I read a post here that said these folks were not good to lease from ? I would like to hear both sides of the story.I would like to here from hunters that have leased land of been on lease owned by these folks good or bad. I am thinking about leasing from these folks and would like to know the pro and cons. Thank you

Those posts came from a thread of mine. I ended up going with lease. I talked with a number of the guys on the lease and they had no hard feelings. There are the typical timber lease problems, but they're common on all timber leases and, to be quite honest, are fair considering the cost of most timber leases. Campbell has built a new well, created new roads, and done quite a bit for the property.

The property has only been Campbell for 2 years. They bought it from Temple, but they appear to be doing a pretty good job. They sold some of the other properties in the area that they bought, but they were extraordinarily close to development.

In the end, all of the companies are there to make money. They're timber properties for the sole purpose of generating timber. You'll have to make some sacrifices, but it won't be the end of the world. I say go with it.

I don't know what you have heard that makes them not good to lease from. I have two leases with them right now- one of 300 acres and one of 62 acres. I have had one for four years and the other for three years. You lease from them and they will pretty much leave you alone to do what you want as log as you follow the rules. They are a timber company and they are in the business to grow and sell trees- leasing the hunting rights is just gravy for them. So when it is time to cut, plant, or spray they do it and you probably won't hear from them to let you know when it will happen. If this is going on during deer season that is just the way it is, but they at least try to stay off during the weekends. They are not stupid enough to be out there when people are out there with guns. I was on another timber company lease before I got mine that had been leased by the same club for 20 years. I was on it for five years and never saw any cutting going on. My 62 acre lease has not any any timber company work on it since I have had it- just a pipeline going thru it right now. My 300 acre lease had some site prep work and planting done on about 90 acres that had been clearcut before I leased it the first year I had it. This year I had about 30 acres clearcut and the site work done befor bow season began. They don't do any cleaning after a clearcut so it looks pretty bad when they are through, but if you have any creeks or drainages they have to leave timber standing along it which leaves great places to hunt. And clearcuts produce plenty of forage for deer for the first three or four years, at least until the planted pines start to get too tall to see over. Of course I can stay on top of what is going on at both my leases- one is less than one mile from my house and the other is about three miles.

That brings up another question do the properties have gates on them or any way to keep others out? The timber lease I am on now has gates.I will be about 2 hours from the land I am looking at so it will be hard to keep an close eye on it.

If it doesn't have a gate(s) you will have to put them up at your own expense. I was notified last year that any cables that were up for gates had to be replaced with real gates. On my 300 acre lease there are five gates that had to be put in. I was lucky- there is a landowner that has to go thru my lease to get to his property so he put two of the gates up at his expense. I have one to go. Just spread the cost among the members and it won't hurt too bad. I will say this...if I ever decide to not renew or I lose it for some reason the gates are going with me.

yeah they had a booboo year before last of a draunkard getting taken off his 4wheeler by a cable and another guy getting crushed by one of the pole gates and are just getting around to trying to take corrective action. I've only ever belonged to existing leases (Tower Club, Forest Lake, Renfro) and despite the clearcutting and 3rd rowing, I've never really had any issues and really the only thing that has changed since it left temple's hands has been the pricing on those places.

That makes since not to put cables up for gates.

if you could put enough ppl together, a cpl of those Jasper Co leases would be worthwhile

I think I can come up with 4-8 people maybe more if needed. I have been trying to get up to look at some of the timber land that is open to lease this year but it will be a couple of weeks before job conditions slow down to where i can go look at the properties

I would for sure look at some of those larger Jasper CO leases if its able to fit within budget. There are a lot of nice deer that come from those red dirt areas every year.

Is this the same company as Crown Court?

rifleman, I did some foodplot work for several members of Renfro three or four years ago- that's a big place. I argued with The Temple folks several years ago about the cables for gates. I know it is a liability issue but my opinion is that the lease members know where the lease gates are and others that might hit them and get hurt were probably trespassing and we can find them at the emergency room to give them a ticket- Temple didn't care much for that point of view. I would look at any tracts before you bid on them to make sure they are what you want or gauge what kind of problems you might have to deal with. My lease has good roads but after any kind of rain unless you have a four wheeler or four wheel drive you can't drive on them. That kind of a thing could be a problem if the tract has hills. You can also check out the size of the timber growing and know whether you will have to worry about any cutting any time soon. Right now you have to deal with drilling rigs and gas pipelines. It seems that all of east Texas is getting criss-crossed with pipelines. I had to deal with that on both my leases during deer season.

I have not heard of crown court

neither have I. Crownpine, Forestar and Hancock/Red River are the main ones in the area (If Forestar is handling the lease, you can bet that place is up for sale)

The FRO is a huge place, I hunted below flood level and had a lot of room to myself and always saw a ton of deer...they have since clearcut that area (along with most of those nice hardwood bottoms south of the lower CiCi road). I hunted there as a guest from 00-04, then a member from 05-end of 08 season. There are (and were) a lot of good folks on that place. The deal with the cables is strictly liability, I remember right off the bat they went around making sure they got properly flagged, then requested there be pipe put on them as well...now they want the actual gates...it's a dang shame you owe trespasser an injury free entry way, but to be honest they can't afford too many of those lawsuits, so I don't blame them for covering themselves. And no joke on the pipelines, we pushed off the 48" pipe they are putting in next to the 24" pipe that is already running across our place. We pushed everything back to $ would go on next years taxes, but going to have a foodplot that is a total of about 180' wide next season that is a mile long, so no complaints about it except the barn I park in will get taken up by it. Wait until they start putting in the superpads in SA county, they really haven't started much pipeline work over there, but folks are about to find out what that's all about.

There is another timber company that leases, www.rayonierhunting.com, that has two tracts side by side in Tyler county that together total 2183 acres. I haven't quite figured out there bidding process yet, but I have sent an email to find out. Anyway, that's another option.

Thanks. I leased some property in Tyler County that I found on the TPWD site. It was complete junk and the leasing manager was a major crook. I remember talking to him and him saying that the property was owned by a company out of Oregon named Crown Court. The sad thing is, the guy is a minister and knowingly leased portions of our property to other groups. Our neighbors found an old stand on their property (the property was really mine) that the previous hunters had spray painted "James ______ is a crook...don't trust him." I would like to find "Crown Court" to let them know what is going on over there.

"Crownpine" is the timber managing division...owned by Campbell group out of Oregon...could be the guy just isn't too bright.