Litter deposits, camp deposits , food plot fees are just plain ridiculous when you are already paying a premium lease price per acre.

Actually not......

Lease prices will eventually either come down or level off due to the poor economy and declining deer population more and more people are dropping deer hunting and doing other things, It is just a matter of time with the greed of the timber companies and the poor management of the deer herd by the State ..........

It's getting rediculous with these prices,especially when companies are listing land in Conecuh county for $13+/acre,enjoy it while you can because in 5 years only the rich will be able to afford these prices or you will have to get a lot of members just to keep the dues reasonable

Neither of which I care for...I use to enjoy hunting now it costs more than I can afford...

I just put one on the website in Conecuh County @ $13.50/ac and it lasted 6 hours.

This is why I plan to book a three day hunt this year.

Good for you......just shows a fool and his money will soon be parted

Or you could lease a piece of property in the Midwest for the same price your paying for mediocre hunting in Alabama and see way more deer with a good chance of killing a buck of a lifetime

This^

X 2 ! You see land in other top-end counties go for 15-20 dollars an acre. For that much you can go out of state. I have friends that hunt Kentucky for 19 an acre

And this is what I stated,gotta have deep pockets or lots of members to keep the price reasonable,it's killing the average joe, my family owns land very close by that tract and I hunt right up the road for half of that price per acre,you can put $20/acre on it and someone will lease it but these high prices are gonna eventually cause the average guy to quit hunting

Lotta out of state hunters hunt AL because of our long season and way to liberal bag limits. If we go to a buck tagging system and limit the doe harvest (which I feel is coming), you'll see a lot of the MS and LA guys starting to stay home when they can't come over here and legally kill 20-30 deer a season anymore. That will bring the lease prices down too. Over the years, as the other states tightened their harvest restrictions, more and more came over to AL which increased demand for leases which in turn helped drive pricing. Its all about supply and demand. Reb, congrats on getting $13.50/acre in Conecuh. I don't know of anything in Conecuh that's worth that but hey, if someone is willing to pay it, take that sucker's money and laugh at him all the way to the bank. He'll get it, find out it's avg hunting at best and drop it next year but a new/higher bar has been set and next year, Reb will try to get a little more for it from the next guy. And for the record, I dont blame Reb a bit. He's doing his job and what he gets paid for, maximize the profits his company makes. I run a business and I'll push the envelope trying to get as much as I can for the work my guys do. If some sucker is willing to pay it, I'll take his money. Until people refuse to overpay, I wont lower my prices and neither will Reb. It's capitalism and supply and demand. Reb thinks the demand is sustainable and I think the leasing community is on the edge of revolt. Like I said before, until 25% or so of their property goes unleased for a year, they have no incentive to reduce prices. I saw more unleased on the Westervelt site going into last season than I ever have before and they cut bait and offered up some properties, for a single season only cut rate, just to get them leased. The next few years will prove one of us right or wrong.

I was in a club in Chambers county in 1994 and we had 12 members, 3860 acres, and the dues were 550.00 ea. That same club in 2012, had 3260 acres, about 20 members, and the dues are 2000.00 per member. If my Salary had increased at that rate, I would be retiring this year.

Lease prices will NEVER, EVER, EVER, NEVER go down. Our club pays well below 8 an acre on over 4900 acres of connected land, but it's also not very good land, and we have about 35 members. It's really cheap, but just not really good land, but the club's intention is to keep the dues low for everybody versus increase the acres per member.

The reason prices will never go down is because there will always be somebody who places so much importance on hunting, and also has the money, that will find it, and pay. All the increasing lease prices have done is lower the enjoyment of hunting for most, because every club under 2.5k a year has 1 hunter per 120 acres, and 120 acres in Alabama is inconsistent from year to year to year. I'll say it again, lease prices will never go down.

Amen!

I did the some of the food plot work on this piece of property year before last. A Aldeer member that doesn't post much had it leased.

It's a couple of miles from my house. I personally wouldn't pay
$5.00 per acre for it. The $12.50 per acre is a ridiculous price for this place.

^^^^^ This is one way they get these ridiculous lease prices paid each year. One and done hunters looking for that mythical piece of great hunting land they can call theirs. If hunters would do a better job of spreading the word on these lackluster pieces of property maybe then they will go unleased a few years then maybe they would have realistic lease prices that could yield long term lease opportunities that would be worth a hunter investing their time and money to improve it, but at $10 plus an acre it needs to be jam up to begin with and need minimal money spent on it other than seed and fertilizer for the average hunter to be able to justify keeping it. IMO at least in SW Alabama there is not a piece of property I have ever seen or heard of that would justify my first year lease price be $10 acre. It might well get there after many years of hunting and invested improvements, but no way the first year......

You are entitled to your opinion but you just don't get it. The market dictates the price. Outside of mobile or Washington county, you'd be hard press to find another county in sw Alabama with an average price per acre below $10. Fact is, anything worth hunting is worth $10/ac.

We all get it Rebelman. I understand that the market dictates the price but that doesn't mean the land is really worth $10 or more per acre or that there are deer on it. For example, That's why I didn't pull the trigger on the Covington county tract you had available early on. I know that property and hunted it and know that no deer or turkeys were taken there last season or before. To you the market will bear $10 or more an acre but to me it is a tract that produced no deer or turkeys and not worth the market price you asked for it. You tell folks to look at harvest records but in this case there were none because no deer were taken. I understand that business is business but I still feel sorry for the poor folks that snatched up that Covington county tract you listed and had no idea that no one in club that leased it previously could kill a deer or turkey on it. Or were you ethical and told them how poor harvest results were? Maybe you were. Last year my calls or emails to Rayonier were not returned. No one from Rayonier gave me information or harvest records or anything you mention folks should ask about hunting clubs & leases. I view Rayonier and most of these timber & land companies as unethical in their sales practices. I sell insurance but I go about it ethically because I want customers for life. I won't get them if I mislead them.

If you had calls and emails unreturned I apologize. That is not what I want to hear. We work extremely hard to return every single lead. To the point that we have engaged in the use of sales force which helps us record every single call to ensure we attempt to reconnect. If you will forward me your email attempt I will get to the bottom of it.

As for that particular property, I don't see how a club can go a season and not see a single deer. I simply don't believe it. I'm not calling you a liar. Just saying that is hard to believe. We own 80k acres contiguous in that area and I didn't hear any other complaints. It was a hot season through December but no one else claimed to not see a single deer.

As far as our customer relations, we had a 92% retention rate last year. That isn't by accident. Again, we work hard at what we do. I bet no other 'timber company' invited every single club to a tournament style clay shoot last year along with dinner.