I have been managing a South Texas high fence place for my wife’s family for 15 years. 370 acres of some great trophies. Way more big bucks have died of old age than have been put on the wall but now the owner (F.I.L.) is being sent to long term care. I may be tasked with selling hunts to pay for his expenses. There are several bucks over 160” up to probably and past 180”. My question is how to go about charging and selling them. Weekend hunts? Season lease to a group? It’s all protein fed (double down) and well cared for. I’ve never had the need to buy a hunt so I’m not too familiar with the going rates. there are trophies of a hunters lifetime on this property. All native Texas deer BTW. Any constructive advise would be greatly appreciated.

First: Photograph the buck. Different angles, numerous pics.

I’m pulling SD cards next weekend. Should be fun.

The easiest thing to do would be to do an annual lease to a group rather than day hunt it. First, if you day hunt it you will have to be available for every new person/group that comes in to explain the rules, boundaries, etc. Also, by day leasing it you have a greater chance of depleting the trophy buck numbers. Leasing to a group you can set the annual bag limits of trophys, culls, does, etc. You can also pass on the burden/cost of the feeding program to the group by having them required to provide. Just a thought.

Russ79 makes good points

Annual lease to one group. Just my 2 cents. Maybe won’t make as much, but a lot less time-consuming.

X2

There were a few guys I knew in Freer that had a nice high fenced ranch and fed year round. The owner would then lease out to a Corp or group lease for $120K but he guaranteed X number of trophies, X number of does. Might give an idea of what to do. Hope it works out for ya.

if you have actual 160-180 bucks, no way in hell would I day hunt it.

do you want control of what's shot, or is it just going to be a free for all? Do you expect people to shoot only the "right" deer? Without yourself or another guide in the blind with the hunter, there's about 99% chance people will shoot the wrong deer.

If you have facilities, I'd sell package hunts. 160-180 deer (if native and not ear tagged) are worth minimum 5K, up to 7K or so.. depending on how many deer you have to sell, it's not hard to surpass where you'd be by leasing the place out.

It's going to take more time on your part to market the hunts, and stay with hunters, but ultimately, you'll get more $$ per deer by package hunting.

If you don';t have the time, or don't want to dedicate the time, then a season lease with proper quotas would be my second choice.

with only 370 acres, how many deer are you thinking about being harvested? trophy, cull, does??? any exotics?

That's a pretty small place but might be packed with game. and how much total revenue are you needing to provide the long term care for the FIL?

My MIL is in long term care and it's not cheap even with medicare/medicad. You also might need to look into arrangements to get the ranch signed over to a different person to prevent that being captured via a lien depending on cash flow. There are correct terminology that just escapes me at the moment for this.

edit: oh yeah, there are hunting guide companies that could sell the hunts for you, you get a flat fee for each animal and they put their fee on top. They handled the people, guiding, insurance, liability, etc ... just another thought