What would be the best policy for a new lease?

There maybe several different ways that I don't mention but I will get it started.
None of these are my expressed opinion!
I thought a disclaimer would be nice touch for old Stick chunker's sake! lol

Hunter sets up his own blind\feeder and hunts it exclusively and no one else is allowed to hunt without permission.

Hunters maintain a blind\feeder and hunting selection is based on first come first serve. (after I typed this I visualized a couple of guys racing across the pasture, lol)

I even heard of a group that would number their blinds and have drawings to see where they hunted.

thanks in advance for your participation!

One option we have used is to number the blinds, then have a chalkboard set up where you write in where you are hunting. First come, first served. It would look something like

#7 Sun AM Joe

You could not write in a blind more than one hunt ahead. So Friday night you would write in your blind for Saturday morning.

There are ten of us, and we've never had any trouble over it. Everyone hunts every where, lot's of consideration for who's leaving first, who's staying longer,etc

We all have our own blind and hunt it exclusively until December 1st. After that stands are open and first come first serve. That is unless you get permission to hunt another member's stand.

To me this gives somebody ample opportunity to hunt a deer that he has on camera or might have seen. Also allows the people to bow hunt their own stand if they so choose.

Sharing pictures and things has become a big part of the fun for our group. Especially coming up to the season. This policy has allowed for sharing of pictures without worring about who is going to be in your stand if you miss a day.

Best bet is for each hunter to provide one blind/ feeder, then number and first come/ first serve. In my experience that is the best way

my favorite is dividing a lease into sections and drawing for sections where a member can put as many stands & feeders as they like.

Because feeders often go with stands, it only makes sense that whoever pays to maintain the feeder is the one assigned to the stand that overlooks it.

There should also be a limitation on the number of stands and feeders each member can have. Some guys are more fantatical than others about killing deer and would pay whatever it costs to cover a lease with "their" feeders if permitted.

Once everyone has been assigned a stand, with or without a feeder near it, additional stands are considered "open" to whoever voices a gentleman's interest in hunting it that morning or evening. Members often share the cost to maintain these feeders.

On our lease, everyone has their own setup, and obviously has first choice on it when they are at the lease. If you are not there your spot is free game to anyone. Not my favorite way but it has been going that way for 25 years and I only been there 11, so I had to learn to like it!!

And I bet one of those who hunts other member's stands most often is the guy who runs the lease.

My experience has always been that leases run by a guy who doesn't hunt very often, are the ones with rules that keep most members happy.

I think the rules would vary depending on the acre per hunter.

If the land can handle more than one stand per person, then I like the idea of having a primary stand that is permission only and one that is open to others.

Some issues I see with only hunting your stand is due to the limitations. Why get on a 5k acre lease to hunt 200? Also, if you only have one stand and can't hunt others, what do you do if the wind is wrong.

Another issue that may arise is how close can you hunt. I don't always hunt feeders. I like to spot and stalk or hunt between feeders. Sometimes this would be perceived that I was "cutting" deer off to a stand or maybe they felt like I was too close.

If you can only hunt one stand, does that mean you can't shoot one that you see driving around or driving to your stand? What if it is right by someone elses stand? If you can shoot a deer you see while driving around, is it fair to the guy that hunts close to camp that others get to drive further?

Issues with having open stands can be burdensome also. What if you like to feed more than others? What if your stand is nicer? What if you prefer to chum away from the feeder, but hunt out of the same stand. Someone else can hunt it at anytime and take advantage at your expense.

Another issue with an open stand policy is that it would reduce the sharing of game pics and videos. Could lead to lying about what everyone saw and this is one of my favorite parts of hunting with a group.

Everyone doesn't hunt the same, so it is inevitable that someone is going to complain that so-n-so gets out too early or hunted it with the wrong wind.

Mostly, I think it depends on who you are hunting with. Our lease is set up so you can hunt any stand, unless the owner of it is there. Bow season is by permission (don't think this will be an issue for you ).

Another option that we have discussed is hunt your own until Thanksgiving. Gives you time to hunt the rut (in our area) and a few weeks to hunt "your way," but always provides access to all the land.

Good luck deciding

Personally, I want to select my own location and then prep the site. So I'll go with the first option of hunt your own stand and don't hunt others without permission.

Once everyone has selected a location members can select secondary locations. Secondary locations are open to anyone to hunt.

We also had a "Do Not Shoot List". If there were bucks at your stand that you did not want someone else to shoot from your stand, then you'd post a pic or description of the buck in your stand. If someone else hunted that stand they had to honor that agreement. That buck was fair game at a different stand though.

With that said, If hunted someone else's blind I certainly wouldn't shoot a big trophy buck out of it unless I had the green light from that stand's owner.

