What is the single biggest thing that would send you walking from a prospective and/or current lease. For me, a prospective lease with "no deer sign" is a deal breaker and for an existing place, fellow Jack wagon lessors, followed closely by little to no deer sightings. What say the THF on these???

I always like to start with Landowner and first impressions...no drama with members period.

has to be kid/family friendly, with other kids

No guests allowed

I would like the challenge to make it a real deer lease. I would want to manage the place. Open for ideas from others. I would do it for the fun and no other reason. However, I don't think I would pay a prime price.

A deer lease where you only get your portion to hunt. I will only lease if it’s community stands and feeders that we can all hunt.

Amen Sapper, that is very high with me too, probably #2 actually behind deer sign.

My last lease didn’t have a lot of deer sign, but turned out to be a really solid place. I had about 400 acres that you could literally see across. Didn’t hold deer due to lack of cover but was planted in winter wheat. Setting up feeders brought deer in via travel corridor and the wheat kept them there. If the area is known to have decent populations, I’m not too concerned finding a lot of deer sign on an initial trip.
For me, seeing a bunch of fence line hunters or just a lot of stands on neighboring properties in close proximity would be a big turn off.
Over the years, I’ve come to the realization that a new lease usually means you’re taking on someone else’s problem, so I go with an open mind. Can I rebuild, is there potential?

I’m a land owner who doesn’t lease out his land. I don’t live there but have a mobile home, fishing holes and a shooting range. I have a couple of friends that I’ve let hunt. However, I have had to tell them that their friends and family aren’t welcome. I’ve learned that the hard way. I wound up with 6 people, 3 that I didn’t know, hunting my 133 acres.

My Grandson has 3 to 5 high school friends that come up yearly to drink some beer and do some shooting once a year. . BTW, they are all in their middle 20’s and I’ve known them most of their lives. I have had a bellyful of picking up their brass and beer cans and explained that to him. It still didn’t happen so I put a stop to the get together.

Friends and family welcome can get overdone.

This. Had an opportunity to lease some great country in south Texas but you could only hunt your stand. And you were only allowed to have 1 stand.

Hard pass on that, I want to be able to change scenery if I so desire

I like both types of leases: guests and no guests. No guests is good because people are there to hunt. Some guests are fun if you're looking for some socialization along w the hunt. I like both and have both.

The thing that turns me off and aways is drama. I am not 21 in college anymore. I love to hunt and not hangout w people that have a drinking problem. Been there and DONE w that. Be happy to hunt and enjoy it. Stay away if you get away to get plastered. A few beers with friends or a drink by the fire is awesome. Watching you relive your college frat glory days is not my idea of a weekend.

Not sure but I think we are about 270 days to deer season not counting MLD. I cannot wait for another great deer season! Gluck to everyone.

landowner can make it or break it IMO - that is first

second is community blinds - why be on a large lease when all you can hunt is a small section? I would rather just have a smaller lease where I could hunt all of it

With the right people, I can see how community blinds would work. Our lease, we have our own blinds, 1 each and we don't hunt each others blinds. That's not to say that a hunter could not give another permission to hunt his spot. There's 4-5 of us on 16k acres, so the areas that are not claimed are open to all, best of both worlds. We like it that way and it works out well for us, but we are all like minded. We like to work and develop our own areas the way the individual hunter wants to, so it's kind of like each of us having a few thousand acres each.

If you have community blinds, is each hunter required to have the same type of set up? If I paid for a protein feeder, corn feeder, kept them full all year and had a decent stand and it was community, I would expect the same from all other members. Also, how do you decide who hunts the set ups if multiple members are present? Would each have a primary spot if they were present, but if that member wasn't there, his spot would be open?

I`ve been on 3 different leases for one year only on each and left because not many deer at all. Landowner on one screwed us over by dozing through the middle of the best cover on the place 10 days into the season.

