you are joining a new club. Most hunters have wives, kids, guests.
They usually hunt spots too. I'd say 100 acres a member is bare minimum. what say you ?

Too many factors go into it set it at a static number. The type of property has a lot to do with it...ie, a property with a lot of clearcuts/open land will require more acres per hunter than a property with a lot of young pine plantations.

100/member is typically the standard. I've seen as low as 10/member and as high as 500/member.

Id say 100 acres per member is in the ballpark.

It depends... some hunters think that if they join a hunting club, they should be able to bring ALL their family members and all their friends!!! It depends on the family and guests rules of a club. More restrictive rules are best. Hunting clubs should be for the paying members and not the paying member's friends.

I think a club should limit the number of family members a paying member can bring. Disney World charges per person. If you have two kids... you pay less than if you have four kids when Disney lets you in the gate.

Idunno.... seems like clubs with lax guests rules always are looking for members and have turnover because the hunting experience isn't what people expect.

I guess this hits home with me as I was in a club where a paying member represented 5 guns on the property as his wife loved to hunt too and so did his three sons and they'd bring guests too. Multiply this times a three or four members and the hunting declines fast!

Your question: 100 - 150 acres per member with strict guests rules.

I wouldn't do it off a per member basis. I'd basis it off how many folks are gonna hunt. There's usually a big difference.

150 a member is best to me.

I feel your pain about this. I lost a friend and really damaged another friendship over this very thing. I wish things had turned out differently, but the lesson I learned was I'm not compatible with "hunting clubs".
One year me and two other guys leased a 550 acre block, and quite frankly three of us were too much. It was 50 acres of huntable land with 500 acres of unhuntable bedding area. One spot on that land was superior to all others, thus it was always an awkward debate about where everybody was going that day (we each wanted that ONE spot). Then I would get aggravated when I would find out one of them snuck down there on days he knew nobody else could come and hunted it with a wrong wind, etc. Then I would find out the same guy was taking his wife down there and putting her in that "one good spot" and she was shooting spikes and crap (after we had agreed not to shoot any buck that wasn't mountable, ESPECIALLY in that spot!). Actually he brought his wife EVERY time he hunted. By Christmas the whole place was ruined, over-pressured. Of course when I said something about it, they turned on me like "how could you criticize his wife for just having fun, she's a novice hunter". It was a no-win situation.

depends on the property and lay of the land.

We go with 150 acres per member and have very strict rules on family and guests. Each member can take wife or kids with them but 1 membership = 1 gun. We allow each member 2 guest days with no guests allowed after mid Decemeber….I forget the exact date. This is working well for us now but it took some of the growing pains that you guys are talking about to get there. We would have some members showing up by themselves and some showing up with wife and kids with multiple guns. I made the decision a couple years ago to nip that in the bud before it just got more out of hand. It caused a couple members to stage a coup and threaten to leave if I didn’t allow them to keep on doing it that way….SOOO….now we have a couple new members who are very happy being a member of a low pressure club and things run very smoothly. When I first started the hunting club I tried to be the good guy and powder everyone’s arse to keep them happy. To hell will that. Now I’m completely ok playing the role of the arsehole for the sake of the club as a whole.

My response would be, "No, she WAS a novice hunter, but obviously she sees how it's done. Time for her to step up like everyone else. One thing is certain. She'll never kill a legal trophy after shooting a spike" This is why all these things need to be addressed prior to the season.

I agree there are too many factors to consider to have a cookie cutter answer.

The first club I was ever in was around 40 to 50 acres per member. It had 10,000+ acres and was way too crowded for me, though there were usually less than 60 people on a weekend. The club I'm in now has over 300 acres per member. Children can also hunt, but we don't have too many right now that do hunt, so, acres per hunter is still around 250. At one point, we nearly had as many kids hunting as members. One man had 3 sons and the 4 of them would spread out and hunt a whole area. He paid the same amount as someone with no children. Now, we have reduced the size of the club and everyone pays more. We are all happy with the way things are now. There are a few kids that hunt, but it is not a problem now.

At this point in my life, it would have to be some incredible land for me to consider anything less than 200 acres per hunter.

200+ for me.
It's twice as expensive buts its twice as good of a hunting experience too.

The only club I'm in now joins our property and its 6 people on 400 acres, granted only 4 of us hunt very much. But it's $100 a year for 700 continuous acres so I have to pay it.

200 per member with limited guests.

200 acres per member.

I have hunted in a club with lax family rules. Maybe things should be based on how many will hunt from the family. We had a family with 4 people hunting while paying one membership. That can get old when they shoot and many times miss everything they see.

I prefer around 250 per member. I personally think a limit per membership solves a lot of the someone having a wife and bunch of kids shooting the woods up. We have a 3 buck limit per membership.If 3 ain't enough for your family you can buy two memberships.

Since I own my own land. And have SOUL hunting rights to 1200+ acres. I may have 10 guys on 400 acresin a Saturday. We all safe and see deer the others didn't. But to each their own. Y'all just keep enjoying them clubs. Ole DW makes rules in my place