What do y'all figure the ACTUAL number of acres per hunters in a club is? Many try and shoot for 100-200, but when you take into account wives, kids, and buddies, I'm thinking more like 50 acres per hunter. What do y'all think?

I got in a club one time that was advertised as 1200 acres. It was actually around 1150 I think. There was about 8-900 acres actually hunted and there were 15 people in the club. 3 of em brought their wives all the time to hunt. It was a nightmare to actually try to see deer. Met a lot of good people there though.

This is always the tough part. On most land, less than half of it is actually huntable, thus we wind up pressuring it too much. We used to have 660 acres, of which probably 400 acres was pines too tall to hunt. So we really only had 260 acres to "hunt". We did it with 3 guys and it was still too much pressure in my opinion.

Yep, I think that's more the norm than it is the exception.

It depends a lot on the specific tract. I lease one particular 200 acre tract that is unique, we have 4 green fields on that tract and regularly have different herds of deer in each field. (different bucks too). But I also hunt a 60 acre tract that may as well be 5 acres, no matter where I go I always seem to see the same deer, and its easy to pressure that place too much.

The club I am in probably averages about 375 to 400 acres/hunter. Worst case is probably around 300 acres/hunter on opening weekend of gun season. Much better now than it used to be.

I bet you're paying more than $550!

760 acres to 5 of us and most all of it can be hunted. We may even be adding another 160 acres to it... we all have jobs and other places to hunt so it could turn into a honey hole within a few years

If he is paying less than 3k it is a good deal if they have decent deer heard.

We have 295 acres per hunter in our club.

We have about 200 or a little better per member and very few guest.

The club I am in now consists of about 220 total between private land and some leased from rayonier. We have a camp house that is basically a 2br 1ba house. There are 4 of us that hunt. There may be 2 or three guests a year. There is a creek we can swim and fish in and we enjoy the hell out of the place all year long. I'm the only one that bow hunts and the deer are pretty pressured but the surrounding clubs, especially the southern club puts tons more pressure on them than we do. The way the land lays though, we have three major funnels running through the property. Last year during the rut, I set a guest on one, the club president was on one, and I was on the other. We all missed deer that morning. We all cursed about it and we all laughed about it.....and the main thing was, we all had a damn good time.

I'd rather be in a 2000 ac club with ten member and a strict guest policy than the same acreage and 5 members and a liberal guests policy.

Some ppl think that if they get into a hunting club, every family member ought to get to hunt! BS! Each club is different so rules can vary.

We limit our members to only three weapons and 3 family members on the property at one time. Only one guest outside of immediate family members and that's limited.

I don't know why so many clubs have such a liberal guests policy. Hunting clubs are for "paying" members and not their guest.

IMO.

I was president of a club and one member brought a guest who'd hunted the land before. That "guest" was telling all the members where he was going to hunt. I stepped in and told him, after all the paying members decide where they're going to hunt, then and only then, you will be allowed to make your choice on where you're hunting! The nerve!!!!

We have 3 members and 340 acres. The first part of the season not really hunting it, me and my son are hunting my farm and its rut. Middle of December we starty hunting the club.

175 acres per member at our place, however, we only have about 8 who truly hunt so it kicks it up to about 300 per member. It is always good to get those members who want just a social hour to get away from everything.

$2500 per year and my son gets to hunt. Last year, I saw 37 different bucks and the year before I saw 40 different bucks. This included small bucks, but around 60% were racked bucks. I only killed one buck and my son killed 2. We usually just kill one buck each and maybe 3 does total. I often see more bucks than does.

We have a good deer herd and usually kill a few good bucks each year.

Our guest policy is that if you bring a guest, they must hunt with you or pay a hefty guest fee. I don't think we had any guest that hunted alone last year.

Everyone gets along and everyone usually shows up on work days (except for a couple guys that live one or two states away). That has not always been the case but it is now. I was ready to get out a couple years ago, but am so glad I stayed. We used to pay a lot less, but decided we would rather pay more and have fewer members, who were the right members, with the same goals.

We have 183 acres per hunter. I got out of a club last year that had 55 acres per member before you figure in all the family members and guests that hunted. I will either hunt public lands or just quit hunting all together before I go through that again.

Lots of people in this thread have touched on this... After 25 years of dealing with clubs and leasing my own land, I've learned that it's less to do with the acreage per hunter, and more to do with the type hunter on the acreage. We all have such differing ideals of what the hunting experience is, and when you have A-Z together on a club it gets toxic.

I don't want guests, and I don't want kids. That knocks me out of most clubs. I know I've told about it before, but one of the best leases I ever hunted on (as far as quality and quantity of deer) was a nightmare mostly because of ONE member. This was 3,000 acres with about 15 guys, but one guy had triplet sons who were 16 years old. To him, the hunting experience was about his boys. Not only would he sit them all in different places around the club, he would be argumentative with you about it, because he thought they should be allowed first choice of the best spots every time. In his words, "THAT'S what it's all about anyway!"
To which I told him, that may be what it's all about to YOU, but 14 other guys don't feel the same way. Either you start paying 4 memberships, or I want my money back (I would just leave the club).

If in a club you have to have like minded members or it won't work.

Has anyone ever been in a club where the membership cost was somehow increased per a certain amount per dependent Hunter? For instance, the main membership cost was "x". Then each minor dependent Hunter could hunt, but would be charged ".33x" or whatever. Then you add all the x's up and divide among total club cost. The members with no kids would then pay a discounted rate, and those with 3 sons would pay a premium.