Wanted to get opinions from those that have developed land into quality deer clubs. I just found out I’ll be taking over a lease of 2300 acres in South Montgomery County. I hunted the property this past year, and there are a lot of deer on the property. In 38 sits I saw 172 deer. There are an excessive amount of does on the property. The rut was really slow and there were not a ton of big buck sightings, or kills. There were 12 members on the property this past year, but it was only 1500 acres. There has been 800 acres added this year.

This past year it was a heavy bait club. I am wanting to move away from that.

There are only 2 returning members from last years club, so there will be a good amount of new members. I have not determined dues, so I’m not sure the number of members we’ll have.

What would be some of the things you would focus on first, or things you would do to develop your management plan?

Thanks for your input.

Set dues to cover planting cost and No less than 250 acres per member.

Set an age requirement on bucks. Do not go off antler size.

Have rules in place to minimize hunting pressure and minimize road traffic.

If you decide to allow baiting have club feeders in specific areas to keep deer movement consistent and not to have bait piles just scattered inconsistently throughout the property.

Gather information yearly such as weights and age to set a accurate baseline for what to expect from the property.

Have rules in place before adding members and Choose members very carefully to make sure everyone is like minded.

The fewer members you have equals less room for conflict and drama!!!

What’s the habitat like, pine plantations hardwoods or ? Plot sizes?

Obviously killing does is going to be needed. I’d avoid shooting them on the plots.

If your age structure is off you can really improve things in 3 years. But you need a group that’s in it for the long term.

^^^^^ BayedUp and KBush nailed it

Clubs can b drama waiting to happen - some people just want to pull the trigger - a lot. Squeaky states things up front - like - this will be a low pressure club - young deer will not be shot - etc

Like minded is the key - be selective

Good luck

The property is mostly mature, thick pines with SMZs and several creeks running through the property. There are established food plots. I’m not sure we will keep them all and the new 600 acres has no food plots on it. I do not plan to allow baiting. We will run club feeders, but no hunting within 300 yards of a feeder.

My goal is to keep membership low. I know it only takes one member to create drama. I’m sure it will take a few years to weed out some of the drama and end up with a group of guys that all have the same understanding. I’ll keep pressure low by not having locals in the club and cameras at every gate so we know who is coming and going.

I’m sure everyone is in the same boat, but setting the dues is the biggest challenge because fertilizer, etc is so off the charts right now.

I’d budget 2-250 a acre for food plots this year and you should be fine.

I can tell you that my deer love whitetail clover or Fusion. We elimated baiting on greenfields last year, which did not hurt deer sightings. I am working on doing what you are going to be doing. We are not doe heavy though. Turkeys wear it out too. There was no spring planting and nothing but ryegrass in the fall until I joined.

This year we are going to allow baiting on a greenfield if you use a spin or gravity feeder. We lowered doe limit. Raised dues and hope to lower members. Once I think we are more in balance, then will start working on improving bucks, although I have some good bucks on the property and one member killed a really nice 10pt. We have a giant 6 pt.

Just remember that paying membership numbers doesn’t always mean how many folks are hunting.

Great point. I did consider that when thinking about number of members. There are always some that rarely show up and kill anything. Then some just show up one weekend and think “I’m getting my moneys worth.” <—- That type of attitude is not good for the club.

This^^^^^, although I might bump it up a little just to be sure.

I was referring to the ones that have 3 or 4 folks hunting off of one paying membership.

Ok, sorry I misunderstood. They’ll be walked off the day they try that. We will have limited guest days. And it’s not a family membership.

Believe it or not, 172 deer in 38 sits is not a lot of deer for south Montgomery county. Key will be limiting pressure. Get members that are solo hunters. Tell them to leave the wife and kids at home, choose members very carefully. Good luck. I live in the area, if I can help, pm me

Each membership needs a certain number of deer - what ever u decide - 2 or 3 bucks per member and 1 stand - if it were me - I would hav very few visit days. And if u hv a number of deer per membership - the hole family can’t get 3 each and u only get one stand and not 5

Not sure I would consider does excessive if your only seeing 4 deer a sit. Last year I averaged seeing about 12 a sit, several sits over 20, which is probably excessive, but I like seeing deer. And we saw plenty of bucks with two mature bucks killed off 320 ac.

Keep in mind the previous lease manager had no management plan. The food plots were not in great shape and there was a lot of pressure because there were 12 members in 1440 acres. The lease now is a total of 2300 acres. The property is on Woodley Rd, which most people know has good deer. I appreciate all of your comments. It’s good to get different opinions and insight. Maybe “excessive does” wasn’t the best phrase, but our doe to buck ratio I think is way off.

Feel free to continue to give advice. I truly do appreciate reading the comments.

If there was any one thing I believe is most important it would be pressure, and that is all forms. Unfortunately on a typical lease you would not only have all the hunters but all the screwing around “scouting”, checking cameras, riding 4wheelers, whatever involves a human being getting in their living room.And they don’t like it. I live in Florida and there is basically zero human activity on my farm if I am not there and when I am I can see a noticeable drop in the number of deer and turkeys I see from when I get there to when I leave.During season there is not a soul on it except a week at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and from January 15 to the end of season.After Christmas nobody goes anywhere but straight to a stand and back out, the stands are set up to get in and out without spooking deer and I have enough good spots most stands are not sat more than a half dozen times a year except my absolute best stand which I could probably sit every day of the season and it would not matter cause they never know someone is there.Doing this I have had to start getting in stands very early in the afternoon cause there are often deer in the field by 2:30, not creeping out 5 minutes before dark in terror like your typical lease I hear about.There were several sits last year I was watching at least one deer from the time I sat down until I left.And that’s what I like.

As far as substantial doe killing I don’t see why anyone would do it unless there was a browse line or some real indication there was inadequate food.I am not that far south of you, have a chit ton of deer and there is more food than they can eat. I believe the whole concept of slaughter all my does so the bucks will spend more time wandering around looking for love is bs and not supported by my experience, which is if you have the does the bucks will come, you just have to be there when they do.

Do what ya want on baiting, that’s a personal decision, but I am not into this to see less deer or make my hunting less productive and corn is da bomb. Never used it until legal and will not stop until it is illegal again.Love watching the doe train filing out of the woods at 3:00 when the spinner goes off and if you spread a bag of golden nuggets down 50 yards of a shooting lane through thick cover it can result in a real fun sit.

With costs going up like they have I have thought about bringing one paying hunter onto my place to help off set planting costs, which are pretty substantial and I eat myself, but I would never do it in a typical lease fashion.What I have considered, and what I would do if I was in control of a lease, is sell memberships based on a specific number of sits and a specific harvest. Thant way I could control the amount of pressure and what was harvested.But I would have to be here to do that to keep people honest.Because when it comes to deer hunting even generally decent people seem to lose their minds.

Good luck sounds like you have a great opportunity to have something really good.

Thanks, Brad. All great points. You can tell me head is in a lot of different places, but building something from the ground up is a great challenge. The previous lease manager lost the lease because he was doing paid hunts. I don’t have the availability to be creative so I have to get it right from the start.

I’ve always liked the rule of one weapon in the woods per membership. Bring whoever you want, friends, family, etc, but you’re not going to take up any more spots or create any more pressure or kill any more deer, than a single member.