Guest Policy on Your Lease

All,

In your experience what is the guest policy on your lease / leases you've heard of? Deer harvested included in your allotment or pay extra by deer?

Thanks.

JA

On our 10 man 900 acre pine plantation lease, the club limit is three deer per member - 2 bucks, 1 doe. Guests are allowed with no fee. Both guest and hunter must occupy the same stand with one gun. Any deer killed go against the member's three deer limit. Generally speaking, guests are youth relatives of the member.

Our LO was very generous and we had an abundance of deer. One deer doe or buck on the guest tag. I asked my guest before hand take doe and hogs only. We had a great time grilling and playing cards. We never had anybody's day get upset.

Our policy.

No guests before Thanksgiving. Only 1 guest during deer season, any harvest is off lessee allotment,
We don't have a huge deer population.

Outside of deer season a member can bring guests for hog. But for a max of five times for each guest. We figure if they come more than that, they can pay.

Current lease of over 20 years. No hunting guests allowed. There was an understood unspoken unquestioned youth privilege not to be abused, but we are down to only two members and our kids are grown, so not needed now.

I was on a second lease for a few years. Guests allowed after Thanksgiving. Shoot from the paying hunters bag limit. Also only after thanksgiving anyone's stand on the lease could be hunted by anyone as long as the person who owned the stand was not on the lease or using it. Only problem is if I was not staying on the lease the night before, I would sometimes show up to my stand to find someone hunting my stand before thanksgiving. Also it seemed like after half the members stopped filling their feeders after thanksgiving, but hunted other's stands that did.

I was on a large lease before with several members. Three different groups that did not know each other very well, but hunting together. There was detailed written rules from the landowner with youth allowed a doe/turkey, guests could take bucks does and pay a kill fee. You were only allowed to hunt your area or stands all season without permission from a member to hunt his/her stand. Widely abused by many including the lease manager and no one paid. Most did not even know the written rules existed I think.

While hunting as a guest on a friend's lease one weekend another member confided in me that they got on that lease because it had a liberal guest policy of one guest allowed anytime and no limit on what guest could kill. The two guys split the cost of the single lease spot, but both hunted on the lease every weekend as paying member and guest. It was almost as if the guy was recruiting me. This was a huge lease with several spots sold to different individuals and groups by the landowner. Unknown to the landowner I suspect this was done in the same way by others on that lease. Technically I suppose it was not against the rules as written by the landowner. I sat with my friend in his stand that weekend because there was no other place left on the lease without someone hunting it.

That second lease I was on for a few years I think the landowner originally handled the family close friend guest issue by splitting a lease spot into a "half spot" paying member. Half the cost of a full lease spot and could only take half a bag limit for that county. Otherwise the half spot was a member like anyone else including signing a contract and release. But I know the landowner was doing away with the half spots by attrition. I was the last half spot on that lease when a local group of hunters offered the landowner more money for the lease than our group could afford to match.

Kids/spouse can hunt anytime, deer taken off your allotment. Guests only allowed after Thanksgiving, deer taken off your allotment. No problems so far.

Totally depends on the type of lease you have. If it is a low key, not heavily managed lease then guest policy can be more liberal. If it is a well managed trophy lease then that is a different story.

In my 50 plus years of being on a variety of Texas leases, I would summarize that the guest policy is the number one issue that can make or break a lease. If guest are unlimited and can shoot what they want then there will be on going issues for sure.

We are on 9000 acres south texas trophy lease LF - we allow direct family OR one guest max. This is up to Dec 15th at which time we restrict to only direct family (this is due to the rut and naturally more hunters in camp during that time of the season)

Any and all guest must sit with the paid hunter and can only shoot what the paid member OK's. We are MLD so does and culls are fine

Good luck

And it gets worse when a guest results in a deer being unrecovered, which is likely when guests are inexperienced hunters who seldom shoulder a firearm. The same is true for members who use the "everyone misses" defense to justify unrecovered deer not counting against their harvest limits.

Both are enough to drive some leases to adopt a no guests policy.

None allowed, other than spouse or children who hunt off members limit.

Guests are trouble. Leases are expensive and a lot of work. Why risk it?

