I had to " fire" an entire bunch off a place after the first season. I could fill many pages with stories of their exploits. Basically I just told them the organization was moving in a different direction and they did not possess the skill sets necessary to be members. They pretty much ruined the season for me and the others that year.

" sometimes you just gotta cut a man loose"

I got booted once, lease manager was a tool and didn't enforce the rules equally. If you were in his inner circle, rules didn't exist, but god help you if you weren't and had an infraction. I called him out after he fined my father for shooting a 7 pt with a missing brow tine (8 points or better). But his best buddy, shot a 4 pointer and nothing was said other than "Jerry you know better". I mentioned it at the next lease meeting, 2 weeks later I got my check back in the mail with a note I wasn't welcome anymore. I had the last laugh though, with my father and I gone, several other members left. So they couldn't afford the lease and they lost it.

Have only been on two leases. One in 1987 in Cass county and that was run by Texarkana brothers who did not believe in any rules or laws. I left the next year and hunted on a lease in West Texas it was nice everyone used common sense and had a lot of fun, we lost the lease. Ever since then I have been very lucky to hunt on dear friends property and enjoy it. Good neighbors and friends

years ago I asked a buddy about leasing on his property.. he told me he didn't lease to friends because once people have been on a while they start to think it is their place and can do whatever they want. he ends up having to run them off.

I have seen that where I hunt.
There are a few that definitely think they own the place and need to go..

I had to ask a good friend to get off last year. He was constantly stirring up drama, pissed off about one thing or another, and constantly chewing my ear off complaining about the other members. It was the right move.

But, he's been the only one in 8 years.

I had to "not renew" a guys place on my lease at the beginning of the lease year (1 May) because he got ticketed by the GW during last years dove season (causing extra scrutiny) and left shotgun shells strewn across the property (cattle ranch). Both of those things pizzed the landowner off. When he promised to come pick up the shells and never showed, I went out and cleaned up his mess then made the decision to let him go, I didn't like doing it but it needed doing. Landowner was happy again. There's three of us now on 480 ac and if anyone else leaves for any reason I'm not going through the hassle of filling the slots. Wife and I go there to get away and enjoy ourselves and herding men is just not worth it.

Lost a good lease over a couple friends who didn’t want to follow LO rules. Guests weren’t allowed during deer season unless you were paying members immediate family. LO made exception once for a buddies nephew since he wasn’t married and it was the kids first deer. Anyhow back to original story one of them had his truck totaled so he had a buddy driving him out to the lease and sitting with him in the blind during deer season. Other friend brought his brothers and their families out for a weekend and they went out hog hunting during deer season. I told him I was gonna kick them off, but he was fearful of a lawsuit if he kicked them off. He’s an older gentleman who ranches and didn’t want any drama. LO let us finish the season, he asked me for input on new rules to prevent what happened previously so I gave him a revised set of rules including the scenarios we experienced. After it was all said and done he told me he didn’t want to have to change his rules so he kicked us all off. Still friends with them, just sucks that I don’t get to hunt their ranch anymore.

After that I joined another lease with a buddies dad it was a cool ranch with cabins, access to Nueces River some exotics. Initially agreed that I would work in exchange for hunting rights. After a few weeks he decided he wanted to charge a small fee for hunting so I agreed seeing as how the amount was still more than fair. Well once we got started hunting I saw how him and his buddy hunted. They would finish their morning hunt by 0800, no biggie; except they would drive around the ranch hunting safari style driving through my set up. I swear just about the time something finally came out to shoot here they came. After that happened a couple times I started planning my hunts on days they weren’t there. That worked for about 2 weeks then he they came back with another change to the price structure and let me know they had also allowed 2 more hunters on the ranch. After that I decided it was time to leave, so as the rut was coming up I was loading my stuff and heading out.

Lease hunting is tough, especially when you can’t control what others do.

I was in the unfortunate position of being the “lease boss” it sucks. The hardest part is finding people that have your same philosophy on hunting, and dealing with peoples money. I was fortunate to have a very good land owner.


I got so tired of dealing with it I “pink slipped” myself. I sold everything I had on the place and have moved on.
I can now just go out and hunt in peace.