One thing I`ve learned over the years of leasing is not to act like the land belongs to you. I have a good lease now (me and son only) with lots of deer that is close to home and a very good price. The people who had it before me used it year-round and brought grandkids and 4 wheelers all the time. Landowner told me that`s why he ran them off. I heard him very clearly and we never take guest or family. Put corn in feeder`s in mid-August and when deer season is over (1st week of January) we are off property till following season. His rules and we go by them.

Yes, that kind of thing will drive a lot of landowners crazy, not all but a good many. Leasing their land didn't mean land residence.

That I have to feed "X" from this month to this month.

Onlysmith, your situation with so much country and so few hunters is extremely unique and would be the envy of most anyone(me for sure.) That allows you to work the stands in many ways and all would likely work. Its too much of a unicorn to try and compare it to 99.999 % of other leases.
Ive hunted several large leases that always had community property/stands/feeders so I can try to answer some of your questions. The way we worked it and likely the way it works best is to have one individual maintain all the feeders and have them all set up the same way. We always paid someone to fill and maintain all feeders. Its always first come first serve on who gets what stand. This may seem like a potential problem but for us it never has been. Even on a large place we were all good people that got along and there was always a lot of good setups to choose from. You would have to forget about the term "my stand", they literally are "treated" as if everyone owns an undivided interest. If a stand/feeder needs repair we would all pitch in. On a large place there is usually turnover and often the leaving persons equipment would be bought out. After awhile of this a lot of guys dont know who owns what.

Convenience of location, foreign exchange students, land owner, quality of game resources and people you want to hunt with are all considered key elements here.

Eight hunters on 5,000 some odd acres. Each hunter has a designated area to put up blinds, feeder pens and then hunt. Wasn’t real sure about it at first but it’s value has been proven to me.

People is the single biggest thing...what I mean by that is owner, ranch manager, lease boss and lease mates.

I've been in both the my stand and the community stand that we each of have a spot that is ours to maintain and setup...we have priority of our spot if we are there. I prefer the my stand versus the community stand because I'm a little different in that I like the control that gives me...having said that with the right group of folks that isn't a big concern. Example, I feed year round and maybe 1 other guy out of 15 does that but we are a community setup with no rules on feeding. I typically have certain deer I want to survive a year or two longer than some of my lease mates...I hunt with 12 of the some of best guys in the world and most let me do that...the other 3 keep their distance and I do from them as well. But at the end of the day, no deer is worth the friendship I have with them and it's just deer.

Sucks that solar appears to be busting us up...I hate everything green now The amazing part is how the environmentalist have gotten behind solar when it absolutely destroys the habitat. Different topic for another post I suppose...

Rules not being enforced, or different rules for different members have led to me leaving a lease. Example, 2 bucks on do not shoot list, every body had pics and general location of said bucks. Opening weekend one of the bucks was shot, not accidentally. Rule was deer was to be confiscated and member kicked off of lease. Neither rule was enforced. Member was allowed to keep hunting rest of season. Members excuse was “ I just couldn’t help myself”.

yeah either that guy would be gone or I would be gone -

He and his buddy didn’t come back the next season. I stuck it out 2 more seasons, it didn’t get much better.

As lease manager, he should've upheld the penalties. He should've filled out a transfer ticket of wild game and sent the hunter on his way off the lease without the deer with a time he could remove all his belongings after the season! If he comes back he could be charged by the land owner with trespassing. If I were lease manager he would not get the deer.

Big problem here with whoever in charge landowner/lease boss and group. Should have said thanks for your lease payment, here's wildlife transfer/transport document from you to me, you can not return until after season and have until x date to get your personal stuff with advance notice by agreement on when you are coming back. Can we still be friends though?

Most of mine have already been listed here: kid friendly with other kids, community stands, rules and enforcement (thats a tough one but doable), land owner/rancher, etc.

For me, the number one issue will be the land owner/rancher and a very close second will be the group I am hunting with. With the right group and a good owner, almost all the other stuff works itself out.