Two buck lease/county, one "trophy", one cull. Any deer taken by a guest comes off the allotment of the paying member. Taking from the members allotment helps keep everyone in check imo. Basically you're responsible for any deer your buddy takes. If he messes up and shoots a "trophy", you miss out on your trophy that year, and maybe don't invite that guy back. But also if you have a nice buck that you want to give to your kid, dad, whoever, you have the option. Does are free game.

We allow guests any time but they hunt with whoever they've come with, off of their hosts tag and they're there to shoot pigs and does only. Bucks are off limits unless it's a kiddo.

I have been on other leases than the ones I posted about. I second, Guests are trouble. A common denominator was that every lease I was on that allowed guests in some form that also limited what they could kill, some of the lease members would ultimately talk about or accuse other members of allowing their guest to take game that was not declared. Like when hunting during the week when no one else was there or after they drove by camp from stand to town without stopping as examples. While walking into camp I have even been shot at by someones guest hunter when he thought I was a coyote. I personally feel safer on public land than I do on leases with unknown inexperienced guests hunting.

Take a friend or family member huntin. Good memories that last a lifetime.

One guest during deer season and must stay with you. Use your tag.

Use of other stands and feeders up to members but we're all understanding and share as needed.

I have never seen the lease manager on lease. Kinda disappears until payment time comes.

10 paid spots, 5 members. Guests/family shoot off your allotment (10 trophy WT, 10 cull WT total).

In my experience, members' kids can either be a tremendous asset to have around (workers), or way worse than any non-family guest.

Best guest policy I ever had, very trouble free. No guests hunting. If you brought a guest to the lease at all it had to be your wife/girlfriend or your kid and they were not allowed to hunt.

I prefer a "no guests allowed" policy. I won't go as a guest unless it's a big corporate lease. Even then I rarely accept invitations. I don't like hunting with people I don't know.

You may have hit upon a point worthy of discussion.

Perhaps kids should not be allowed to hunt deer and other big game until they are old enough to hold a member position on the lease. If a member parent wants their child to harvest deer, they should take responsibility for teaching them what they need to know in order to be capable and safe doing it. Until that time comes, by all means they should be encomuraged to join their parents in hunting lesser game and other lease activities, giving them the opportunity to learn and grow in knowledge and skill.

Of course I'm sure those who want to see their five-year-old take a 160-class buck will want no part of this.

Guests and kids on paid members tag while hunting with member only. Gets a little fuzzy at times because we are mostly family. Figured out a while back that I value family more than trophy deer. I do fill a little like the Little Red Hen at times, but whatever, I can't complain. I get a more deer than I can eat, plenty of pigs, and lots of good campfire stories...

My earlier post about no guests other than spouse or children sounds a little cold hearted. But, our lease is great, we love it and we're really serious about killing great deer and protecting the longevity of our lease agreement. As members we get along great, appreciate each other and have fun. I party, a lot. Just not at lease when I'm hunting. It's all about what different hunters want out of their experience. My experience with guests has been negative for most of the reasons mentioned in earlier posts.

Had different rules on different leases, some dictated by the landowner of course. Generally, we allow immediate family (wife/kids) only to hunt off of your tag as long as you are there accompanying. Sometimes on MLD, that helps because of extra does to kill. When allowed by landowner, we used to allow nonfamily guests during deer season (1 per trip per member), but stopped because it was being abused by members bringing too many business clients, etc. Any guests outside of deer season (dove hunting, camping, etc.) is fine.

Only issue we had with the family deal was one member wanted his son to be able to go down and hunt on his own off of dad's tag. He was 21 and in college and we said no. He wasn't on the list and the landowner was adamant about guests only being there with a member. He didn't like it, but had to explain to him the difference and that we would lose the lease no questions asked if he was found to be there alone.

One guest at a time, if they shoot a trophy it counts as paying members. Have to hunt in the stand with a paying member. All the does and culls they can shoot. Never had an issue with a guest that I can remember in 24 years.

As far as kids, bring em. More the merrier. Chances are one of the other hunters has a buck coming in that they would love for the kid to shoot as long as they get to be there for the experience. I don't know how many text of pictures I get from members with the caption "this deer would be great for one of the kids to take."

What guests?

3 guys on 1800 acres with no pressure and surrounded by large non hunting neighbors so immediate family and friends helps us manage our deer population. No trophies for guest, but we have plenty of shooters that don't fit the trophy category and always need to thin out the does. It works in this situation, but I have seen it abused and not feasible on other leases.