Some examples of crap the lease boss has to deal with are:

(Money, blind location, deer age, what is a cull, is he a cull, to many doe, everyone else opinions on EVERYTHING, shooting and leaving everything that moves, to many guests, to much movement during hunting season, to many pigs, the road is to rough, getting stuck in the mud and calling the land owner, tearing up the lease roads by driving in the mud, contacting land owner behind your back, leaving trash out, to many cows, coyote hunting in the afternoon during deer season, to many coyotes,getting to close to someone’s feeder/area, hunting in someone’s blind, to many people but you don’t want to pay more to compensate, not seeing any deer, sighting in your rifle opening weekend, paying members kids, the electric bill, camper parking spots, etc,etc, on and on.....

The absolute worst people to deal with are “ lease jockies”, want to be professional hunters/want to be guides. They are poisonous to a lease.... Most of these guys are about themselves and killing a so called “giant”, no matter how they get it done, because they are great.


Which of these are pink slip worthy? Depending on the “lease boss” all of them. Which goes back to my original statement, the hardest part is finding people with your philosophy, or close to it. There has to be some give and take so that everyone is happy. I can almost guarantee you the “lease boss” is tired and just wants to hunt in peace, the last thing he is looking forward to is finding someone else to fill your spot, because it’s not easy!

<----------- Quickly makes the sign of the cross.

That is so true.

No surprise how the best lease members are just the opposite. They enjoy the opportunity to help other lease members get a nice deer or fill an ice chest. And while they often have a wealth of knowledge to share, they only do so when someone asks them for help and guidance. When someone needs help finding a deer, they don’t hesitate to leave their stand no matter if it’s peak time to see a buck because the know it gets much harder to find a deer once it’s dark. For them, it’s not about deer but the relationships they grow and value greatly with other lease members. They are true members of the pack rather than a lone wolf.

As a LO I never really pink slipped anyone but dealing with some hunters is a pure headache. One small tract of land I leased out was about 60 acres. I leased it out as a one gun lease. The guy I leased it to agreed and said it would be just him but wanted to know if he could bring his wife out to camp with him and on occasion his non hunting son. That sounded OK and I agreed. Well, first day of deer season the hunters on the lease next door called and said there were six hunters there. I was pizzed but was tied up elsewhere and could not really do anything that day. A few days later this hunter called gripping about my cows getting in his feeder pen. We had a talk and agreed he would need to look elsewhere next year for his hunting. Of course he left the place trashed....I was just glad he was gone.

Another time one of my hunters shot the neighbors horse in the butt. It was not a fatal wound (just a grazing wound) and the a vet got the horse fixed up. Thank goodness the hunter and the neighbor worked things out without me.

I no longer lease out my hunting but I did let some Marines go hog hunting on one of my places and they crossed the fence on to a neighbors place. The neighbor called in the GW. With the hunters being Marines the GW sort of worked things out with the neighbor and nobody got into real trouble.

Dealing with some hunters can be a real headache.....then there are some hunters you really enjoy having as hunters and knowing as people.

“Some people bring joy wherever they go, others bring joy whenever they go”

I don't lease but have Hunters here. If I have trouble with one first they are not coming back. Second if they have not taken an animal they are escorted to the gate and it is locked behind them.Third if I have any verbal or other type of trouble the local LEO comes out and they are escorted off the property. So far I have only had to go through the first and second steps. Most hunters are very respectful of the property, the animals and myself. Most times you can tell how a hunter is by emails and talking to them.

I hate to say it but do think the advent of hunting shows, hunting magazines and social media have "blown up" the occurrences of "those Guys". "Those Guys" being the ones that get all "juiced up" about shooting the next B&C "Hanson Buck" off every piece of dirt in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The hype of these media outlets has fostered the idea that every piece of dirt no matter how big or small is capable of producing B&C's. I've been hunting since the 1970s and do not recall such a frenzy around that until around the early to mid 1990s..IME, with that ushered in a "new breed" of hunter for many, not all of unrealistic expectations and demands from both lessors and lessees. Again, I am not trying to paint all, just a good many. For me, I try to maintain a very "calibrated" and "realistic" perspective on my hunting expectations and really try to pass that onto other hunters politely. Life is too short in my mind to approach it much differently.

