I agree with you, but you're gonna get some blowback on this one.

Sad to say, but 3 grand/gun doesn't buy much of a lease anymore if your interested in quality, # of hunters, etc...

I know it is an uphill battle. Just working within our parameters.

OK, here comes the blow back...Sure glad ya'll have the opinion you do of East Texas...keeps you high minded rich folks out of our way so we can get some hunting done...I had a first time member on one of my leases kill a 145 10 pt. last year- being a 10 he should have scored more but had short tines. Oh, and by the way, the lease cost was $850. In my 10 years or so of managing leases in east Texas I have had one feeder and two ladder stands stolen off one lease when a pipeline was being put thru and I am talking about managing four different leases.

My biggest issue with hunting east Texas (IMO) is the cost relative to the size of the property and quality of deer. I know several guys that hunt timber co land and clubs and they pay south of 2 grand but they hunt 1 gun per 100-200 acres (maybe more or less, but not much) or less and out of 20 guys. When your first rule on the deer lease is "no stands withing 300 yards of another members stand" it might be too crowded. That being said, to each his/her own. This type of hunting/comradary is all some guys want and that's OK.

I ask this question again....What is the concern about # acres/hunter? Is it safety or you would all be hunting the same deer. If it is safety, you couldn't be 150 yards from the next hunter in most east Texas timberland leases and shoot the next guy. If it concern about hunting the same deer, well unless your lease is 2000 or so acres and above you are all hunting the same deer. And if your concerned about too many folks at the lease at the same time...I have been doing this for a long time and I have never seen all member of a lease at the lease on the same weekend at the same time and that includes opening weekend and Thanksgiving weekend. Anyway that is my take on that.

My main concern with hunters per acre is when there are too many hunters....trophy bucks seem to get smaller and smaller.

Russ79 on your question of # acres per hunter being too many I had a comment earlier on this thread and ill comment again. I don't claim to know it all and everyone can have different priorities of what they want out of a lease but for those that want a reasonable opportunity to hunt a mature buck then "too many" hunters per the acreage can hurt those chances. Of course in extreme examples then safety could be a concern but usually when serious deer manager/hunters are talking about acres per hunter I think they are usually concerned with the longterm potential of managing for as many bucks in the older age classes as they can get. Everything can be sight specific but no matter how high the deer density may be then theoretically if there are a high number of hunters then at some point there would likely be too large a harvest of mature bucks and over time there just wouldn't hardly be any at all. However, costs to hunt has increasingly gotten higher so many people are just unwilling or unable to pay the price to have a high acreage per hunter ratio and that is fine. For those that can afford it and appreciate the value then IMO the ratio of acres to hunters is THE most important ingredient in evaluating a lease. I have hunted all over Texas and for many years have settled in West and North West Texas and out there most professional(and self taught) deer managers seem to agree that to maximize Trophy potential, as a rule of thumb, you try to kill about a mature buck per 1000 acres. We have about 700/800 acres per Trophy hunter but are very selective so we end up killing close to that 1000ac per guy number. Yes, we pay a little more, but that wasn't your question. If you want a shorter answer than mine, then Redman(just above) summed it up nicely.

Just sent you a PM 5Redman8

Good reply, freerange. You pretty much summed it up IMO.

San Angelo lease just came up on leasehunter.com that's in your price range.

I have had a lease in North East Texas for 4 years now. Have never had an issue with theft or damage by a "human". hogs are another story. 2 travel trailers, 2 four wheelers, 1 tractor, 12 cameras, and 8 feeders, never an issue. I have had 1 camera stolen off of the gate area by a logger when they were taking more trucks out of the place than they were reporting but other than that no issues.