Can we overstate the importance of acres / hunter ratio?

[transfixer]

If you think that's the case you should try buying or maintaining a tract.

I wish we had thought of doing that many years ago, we've hunted the same property for 40 yrs, leasing it for 38 of those years, through multiple land owners, some of the original members have passed on, but myself and two others remain and still hunt, if we had went together and bought some property way back when it would be paid for and then some now, we just never thought about it because originally leasing it was cheap, we started out paying $1.25 an acre,, my how times have changed.

 

[elfiii]

If you think that's the case you should try buying or maintaining a tract.

Club dues are dirt cheap in comparison. Even with an agricultural use assessment break my property taxes are significantly more than what club dues would be.

 

[godogs57]

I've repeated it before, but can't resist posting it again. One of my farmers rented a 27 acre corner of his property to Florida boys years ago...there were NINE of them in the hunting "club". Good Lord!

 

[Jim Boyd]

BeerThirty - I fear you are missing the point - and the initial question.

Greedy has nothing to do with it - wanting a quality experience has EVERYTHING to do with it.

My house is in the edge of the woods but I only own 2 acres.

Place is covered in deer and I could kill a deer in my back yard easily (not that my wife would let me).

We have a 14 acre swamp tract down at my SC lease and we could very easily kill several deer off of it.

With that said, neither of these are optimum.

I doubt seriously that any serious hunters would plan their year around a 14 acre tract.

You can have 50 acres per hunter - and most typical hunters want at least three deer per year. At that rate, you would harvest 38+ deer per square mile.

Rare is the tract that can stand that type of harvest and remain interesting.

So - back to the original question..... what is optimum?

 

[transfixer]

I've repeated it before, but can't resist posting it again. One of my farmers rented a 27 acre corner of his property to Florida boys years ago...there were NINE of them in the hunting "club". Good Lord!

the farmer probably didn't care if the deer got wiped out, because it meant they wouldn't be eating his crops ,,, but I sure wouldn't want to hunt with that many guys stomping all over 27 acres,, geez !

 

[PappyHoel]

Not my stance but what I have seen in 30+ years of hunting Ga, always on a Timber lease/club.

Acreage has nothing to do with hunters on a club lease. The lease manager always keeps dues in the $500-$600 range. The standard opinion is that hunters won't pay over a certain amount to deer hunt unless it's a 5 star campground.

Short answer is lease prices have gone up but lease managers are managing people dues and not deer. Every single club I've been in has been this way.

These same members and mangers will shoot out the area, move to a different area, then rinse and repeat.

IMO I think it should be at a minimum 50 acres per hunter, ideally 100.

 

[SlipperyHill Mo]

Note to Hunters- "The sky is not falling" hunting land is not going to disappear or become unaffordable in the near future.

To address the question of optimum acreage per hunter? Depends. The most important thing is pressure on whatever acreage you have. How many hunters really hunt? Some 12 member clubs average 2-3 hunters per weekend, some 8-9 per weekend. The optimum acreage per hunter would be different for both clubs. 100 acres is a good point but more[/B] is definitely "Optimum". Topography and timber mix makes a big difference. A club needs to mange their expectations and set goal around that.

 

[NCHillbilly]

It depends on the land, the hunters, and the deer. A few of the best properties for seeing and killing deer consistently I've ever hunted in my life were two people hunting on 10-20 acres.

Right now, one spot I hunt is three-four of us hunting on about 100 acres, and we see and kill deer every year, including good bucks.

On some of the mountain NF land I hunt with low deer populations, 1000-5000 acres per hunter would be more realistic.

Bottom line: nothing is ideal if you only have one spot to hunt. Sitting in the same stand or small area every day all season doesn't usually work well. I hunt in several counties over two states on public, private, and my own land. I would hate to be restricted to one stand or spot. I would also rather have 10 good acres of my own land to hunt than a 250-acre lease any day.

 

[JSWOOD]

Club dues are dirt cheap in comparison. Even with an agricultural use assessment break my property taxes are significantly more than what club dues would be.

How much $ per acre are your property taxes? I was thinking about buying some land and heard it's usually between $7-$17 per acre depending on several factors.

 

[swamp hunter]

Well Said NCHillbilly.
Sitting on the same 500 acres would be like going to Work to me..
I got long legs and need Running Room.

I got lot's of land on my Club but it's, All Good rarely. Them deer move a bit and what's good right now is a Dead zone in 2 months.
If your stuck in a small place ...and the deer ain't there this month..you might as well go fishing.
I'm not a Sitter , I'm a Hunter...

 

[jmac7469]

257acres per hunter for me right now. And I feel crowded some days

 

[Jim Boyd]

From what I see, with a bunch of varying opinions thrown in, the consensus seems to be that 100 acres per hunter is about the right range.

David Helmly makes it work very well with this ratio +\-.

His group also has trigger control (arrow control, really) down to a science. They have the herd to prove it, too.

With prices ranging (for the most part) from $10 to $20 per acre - the consensus then would also have to be that a quality set up is going to cost each man $1000 to $2000 per year - for dues alone.

Add insurance, improvements, plots, tractor maintenance, etc and it only goes up from there.


Thoughts?

 

[Mexican Squealer]

Price to own/maintain vs price to lease makes even the most expensive leases sound like a deal.

 

[GottaGetOutdoors]

The ideal ratio of acres:member depends on your objectives for the land. If you are managing for significantly improved deer quality and reduced pressure, then 200-300 acres per member is a good target.

 

[cam88]

Count your blessings. The future of hunting as I see it is alot of good folks will be priced out of hunting all together

I believe that hunting clubs will always have the presence in the southern region, but the movement will be shifting due to the low numbers of hunter recruitment. Pricing has always fluctuated through the years there will be people out there willing to pay $$ for a spot.

 

[davidhelmly]

Jim, I am in agreement with most everyone that more is always better because the less pressure a deer has on them the more "normal" things they do. We have a little less than 80 acres per member but we go to extremes to keep the pressure down and we get to see a lot of things that I had never seen until I got this lease, that being said I would love to have twice the acreage we have with the same number of members but it's just not doable on my salary so I'm just happy to have what we do!!

 

[Jim Boyd]

David - you guys have it down to a science.

We all know (and are jealous) about that!!!!




Oh yeah - now you are just showing out with the whole “two tractors” scenario!






.

 

[Silent Assassin]

People hunt differently for different reasons but if you want to help the acreage to hunter ratio and you can't afford to drop members then you need to have an area that is off limits. Off limits means you do not enter that area from July to January period. No trail cam checking, no scouting, no riding 4 bangers. Nothing. Give them a place that they KNOW they are safe. Hunt around it. Most people think they can slip into a mature deer's bedroom and not alert him. They are wrong. It does not matter if you have 1000 acres with 1 member or 20, if you push them then they will be very hard to hunt or just leave that area.

 

[davidhelmly]

David - you guys have it down to a science.

We all know (and are jealous) about that!!!!




Oh yeah - now you are just showing out with the whole “two tractors” scenario!






.

 

[Swamprat]

I have been on leases where it was 50 acres up to over 500 acres per member.

Never had a problem with either. Sometimes the 50 acre per member was better because the pressure made deer move a little bit more where the over 500 acre per member the deer moved less due to less pressure.

Kinda crazy but sometimes less is better.