The family that lives in the area will know the place waaay better than a slicker driving in on the weekends will. I dont blame them for not wanting to compete.

But that isn’t an answer to the question.

I know my place extensively, still couldn’t tell you where a deer will be at any time.

I get it. People wanna pay a very small amount to have exclusive rights to an asset that is usually worth a couple hundred grand or couple million. That’s why they are hard to find. That’s why there is literally thousands of people looking for a lease.

Nobody buys a million dollar ranch & says “let’s let some douschebags from the city come out & act like they own it for 1/3 of what 1 acre costs”.

Max - I understand your point, but you make me look like a regular "people person". And I thank you for that.

Max, your examples are so far out there at times that they actually take away from your message. Consider changing your name to Maximus Extremeus. You must have come across some real dandies in your experiences.

I haven’t even mentioned several other leasing experiences......I’ve grown up knowing lots of landowners & hear their stories as well.

That being said, I have a good group of hunters now. The key is they have reasonable expectations on deer harvest & use of land use.

Potential hunters who think they have exclusive use, or start telling me what I can/can’t do on my own place, don’t make it past the interview stage.

"That being said, I have a good group of hunters now." Just glad you have some positive experiences. I almost want to take you hunting with me.

Its kinda weird, when I first started reading some of Max stuff a year or two ago I really thought he was funny and thought I would like to meet him. For a while now he has come across completely different and seems very harsh and I would be afraid to be in the same cafe as him.
Hud, is just the opposite, when I first started reading his stuff I thought he was very harsh and actually pm'd him about it. Since then I see him in a whole new light and think hes hilarious and cant wait to take him to lunch some day at Gristmill.
If those two ever get together I just want a report on which one ive misread, or not.

As a matter of fact, I can definitely say Max is a straight up dude and straight shooter. I met Max two seasons ago for lunch and an invited showing of his 3000 acres in Young county. Very nice setup I can vouch for. Max is a no nonsense dude and I enjoyed conversation with him then and some since. He came across as a guy not interested in playing games or being taken advantage of by his hunters. That said, I found Max to be very respectful and someone I'd be happy to hang out with again. I still owe him a lunch the next time we get together.

Thanks DQ. We should lunch sometime this season for all local hunters.

I guess myself & other landowners I know have had some bad experiences with hunters, so that’s my natural way of seeing things, while some hunters have had bad experiences with landowners, so they see from that perspective. I’m envious of the guys like DQ who can quit leasing & buy their own place to hunt.

A friend of mine tells his hunters “your not buying me out, your buying into what I have” & I agree with that sentiment.

I’m still surprised Max doesn’t get his arse whipped at the feed store every time he comes to town. Obviously he doesn’t run his mouth in Young county like he does on the internet. I wouldn’t hunt on his land if he paid me to.

Come on down & find out

And a cheery day begins on the THF.

If a man has the money to pay several million for a 1000+ acre place I'm not sure why he would even need jack with "hunters" for a few thousand bucks.

Buying property is just like buying a nice house, nice vehicle, etc....it still needs to be paid for, even if it’s just taxes.

I don't lease out hunting any more because of the restrictions it put on me on my own property. Not so much during the season but in other parts of the year. Also got tired of being told how I needed to run or do different the way I did things. So now I figure out how many animals need to be taken and get the hunting done that way. I usually try to get it all done in November. Sometimes with the Mouflon, Axis and Blackbuck it doesn't quite work out like that. Money wise it works out the same but I don't have the year around traffic as with leasing. Around here I don't know of anyone that actually leases out for hunting. What I see is ranchers going through an outfitter and them bringing in hunters to do the harvesting. I also do that sometimes if I need need something hunted and don't know of someone who wants it. Dealing with an hunting outfitter that you can trust makes it easier and takes less time than doing it yourself. I can see in the future that leasing a property for year around access getting to be very difficult.

Apples and Oranges. Cars don't cost millions, and you can't farm or run cows on a house.

FYI- they love me at the feed store in town, but then again, they’re not a buncha butt hurt snowflakes. .

Really, once you get to know me, you won’t like me any better.

We gotta do it Max. I'm your huckleberry.

For those who don't know what, "I'm your huckelberry" means:
In the Old West being a huckleberry meant you were game, up for anything.
It also meant that you were the one to bring trouble to your opponent.

We built trust with our landowner. The first few years you couldnt come or go without stopping in at the house to check with them, they would look in the bed of the pickup and look to see if there was any mud on the tires, no driving off the gravel roads was permitted when wet. Few years down the road you couldnt imagine not stopping to talk to them out of friendship, helped them fix fence, unloaded a trailer load of feed every opening weekend, had a fish fry every opening day for lunch, and eventually they were at my wedding etc. I remember drinking a beer with the 80 year old land lady at 8 in the morning many times because her Dr. said a beer a day was good for her and what better reason to drink one than a good buck. They were good people and were always concerned that we were happy with what we were getting on our end and we felt the same way.

All started with a listing for a deer lease in the SA news paper didnt know each other from Adam and 30 years later still get along with them even though we dont lease from them anymore.

Side note, i have never leased any property from anyone who actually bought it, not that it matters. Our landowner was land rich and cash poor we got along fine.

Spouse's family has lessors on their 3,5000 acres and some family that hunts it. All are required to sign and follow the lease agreement, family included. Only issues are with the guys that want to hunt hogs every night except deer season and they do not hunt deer.
Family gets no special treatment per say, they all must abide by the lease terms and rules.

hahahah
lmao Max!

I'm thinking we would get along really, really good or whoop the hell out of one another. lmao

I'm just sorry to hear that you and so many other ranch owners have had so many bad experiences with lease hunters. That's a true shame indeed and shouldn't happen but to be perfectly honest, I'm not a damn bit surprised in this day and age. I'm old enough to remember when we didn't really have any deer on our home place in far eastern Bexar county and my daddy had little 'house pasture' lease up near Garden Ridge in Comal County. Cost of that lease annually was a couple bottles of Jack Daniels to the old German Rancher and $5/doe (usually 1 or 2 depending how many permits he had that year) and $10/buck.
I remember the day he told my daddy he was sorry that he could no longer lease it to him because he needed a place for his grandchildren to hunt. The old man literally had tears in his eyes. Now that is the kind of relationship there should be between a land owner and a lease hunter who takes care of the owner's place like it is his own and does things right.

Your last statement nails it pretty much.

Most ranches where the land has been in the family many, many generations are cash poor and land rich. Most ranches that have changed owners in the last 20 or so years do so because the new owner has a pretty damn nice bank account and does not need the extra 'pennies' for leasing out for hunting.

And, your relationship with the landowner you describe above is EXACTLY how it should be. If it is not that way, I would not have stayed for more than 1 season myself!
It's pretty damn simply in my eyes and it is about clear rules, following those rules, and RESPECT.