Take it from me, someday you'll wish that Dad was there with you. Just sayin.

That's called good buck karma from letting em grow up.

Oh I know, time is certainly marching on and I only have one niece that appears to 'kind of' want to hunt so I'll be going solo at some point. I can't really say anything to him as he is the landowner and other than livestock work, fence building, ammo/supplies purchases (I've bought him a new 40" LED TV, a #12 LEM Grinder, an Excalibur Matrix 380 Xbow and I keep him in beer and alcohol) I don't pay to hunt. For the most part he buys into the plan and we have tons of deer anyway. I just want to see what these deer can grow into and it's frustrating when the best 3.5 is taken out. I'd be thrilled if he killed the same deer at 5.5.

^This^

It was only a three year mega-bump. I thought this sounded familiar.

I don't see how community stands could ever work, unless there is an agreed upon set up & feeding schedule. You know some [censored] (or [censored]) will do the MINIMUM (shitty plywood stand, shitty feeder, barley throw any feed, etc) & then hunt other stands. Some guys WANT to work, have nice stands & feed a lot, only to have somebody else hunt their stand.

I build all the stands and the other members give me their share in the expenses, the other members don't have any skills to build anything so its better the stands are built by me. However, its a rare occurrance for the other members to do any other work that requires no skill. The head of the lease will work but others not so much, its funny how no one has time to work on the lease but always make it hunting.

Has worked like a charm on our lease for 8 years now. All stands and feeders are in place. We buy feed and ranch owner does labor to fill them. we hunt 9000 acres and any hunter can hunt any stand. We have a rule that nobody can be within 800 yards of another hunter. Zero competition between hunters - first come first serve - put your marker on the board where you are going and you can hunt there until you pull your marker. We have no issues between hunters.

Anybody that thinks deer do not roam from feeder to feeder on a ranch are kidding themselves. Open hunting locations are the way to go. No drama for your mama..

We used to have a 'kinda-sorta community lease' set up. We all had our own two spots, with our stands and feeders that we took care of that we had first dibs on if we wanted to hunt there. That being said - if you were not there your stand was open game to anyone. And if you are there we all talked and figured out where every wanted to go. I like doing it this way - I think it's dumb to pay thousands of dollars for a couple thousand acer ranch when you only get you hunt "your area"... I also get bored looking at the exact same scenery every single hunt for the whole season. Now I'm done leasing and will be buying some land with my brother in the hopefully near future and it will be ran the exact same way!

We used to have a shared lease. I kept receipts from all camp materials, corn, electricity, and stand supplies then split the cost equally. Before each hunt we would draw cards for stand choice, high card has first pick and so on. It gave equal opportunity to each hunter for the better hunting areas. The last hunters that I brought on the lease wanted there own hunting area and it works fine as well.

Other hunters who go down almost every weekend in the offseason to do whatever and night hunt while there. This will kill the deer activity on a smaller property.

This is how ours is. You have to have a blind to hunt a blind. You have to have a working feeder to hunt someone else's. Other than that, just like you described. I can't imagine being confined to a small portion of a large ranch. Also, we hunt the "open country". I am guessing on these ranches that you can't hunt other areas, you also can't hunt in between stands or near stands or in someone else's "area". And what about safari style hunting? Spot and stalk? Wheat fields? I don't know, just seems like it would cause a lot of issues unless all the other things were cut out.

This approach would most likely work well too - I just know from my experience over 50 plus years that when guys start having "their" area and stand then competition sets in and everyone gets protective. Next thing is that locks start showing up on stands which sends a clear message - "I don't trust any of you so stay out of my stand and area" - if I have to hunt in that atmosphere then I don't want any part of it.

Going on a place with church friends this fall. All blinds will be community blinds. This is the way I grew up. I think it will be fine.

I was on a place south of Ozona a few years ago. An older friend at church asked me to be on it. He'd handled collecting money from 20+ guys, spread all over the place, for over 20 years. 'Don't know how he stood it. All walks of life, some with crappy attitudes. The ranch burned in those big fires and he has since passed on. Anyway, I bought an existing blind and feeder from a guy that was leaving. I fed it, got it all set. Met some guys there I didn't know the night before opening morning and they asked where I was hunting. When I told them, you could tell they got a worried look on their face and from across camp I could hear their "confab" making plans. Sure enough, they had to have someone go to the stand that was just before mine on the road out there. Opening morning dawns beautiful. I sit quietly, deer come out, nice 10 comes out. I think to myself "dam nice deer, but it's the first morning of my first time on the place". You know the rest 45 minutes later "boom". Back at camp they're tickled, as they should be; yep, same deer. It was completely within their rights.

Don't like drama.

We've had a couple of guys get on over the years that wanted to change it to an "areas" lease... They either only lasted a year or changed their ways. It's no fun like that.

How come the guys that want to change something always wait until everyone has had a couple of pops and is standing around staring at the fire? I don't like my mellowness being interrupted by an "expert".

I didn't try to change it. I just found another lease. I do miss about three or four of the other guys from that place. dgilbert from here left the same time I did for the same reasons. It just is what it is. If it is the rule of the place you can either live with it or find another place.
Turned out to be a good move for me. It has real trees to put stands in, a lot higher deer density and year round water for the deer as well as a great camp with water, sewer, electric and a walk in cooler.
And there are some good guys on this place as well so I think it was a good move.

BTW if you ever get to spend time with or hunt with dgilbert you'll find he is a great guy to share camp with.

Man you had me wondering if knew you for a second, then I realized what was going on! I gotcha now!

I will say that I wouldn't hesitate to hunt with those guys or that piece of property again. Just this new place fits my style of hunting better. Oh, it's bow only during deer season and I like that too.

Community stands would work fine if everyone honored the rules of engagement established when they came on the lease. In my case everyone agreed and shook hands when we brought on new hunters. They all agreed to hunt their areas, feed protein to grow the deer, etc.

They don't put in near the work to cut shooting lanes, feed consistently year round, etc. Now they all want to hunt in my area and even have placed blinds so close to mine that they are creating a dangerous situation especially because they are sneaking around and I don't even know they are 200 yards away max on a 1200 acre place. If you don't pass on the young bucks you will never have older bucks! That simple.

I forgot to mention our place is divided up into 8 "areas" and two of 8 areas are community blinds, although only 2 of 6 hunters have put blinds into those areas?

Your second paragraph sums up what my past experience has been on designating "areas" - human nature for others to want what you have especially if it is good.

Goats, Sheep, and Dogs!!!

well at least you cant understand what they are saying...