It's that time of the year. From now til just after season, people who didn't like their lease this year will be hoping to get a jump on finding a lease for next season.

I also think that there are fewer leases around, as property is being sold, or changing hands thru inheritance, & new owners don't want deer hunters, or want to hunt the new place for themselves.

I'm betting in 10 years it's gonna be extremely difficult to find a lease. All these people moving to Texas will change many things.

WARNING - I know I'm contradicting myself and not taking my own advice, but out of boredom and desperation I plunked down my 30 bucks for 6 months on Texas Lease Connection. I've joined about 3 times now, off and on every 3 years or so. I've found and gone on a couple of places (neat ranches, but pretty run down; still communicate with the ranchers and consider them friends), but each time I join it looks worse. This time bordering on pitiful. I'm hoping it's the time of year, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Don't waste your money.

As someone that has three tracts of land leased and seen hunters come and go it doesn't always mean the place is bad. In this time of instant gratification and getting something without really having to work for it (the environment that the youth of today comes up in) sometimes folks give up too easily. I live in east Texas and don't mind hunting east Texas but it is harder than most places. I have yet to see a deer this year but we have had a really good buck killed on one of my leases and another good one seen. I pay to hunt on two of the three places I have leased (I just manage the third) and pay just over $1000 total. If I were to get on a lease where I am guaranteed to see deer every time I would be hunting less and paying more. One of my leases is less than a mile from my house and the other is seven miles from the house so I get to hunt every weekend and every afternoon after work during bow season. I haven't killed a deer in three years but that was my choice- last year I passed on a really nice 10 pt. during bow season because he was a little young. Being so close to my leases provides me the opportunity to do the other things that I enjoy about the hunting experience- creating food plots, scouting new hunting areas, checking the game cameras, etc. without taking away too much time away from the wife (who doesn't hunt and doesn't really understand why I like to do these other things). I have lease members that might come once during the off season and maybe two or three times during the season and don't understand why they can't kill a deer. It has been my experience that you get out of something what you put into it. I know folks that would rather go without a lease and complain than hunt east Texas and for those I have no sympathy.

back then I can kill a season's tags in one day ... I called that 'harvest' and hang my rifles up

thou speaketh the truth right out of my mouth

I don't understand 'instant gratification' of seeing deer every time one goes to the woods

I quit hunting for over 10 years because it was TOO EASY
I used to hunt Kerrville, Llano, Mason Co
back then I can kill a season's tags in one day ... I called that 'harvest' and hang my rifles up

the last time I hunted and one I called truly hunting was in Mason Co, 1998
no feeders, no blinds, no time to scout, slept 5 days in tents, found crossing trails and just sit and wait

I paid my fees to 'hunt' and enjoy the land,,, and nothing about 'seeing' or 'shooting'
Folks that relate cost of lease to amount of deer seen/shot will be easily discouraged

the 'me, me , me' and 'instant gratification' generation will be in for a surprise,