OK, folks, there are seven timber company tracts up for bid to lease for hunting- Jasper, Newton, Orange, and Sabine counties. Go to www.frcleasing.com. Will probably be more show up as spring approaches.

So leases are basically auctioned off to the highest bidder now? Just when I thought I couldn’t hear anything more depressing about a lease these days you have to go and prove me wrong.

How else should a timber company go about it?

Technically it is not an auction. You submit a bid and wait to see if your bid was accepted. You don't see what others bid to see if you need to bid higher if you want the tract. Make a concerted effort to determine what the tract is worth to you to get and submit a bid. If your bid wins great- if it doesn't then it went for more than you were willing to pay anyway.

How often does one loose a lease the next year after you put a lot of work into it? I am assuming that these are 12 months leases.

I wonder the same thing Mr. T. There are some leases that have been going strong for decades. I think once there is a relationship with a lessor, whatever that definition is, they come off the market for bidding. <- This is not 'fact' just what I think.

Yes they are annual leases but they have gone back to a three year contract. In other words, if you get a tract your contract will show pricing for a three year period. And my history with having leases from then for the last 15 years or so is that unless you screw up- cut down pine trees, break the game laws to the point that game wardens are involved (not that breaking game laws are OK at all) and they hear of it...just basically screw up you can have the lease for as long as you want as long as you follow the rules and pay on time. I have three of them and have had no issues with worrying about whether I would lose them. You do have to put up with timber growing/harvesting work but it is generally minimally disrupting.

Oh, and at the end of that three year contract you generally get another three year contract- I didn't mean that it ends after three years. I like it because I can let my members know what the will be paying each year for that contract period. That really helps with budgeting every year for folks.

Is that a serious question? How does everyone else lease their land? X number of dollars per acre.


Those saying it’s not an auction are being serious? You turn in your bid hoping to beat the other bids and that’s not an auction? That’s 100% a silent auction

IF we are going to get caught up in semantics then just move on. I posted this as a service for anyone that has no problem with hunting east Texas and doesn't want to pay $25/acre and two years later lose the lease because someone gave the landowner more money. Every silent auction I was ever a part of had a sheet where you wrote down your bids, could see all the bids, and put in another bid if you wanted it real bad. In this instance, they start with a minimum dollar per acre bid. It is up to you to determine how much you are willing to pay and figure what that would be in dollars/acre and put your bid in. The first tract I ever bid on was less than a mile from my house which would allow me more hunting opportunities and that is worth a lot to me so I bid probably more than it would have taken to actually get it but I bid what it was worth to me to get. That is why I always say that you and your buddies figure out what you are willing to pay to hunt it, total up your dollars, divide by number of acres, and that is your bid. If you get it great but if you don't then you shouldn't feel too bad because it would have taken more to get it than you wanted to pay.