We try our best to only shoot mature deer 4+ and a lot of times we don’t even shoot them.

Most of the time, in my experience, my conversation with said member goes like this. Hey man, I try to work with new members and help them learn how to age deer on the hoof. I know mistakes happen but you shot two like this last year that didnt meet club rules. You don’t have any equipment to help and you haven’t contributed any “club stands”. You always seem to just happen to have something planned or are just too busy to make the scheduled work days and help plant, yet you somehow manage to hunt opening weekend of bow season, opening weekend of gun season, and then take off the entire month of January to hunt the rut. I think you need to plan on finding somewhere else to hunt next year.

We had a guy just like this...and his son. Finally got rid of them.
We just try to shoot mature but if it comes down to it we go with 1 buck of choice, 1 mature with less than trophy rack and 1 trophy that must be mounted. Flexible for young or new hunters. Your guests shoot off your 3 bucks.

Don't throw all clubs under the bus just because you have seen it happen in others. I am the president of our club and have been for 12 years. They call me the Dick-tator. I have no problem being an asshole when I have to be. I have fined myself. I have fined my father twice. I have fined my best friend. We have 11 guys and they are all held to the same standard. Our rules are 4 years or older. It is a $250 for 1st offense, $500 for second offense, 3rd Offense and you are out. We ask if you kill a buck to have it shoulder mounted. We have a hit list of less desirable mature bucks that are not required to be mounted. We run extensive camera surveys and all bucks are shared for familiarity purposes. If you don't like a club's rules, don't join that club. Find a group of guys who are on the same page and make it happen. Mistakes are going to happen. We know there are going to be new bucks that didn't show up on our survey, it happens every year. I try my best to educate our guys to be able to age them on the hoof. It is hard as hell to age a deer when he is hanging at the skinning shed or when he is rutted down. This is why I want them to be as familiar as possible with every deer that we get on camera. We are not perfect and we are always trying to find a better way. We still have fun, sometimes too much. There is rarely drama. They know if they screw up they will be held accountable.

That sounds pretty solid Skullworks - it would give a young person on the membership a buck and also hav a mature buck without having to meet a 16 inch min or point restriction- me personally i would hav a steep fee if the 3rd buck did not get mounted - like $500 (cost of a mount) to go to club

I hav hunted for years where u shoot it u mount it and been in clubs with just the simple 8 point or better which does not allow u to kill good six like Gutpile just shot

I don’t mind being an asshole either but after a while I got to the point that it took the fun out of hunting for me…..I was asking myself …”How bad do I really want to kill another deer?”…….”Bad enough to baby sit a bunch of grown men and make them follow the rules??”……It just wasn’t worth it eventually……Having to be bill collector, money backer, rule enforcer, the camp asshole, etc……I have less and less patience for all of it the older I get.

Yeah all of these rules mentioned in this thread sound like a lot of work for whoever is running the club. Heck, I manage a team of people at work, I don't want to do it in the woods too.

If Trophy management is truly your goal, this is about the only way it will happen.

I respectfully disagree......I believe there ARE ways you can "Trophy Manage" while still killing young bucks.......It's managing by total buck harvest.......I even believe that within Trophy Management you can hand select the younger-middle aged ones to take out and further help your goals of growing the best of the best

You have to hunt with like minded people. In a big club that is hard but doable, but you do have to understand mistakes will and do happen. I have been in every kind of club imaginable, and there are some really well run large clubs and some very poorly run ones. Most large clubs I know of that are well run are run like dictatorships not democracies. Small cubs 5/6 people and less should not have these problems. Usually the more $$ you pay the less problems. More money means less people.

In the end for me the worst part about it was being the money backer and bill collector……I was the only one who had any real skin in the game when it came time for the $15K to be paid each summer……Just too much money to stick my neck on the line for and to chase down every year when I can take my dogs and get paid to go hunt everyone else’s deer and have much more fun doing it

My question in all this self proclaimed trophy hunting mentality is are ALL aspects on having a TROPHY club followed? Things like do you hunt green field/corn from the first day of the season? Are does shot on greenfields/corn the entire season? Is there continual hunting pressure on the property the whole season? Does the entire club refuse to hunt an area if the area can't be approached with the wind in your face the entire time? etc, etc, etc, to actually have a "Trophy Club" like on TV? If people are wanting places like Lee and Tiffany have and hunt a property only one day during the entire season and nobody else is on the property, then it may work. Does the area you are in have the GENETICS, cover, year round food sources, etc to actually grow more that one 125" buck? How many does are being shot just because the members have paid club dues and almost zero larger than the "minimum" bucks are killed every year. Old mature bucks don't get old and mature by being stupid. Reality sucks,

If a person wants to be a trophy hunter then only hunt trophies, but remember trophies are in the eye of the beholder.

If people are killing non allowed deer ( described as "small" by Sasquatch) , against the club rules, then they are being counterproductive to the management goals and are not on board.

If said club has the management plan you are speaking of , then that's a different matter all together. When people pay their money they know the rules. Follow them or find somewhere else to hunt.

This. But it will always be drama in a big club.

Been there done that. At the end of the season I always ask if everyone is on board for next year and, if you are thinking of getting out, please let me know as soon as possible. It never fails. If someone is going to bail, they bail around August. Luckily we have enough set back for these circumstances. I have fronted more than I have been comfortable with but, in the long run I know I can trust our members to come through financially if we were to lose a couple of members. We have discussed not adding new members if someone bails and simply increasing dues. I am all about decreasing the pressure we put on the deer. So far, everyone is on board.

It is a ton of work. I have 56 employees to manage also so I know how that goes too. I enjoy it 95% of the time. That other 5% usually involves someone knowingly breaking the rules. Nothing irritates me more. I have offered, on more than one occasion, to resign and let someone else take over but no one ever steps up.

It's all about leadership! I don't want to let the people I hunt with down, and don't want to put them in a situation where they are required to fine me. I've never met a club president that enjoyed fining members. He may truly dislike the member, and want them out of the club, but doesn't want to take their money for a mistake.

What happens if you end up with members who see a 2yo and think it's well worth a $100 fine? He's wearing $2k in Sitka gear, $3k in rifle and optic, plus club, truck, camper, SXS, and $3k in the Binos he lost that morning. What's $100? The club owes him anyway! He's blasting away, then jumping back on this site to find his next victim....

I have one rule for my club - shoot him if it will make you happy. If you are happy, I will be too. It's just a deer, and hunting is supposed to be fun.

I could never join one of the "you got to mount him" clubs. I haven't ever mounted one and never will. If I shoot one, I saw the rack off and put it in the shed with the rest of them. Some day I am gonna organize them.

Exactly.

$500 fine might not make him blink twice, but it might make him blink.


I'm of the mind of poorcountrypreacher. But if you have a club with a fine structure, the fine should make someone think first to possibly stop, and then hurt in the wallet if they do it. It's sort of like the paltry fines for night hunting or poaching or failing to GameCheck, or with ADEM's "environmental fines." If the penalty doesn't have teeth and a bite, it's not much of a penalty.

Nobody in AL is going to grow deer like Lee and Tiffany. You can have a place where everyone can have a chance at a mature deer but not what most people call a trophy let’s say 135”-140” deer and up. Because use you just don’t have enough mature deer that get that big.