I will say that the THF very much promotes this similar approach; I really support a great number of posts/quotes on here which are advocating and supportive of hunters being content on harvesting "120s-140s" bucks if they "like them" as opposed to always needing to hunt for that 160-200+ Booner. For most, that simply is not realistic nor attainable. I do not knock those for which it is either. Everyone has their respective budgets and/or approaches and I would never promulgate which ones are better or worst.

One the land owner gae the pink slip to, they guy was hunting in the very SE corner of a almost 1000 acre lease and corned the road across the fence and was sitting next to the corner post when the neighboring land owner caught him. Some people do things I just do not nderstand

Nobody wants to deal with drama on a lease because that is where we go to try and get away from it.
It's usually those who break the rules little by little and find that they get away with it, that soon everyone just has had enough.
When that happens the guy that broke the rules blames everyone else, and feelings get hurt or relationships suffer.
It's always been best to have everyone on the lease gather at one time and sit down and explain the rules before the season and get everyone to agree them in writing.
Each case may be different, but have that understanding ahead of time, and have one lease manager that makes the final decision.

Before I got on the lease the landowners kicked a family off. Stupid things like get the AR out and destroy a post because you do not want to get off the ATV and open a gate. Once they kicked the family off my brother became lease manager so it was good for me. Last one was a dude that pissed off one of the landowners on day one. He made a cocky comment trying to be funny when he first met them. Landowner said "not sure where you are from but you are not s*%$ around here". Problem was the dude did not fully realize that his welcome card just got burned. Fortunately about 2 years later he decided not to pay on time. Brother gave him the axe. Made the landowners happy.

We had two guys kicked off.
One by the landowner. A guys son decided it would fun to shoot up some trees, and some metal silhouettes. Then post pictures on Facebook, then deny it.
One by the lease boss. A guy was an obnoxious drunk and really took away from the family atmosphere that we wanted. He was given a few warnings, and then given the boot.

I am probably one of those unrealistic people that hope a 5.5 to 7.5 year old 155 + class will show up one of these years if I keep passing on younger 130-140.
I enjoy watching them young guns and would rather shoot a doe or a spike or a cull buck if I need the meat, which this year I do. It is kind of like playing the lottery chances are slim on a small tract but if you do not gamble you will never have a chance

Still not knocking you Stubs, I too have passed tens of 120s-140s over the years in hopes of nailing a 160+ but don't allow it to be "all consuming" and know you do not either&#128526;

Lots of friendships lose over deer leases I look back and just wonder how true the friendship was to start with

I was evicted from my lease of 5 years, last year. Took 1 mature buck in my time there, always seen lot's of deer, ALWAYS left the property better than I found it by removing and picking up trash out of their crop fields, Never drove on property, and did everything in my power to keep everyone happy.
2 years ago I went to check my equipment before season opened and to my surprise ALL my stuff was gone! Box blind, feeders, and cameras! Apparently the ranch hands decided that I didn't need to be there and decided "give" it to his buddy! Later that season "w/o wardens help" I found my equipment set up a few miles away on a diff property. Long story short, I got my stuff back and the Warden found these guys were up to no good and were harvesting way more deer than they should and doing it at night. So naturally, it's my fault and they somehow convinced the LO that I was causing trouble and no longer was welcome there. I reverted back to hunting my tiny 11 acres up the road and these POS people are cutting the wires on my feeder and harassing me. I'm actually worried about taking my 7 year old son with me. It's a crappy situation and I'm 100% ready to find somewhere else to spend my time.
Rant over

No deer are worth putting your son in that situation if these low life's are trespassing and destroying your property. Something needs to be done and you need some backup when it goes down

When I was in high school and college dad and I were on an awesome lease with some guys from my hometown. Made some great friends and learned the ropes of being an outdoorsman. The lease boss was politically connected and brought in our mayor and one of his cronies. The next season the mayor became ramrod and cleared everyone off except for the elites. He traded our votes and hunting for campaign 'favors' and folks that would benefit him more than me and dad. The mayor lost the election, a few seasons later the ranch was sold and now it is leased to an outfitter, and Dad bought his own piece of dirt.

I suppose I am point man for a lease now. It took three seasons to get the group we have now. There were 5 of us it is a great group and communication is the key to keeping everyone on the same page. We had a 20%+ hike in lease fees this year, and everyone weathered the storm and luckily we had enough room to add one more hunter and not increase the lease rate. It will be a sad day when it is time for one of our group members move on to another spot.