Buzz, were you invited back so often cause you lost at poker??????

I went to bed while they all stayed up late. I would have definitely lost at poker. I can't even beat the old phuks in my neighborhood games.

What Stompy says! Period!!! Work way to hard to grow big deer!

This reminds me...you used to see basic hunting rules posted on the walls of hunting cabins; the basic stuff - Don't point a gun at anything you don't want to shoot, Make sure of your target and what's behind it, etc. You saw it printed on just about every box of anything hunting related you bought. I think we've regressed.

I remember walking into a cabin when I was 17. (Dat would be 'round 1977.) It was a lease we were just starting, 4 miles north of Sisterdale. There were wooden signs, with stenciled, painted rules, black letters on a white background, screwed to the studs. Even then I thought to myself "Dam, how drunk were these previous guys?"

I just got off a lease that when I joined had a half page of rules we had to sign when getting on the lease. The family got involved the next year and the lease agreement ballooned into 8 pages of BS. I found another lease because I could not afford the lease, plus a lawyer to interpret the lease agreement.

Outside of the insane rules that started this thread, I do see it from both sides. People are very litigious these days, and I would be very leery as a land owner of that. Some would say that is what insurance is for. On the hunters end, there's definitely a point where it is too much for a simple hunting lease especially when it did not start that way. Trick is to get an attorney on the lease with you like us ha

Our land owner gave me one "rule" and that was the maximum # of hunters. If he has to give me a piece of paper that tells me to leave gates the way they are found, don't leave trash around, no illegal activity, etc.............he has leased to the wrong person. That's the same reason I only have two rules for the lease members.

Have the same rule #1 as onlysmith&weson. limited members which are all related. Thus far no need for rule list from landowner or within our small group. We treat the property with respect which has respect from landowner. Landowner lives on property, knows when we are there but often does not come to see us but we always stop and talk to him if we see him around. Relationships matter!

My thought is this - if you are wanting to hunt on a well managed ranch that can grow huge deer then that does not happen by accident. Our rules are written and signed each year by each member but they are totally common sense rules. Also the more hunters you have the more important to have guidelines. Part of those rules are basic things the LO requires in our lease agreement and the last person you want to piss off is your LO. So at any rate our rules are not crazy but are necessary.

I don’t have any written rules. The guys that hunt have been hunting there for many years. They know me and to never piss off grandma(my wife).

I joined a lease as a single when I was a senior in HS. It was from an ad in the FW Star Telegram. San Saba County, great property, but the first time I went to hunt I went on a Monday of opening week. I thought I would be avoiding the crowd 10 hunters on 3300 acres. When I got to the cabin a guy came stumbling out of the cabin and face planted when he tried to use the stairs. Drunk as a skunk at 9AM with a gun in his hand and completely chit faced. I did not return to deer hunt and did not renew the next year. Rules would not have mattered. It was a good varmint lease and priced right at $100 for the annual lease. This was 1969.

I've seen that. Where the lease gets longer every year. It's because an unethical hunter does something the manager doesn't like. I want to think hunters are trying to do the right thing and be considerate of fellow lease mates, 90 percent do. Then unfortunately, there's the 10 percent that are mentally or emotionally challenged.