plinking. Shooting to some degree would seem to be important to a good hunt.

I still think this is a good idea. May have to get off my arse to see if it can be done.

Count me in if you can get a group together.
Lease to Hunter ratio is pretty difficult these days.

Crap..just saw the dang date..thread is 6 years old...whatever happened?

Didn't even need to read the other 5 pages.

good read anyway, put me down for a lease, all I do is bow hunt.

Count me in if a lease comes together....
Emmett

12 hunters willing to put up $2500/ea is $30,000 bucks... You could get a nice corporate lease for that! Finding a reliable group ready to put the money up early is the problem. Prob would need some type of contract, definitive rules, etc...maybe even incorporate...but it could be done.

I have been in charge of a south texas trophy LF lease for 8 years. I have learned a lot during that time. First of all it is very difficult to find a good ranch where the owner does not want to put ten guns on 300 acres. Most are way overcrowded. The other issue is the ranch owner himself. Many want your money but don't want you to be there. Many claim they are into management but many really are not - it is just given lip service. We were lucky in finding a ranch owner who is fair and serious about management - and our results show the impact of good management.

A big issue with many leases is the guest rules. Some hunters want to bring family and friends no matter how many people that may be and some leases are set up to deal with that - but it is very difficult to do on a trophy ranch especially if guest and family are allowed to sit out by themselves. Mistakes will be made in that situation.

Another issue that seems to arise is how stands are allocated. We have community stands on a first come first serve basis. We use a large map of our ranch and each hunter has a marker - if they mark a stand or area then they can stay there until they leave the ranch or move their marker. This seems to eliminate competition for deer or a hunter protecting their "area". Maybe not for everyone but for us this has worked well. We also respect each other and attempt to keep a reasonable distance from each other while hunting.

Camp life is huge and one bad apple can ruin it for everyone else. We are very careful up front before we sign a new hunter up on our lease. We meet with them personally and discuss their experience, hunting philosophy, etc. It is not perfect but it seems to help in making sure the hunter is a match with our group and vice versa.

Some hunters do not like a lease with rules but we have found a well written, straightforward set of rules eliminates confusion, grey area, and the wrong deer being killed. We communicate regularly with each other and we also utilize a lot of game camera pictures that are placed in our camp house to identify younger bucks with potential (do not kill) versus mature bucks that can be taken.

Not a perfect scenario but one that has worked well for our group for 8 years - end of the day it all boils down IMO to respect - between hunters, between hunters and the ranch owner, and for the rules. So a club could certainly work but trust me it would take hours of effort and work to get it done the right way and where everyone involved comes away pleased

TLK, I have always been in favor of "community blind setups" and will always be so. IMO, much more like hunting to be able to hunt the whole ranch, not just a pre-assigned/designated area. A person will not always be the 1st one every time and a deer IMO is not "one's" dedicated deer, simply just one that frequents or resides on the ranch, eligible for all to attempt to kill. I know a lot on here don't feel that same way but that's ok too.

DQ Kid, I agree with you. Besides, everyone won't be hunting at the same time after opening weekend it seems. There are those of us that hunt during the week mostly. After all everyone pays for the entire lease.
Just my .02. I to realize not everyone agrees with that and I'm good with that.
Emmett

Well guys, this thread is from 2008, and the guy who started it isn't even a member anymore. See my thread if you're in the market for a lease starting in 2015. I am putting only two restrictions. 1) During deer season, no family or guests, and 2) for bowhunters, you have to wait until rifle season starts so as not to get an unfair jump on the rifle hunters.

Got that - just having a discussion on this thread about forming clubs, etc. Interesting topic even if its old - not saying I don't agree but you just as an FYI you will eliminate lots of folks with the no guest/family hunting rule.

Do you know something I don't?

Still here.

Just saw a bunch more looking for lease threads the leases available post this year, so I decided to bring this idea back up.