It was another thread that got me to thinking how Lease Managers now have technology available that allows them to communicate more quickly and easily with lease members. And the same is true for communicating with landowners.

Just wondering if anyone has taken technology to the point of using an e-newsletter to stay in touch with lease members throughout the year. Or at a minimum, using text or email address lists or both.

our lease manager sends out emails with lease renewal, and also does group text from time to time. all lease members (for the most part) have each others phone numbers for texting, mostly during the season

nope only snail mail and land lines

Anyone using technology for harvest reporting, including a mandate to report their harvests/kills within a timely manner?

I always send a photo within 24 hours of what animals I take on my landowner's place and anything else I consider newsworthy.

Just my opinion, but keeping a lease is no different than keeping a customer in the commercial world. It's the ongoing thought of what they will lose by doing business with someone else that keeps them wanting to do business with you.

Just got a email today reminding us we have to pay up in 5 weeks.

I know it's slow during the offseason, but is this really a topic? Of course everybody on the lease and the landowner uses "technology" to communicate. I hunt with guys much older than me (late 60s to early 70s) and the only form of communication they use text. I think the e-newsletter has gone the way of the paper newsletter, it's just much easier to send a group text w/ info and photos.

The technology supports sharing far more than just text messages and photos. I only mentioned these in my OP to set a baseline for discussion.

I sent my landowner a Google Earth image that showed the locations of all my game cameras and stands. I wanted him to know the locations of the stands should he get a wild hair and want to hunt any of them, and the locations of the cameras so his wife would be careful where to "pop a squat" when she visits the property with him. I've also used Google Earth to determine shooting distances since a good portion of the lease is open pasture. Someone pointed me to the On X app that's very useful in identifying landowners for various reasons. Most apps these days, such as those support cell cameras, offer the ability to easily share the information they provide you. And while I've never had a reason to do so, there's the ability to send location points directly to TPWD officers if and when problems pop up. Again, this is something where the Google Earth comes in handy when reporting something after the fact. No need to describe how to get somewhere when a point on a map is worth a thousand words.

Just texts. Keep it simple. LO texts too so very easy and responsive. We do group texts for the guys on the property at the same time.

I go to the deer lease to get away from technology except for emergency. before cell phones, we would hunt full weekends and even weeks without a need to communicate. My wife has been good with that until of recent years she wants me to be checking in and I keep telling her there is not cell service in all areas of lease....

LO or his wife calls me and I text the other 2 members. I also get a yearly email for the lease payment.

Just us. For no reason it just happened that everyone has Tactacam Reveal cell camera's. We each share a link so that
everybody can see every camera.

You obviously hunt with a very close-knit group. I'm sure there are others who would not dream of doing such a thing.

Yes, I am, however Ive been on leases where I did not even tell them I had a camera.

I don't lease, we have family property. But, it isn't a large parcel (60 acres), so we have an ongoing group chat to let each other know who is coming and going, work days, cook outs, etc.

Wise. I learned on my last lease not to "share". It tends to bring out the deer "experts", and, those that figure they're more worthy.

Cellular cameras upload pics to the Internet. The mobile first, MVC style web site I built can retrieve the camera pics from the Internet. My site also includes a REST API. My Garmin Inreach Mini 2 makes use of the tracking feature. My site downloads that data. I also set up email accounts for various purposes. My site displays the email submissions. My phone has an app that saves all texts to email. I didn't build the app and it's a little cumbersome to manage which texts are captured (I obviously don't want all texts such as those with family and friends that I don't hunt with). Anyway, those texts-saved-as-emails are also captured by my site. Since that functionality was kind of thrown together, the code needs rewritten. I also repurposed home security cameras that monitor particular areas to essentially do OCR (optical character recognition) of Morse code based smoke signals. The site also talks to my *reloading site. Lastly, my site integrates with my gohunt.com account (maps, points in various states, application stuff, etc). That catch to all this is that it's just me - I hunt alone. So I use any and all technology I want. Or none. On a serious note, maybe I'll actually build some of this.

* I actually did build a site for reloading.

I set up a drop box with a spreadsheet to start tracking common expenses like seed, fertilizer, protein feed, etc... All of the sudden a couple of people on the place started hating technology.

the last lease I was on was 8K acres and a membership of 45+ folks, with each person allowed to have 2 stands. They use the HuntStand app to manage all the locations, and I thought it was a pretty dang good system. Not necessarily for day to day communications, but an excellent tool to organize and communicate all the geospatial stuff to a larger group.

Yes, it's often the information that hunters pull from multiple online sources that drives their communication with other hunters.

We use text threads for members present to share info while hunting, and we have a group thread for general lease info that goes to every member.


We are 6 hunters, south texas, 1000ac. There are so many animals down there, its crazy how many different and shared animals we can see when all are hunting. We also have a couple kids that hold 2 spots, and I enjoy the sharing of photos and asking what is eligible to shoot. It keeps everyone on the same page. For instance, we share shooter bucks that we see for the most part. I passed on a couple bucks, and gave the info so the kids could shoot an old bruiser if he didn't see any monsters. Last weekend of the year an old wide 9pt was taken by a wide smiled 13yo. Technology is cool for that stuff.

While some seem to despise cell phones at the deer lease, they have allowed hunters to become far more educated and informed than those who spent time in the deer woods just a few decades ago. And this has led to more and bigger deer going home in an ice chest.

how about something actually useful for change…


life360 or apple location services allow your location to be viewed by others. on our lease several of the older members are on life360, this gives realtime info on location if they miss a check in or time line.

when I head to mountains my loved ones and closets friends can see my location via apple services. very few places i have hunted it doesnt work, and for where it doesnt I have an inreach

Absolutely! And also, there are so many animals in south texas, I liken it to "whack - a - mole". And the senderos I"m on allow me to see over 1000yds and I absolutely let other folks know when I see activity. It helps us shoot more hogs when we are watching deer and read that 20 hogs are headed our way.

wow - 45 hunters on 8K acres?? how the heck does somebody manage that many hunters?