We maintain our own sections. No one can hunt you blind without you permission until after thanksgiving. If your in camp though you have first dibs on your spot though, if your not there well then don't get mad is someone kills that buck you have been hiding pictures of all year.

Seriously it works well for us, and it is nice to look at some different scenery in the late season.

I know what you mean man, but on ours the guy who runs it has the cattle and he hunts next door. Most of the time people hunt their own, or others in their circle of friends/fam in their group. When I was younger I was more tempted to move around to get new scenery,since it was the rule, but now I have realized that sticking to one stand(mine) seems to provide more success. Being in the same place more times seems to give a person better chances for that bigun to walk by.

We honor each other's stands throughout the season. However, it's common for a guy to give another member permission to hunt his stand at any time as the end of the season draws closer.

Because I enjoy hunting nearby public land and have access to another private tract as well, I always hunt whatever open stand is left. Which to be honest, often times works in my favor because it's often a stand that hasn't been hunted much since members usually hunt their own stands most often.

Usually for the first good part of December we all hunt our own stands but after that we have them numbered and at night when were sitting around the campfire we draw numbers to see who gets to hunt where. Keeps it fun!

At my lease, we are allowed to set up 2 stands and hunt those!!!

We have 8 hunters on 2750 acres. Each hunter can have up to 3 blind/feeders/spots to hunt. They can't be any closer than 500 yards from another spot.

One spot is chosen as "primary" the others are "community" spots.

You can only hunt somone else's primary stand with their permission. The community blinds are available, first come first serve, if the owner is not hunting it.

Everyone is responsible to service and maintain their own blinds and feeders.

The first thing I would do is set a limit on the total number of blinds. Our place has WAY too many blinds on it.

That being said the way we do it is you pick the spot, put in your own blind and feed it. No one can hunt your blind the first 2 weekends (9 days) (unless you say they can). After that anyone can hunt any blind, but you always have first choice if it's your and you want to hunt it. (We do always ask out of courtesy "Do you mind if I hunt, your _ _ _ _ blind?"

OUR rules IF you want to "play" are you have to have a comparable blind to all the others... water proof, heater, and a decent chair and you must feed (some)year around.

Much like SIG. We have 8 and most of the time we just work it out. There are a couple of people that have been on the lease quite a while and they have blinds that they get first dibbs on. We also have a couple of doublewides that either the person that bought it or ones with kids get first choice. Normally we only hqalf half of the 8 at one time the exception being opening weekend. We have no blinds that are totally off limits. I would not be on a lease where I was limited to one blind all season.

We picked a left over spot when we signed up
and that's are spot all year . Even when we
Renew it stays the same. Only time we can
Hunt another blind is if we get the ok from
the person that owns the blind.

This will be my second year on a lease. The first lease was set up so you were assigned a blind/feeder which you set-up and maintained for the year. You could hunt another blind/feeder with permission and a small fee to that "owner". That lease was large and had several guns so it was hard to meet everyone and get used to the idea of doing that. This coming year I managed to find a lease for me, my dad, and a few friends to hunt. We will set up our own areas and feed year round. We will have an option of hunting anywhere until deer season. At that point it is up to the person if you can hunt their blind/feeder. We have discussed it and have all agreed that this would work best for our lease.

The last lease i was on we all had our own stand(s) and feeder(s). and you hunted your stuff and your stuff only. unless permission was given from asking or generosity. The guys on our lease were good about allowing one another late in the season hunt each others stuff. it should be a rule everyone agrees on. not only that but we would also let each other now what was coming through on a regular basis and ask that you didnt shoot certain deer if we hadnt already bagged our trophy.

I think this is the best policy. Private blind ownership leads to territoriality. Guys won't share scout cam pics. Guys become possessive over individual bucks ("That's my deer; I've been watching him all season."). Guys get jealous over someone else's stand that's in a better spot than their's. Guys lie about what animals they're seeing. Guys put locks on their blinds. Guys even maintain cameras to catch tresspassing hunters rather than deer. And there'll be hell to pay if Joe finds Charlie in "his" blind.

It gets boring sitting in the same blind, with the same view. I like the idea of the chalk board really well. In this day of internet and cellphones, you can just text your buddies on Thurs night, "Hey, I'm heading out this weekend. Saturday morning, I'm gonna be in the Rocky Draw Blind." Then you all agree to switch around, just for variety's sake.

My favorite was on our old panhandle lease. Everyone was allowed 2 stands, a primary and a secondary. Primary was by permission only. Anyone could hunt anyone elses secondary as long as the one hunting maintained their own secondary stand that was kept up and fed all year also.