what do you think is the best club in these county's?

Sturdy Oak

Does Stuurdy oak have a FB page or website by chance?

No. Its also $10K a year. Just fyi

Some days I think it'd be worth it

There are a few subtleties about the Club that do not overly appeal to me, personally. BUT, if there is a Club that is worth it. Sturdy Oak is probably it!

Never heard of it, but what makes it so special? How much land and how many members? Big old waiting list at that price?

Not sure about this club, but anything down around portland landing or over towards safford would be hard to beat.

No doubt
If I was single no kids I would have to try a place like that for at least a year or two.

The best clubs in these areas are not clubs you can just join. They don't advertise and the openings they have get filled by people they know. Often by people they've known most of their lives.

I was just wondering what some of the best clubs were in that area I Like to follow them on FB and just see what all they kill. I am looking for a club to get in down in that are mainly to just hog hunt a couple times a year I am already in a deer club by my house but my sons love to shot hogs. If y'all know of any clubs loaded with hogs and have openings let me know I'm interested in getting in one for next year.

Flatwoods. They're our neighbor to the west. Lot of land. Lot of pigs. President is a very good man and one of the best high school FB coaches ever to coach in AL.

Thank you. I'll look into them. How many hogs do you guys kill a year?

Beautiful land that is strictly managed right on the river. Tons of deer, turkeys, hogs. Very nice camp house with a barn to keep atvs etc in. Show up and hunt type of club, over 100 acres of food plots planted with ag fields in the club as well.

There are several good clubs in that area without a doubt, but they kill big deer consistently every year.

The only clubs who publish what they kill must own all the land they hunt.

Doing that when you lease land is a guaranteed way to either lose your lease to another (higher) bidder or greatly increase your lease cost. Never mind increasing poaching.

No club in Alabama is worth paying 10k.

Sturdy Oaks is a very nice and well run club, with top notch members. In over forty years of sharing 2 miles of land lines with them I have never had a trespassing or hunting problem with them!

The statement about not worth the money. They aren’t normal working stiffs like most of us. The money is peanuts to them.

I’ll say it again. NO club in Alabama is worth 10k. The Midwest is a different story.

We'll just agree to disagree. They kill multiple deer every year that rival any Midwest deer. If I could afford it, id be in it.

I'll argue the flip side. I'd much rather spend $10k on a place like sturdy oaks in AL than Midwest. Longer season. 3 bucks. Many more reasons. The Midwest is more miss than hit. And damn a long drive.

Chances are, IF you can afford to pay 10K to hunt in Alabama, you won't have a problem spending 2-5k on a Midwest hunt during the rut as well.

So the two clubs mentioned in the post Flatwoods and Sturdy Oaks is 10k a year or was that just a number thrown out there.

Wanna say Flatwoods is 2,500 or 2,700...

Ok that sounds about right, for a top notch club with nice things and a good land to hunter ratio it is gonna cost at least 2k -3k or up if you more nice things or a better ratio. In my opinion it is worth every penny if that is within your hunting budget, and that what you enjoy doing.

Sturdy Oak is $10K a year, that is not a number thrown out. I personally can't swing paying $10K a year to deer hunt, but if there was a club in Alabama worth that it would definitely be Sturdy Oak

I dont think that Flatwoods has any camphouse. I think that the $2700 is just hunting dues. Some of the other guys on here can confirm. There were several members on here at one time.

I don't think Flatwoods costs quite that much, and think you're right on the camp house. OP mentioned a place he could join and have opportunities at hogs and decent deer.

Among the clubs with openings regularly I thought it was a good place for him to look. I didn't mean it was one of the "great" clubs. I wouldn't know about any of those anyway, other than word of mouth. I don't travel in those social circles.

270WSM would be in the know on that sort of thing though. Whether he'd tell you or not I couldn't say.

I can't either if I could I would not mind one bit to pay that for a place if it was as good as to gets in Alabama. My salary would have to double and that probably is not gonna happen.

We paid $2750 a piece my last year in. That was 3 years ago.

How Good would You consider the Deer hunting at Flatwoods TDD?

P.M. Sent to Ya teamduckdown

is Sturdy Oak the Childers place?

Well to put it in simple terms, if it was good, I wouldn't be an "ex" member

Lots of Turkey to. Coach James was my headmaster in school good guy for sure

Yes

What would you guys say is a good affordable club in this area beside flat wood? And I say affordable by 2500-3000$ per year.

Do you by chance have any pic of deer they have killed off sturdy oak? I would just like to see what they kill.

Not alot of turkeys anymore either.

Coach is great fella, I grew up around him. But he wont enforce the rules, and that's one reason the club is in the downward spiral it's in.

Asking the same question multiple times in different ways isn't going to get you a fresh answer. There are multiple guys on here every year looking for the same thing you're looking for. As has already been said, the good clubs in this area dont advertise. If there is an opening, it will be filled from within an inner circle. And no one is going to have (or if they do, they wont) any pictures to show you.

Coach James was my football coach. Great man

Sturdy Oaks must be between Childers and Abe Cook??

Sturdy Oaks is Childers, just south of the Cade Place on the corner. I've hunted the Cade Place and the land that borders Childers on the south that was owned by Roy Bonner at Dixon Creek. Both excellent places.

I have hog hunted Childers place. I got a drive in tour many years ago when Mr Roy was still alive, we saw some huge bucks. Mr Roy didn't allow rifles for a long time and the place was loaded with huge bucks.

Couldn't agreee more.

If you hunted with Roy on his uncles place on Dixon Creek you had to drive through my place to get to Mr. James' land, unless you used a helicopter or boat.

I have actually used a boat to get there, but mostly drove thru. PM me

A established club with a good reputation in those areas are nearly impossible to get in. Trust me when I tell you that as I've tried and pretty much have a blank check ready to fill out for the right opportunity. They don't have turn over and rarely any openings. My old club in this area never filled the few spots we had come open by advertising the 5 years I was in it. We had a list of friends and family that wanted to join.

After being out of this club for two years I'm starting to regret my decision to tell them to pound sand. The place did not have any giants like some of the clubs in that area does but it was the best deer hunting I've ever experienced in this state. It probably was my one and only opportunity to hunt an above average property in this state.

Back in the 70s, I shot a deer on the Cade place and he jumped the fence and died about 40 yds onto the Childers place. I had always been very careful to never set foot across that line, and spent a minute trying to decide whether to drive up to the house and ask permission to get my deer, or just to quickly drag him across. I could see him lying there dead, so I finally decided to just hurry over and get him. Then I still had to drag him over a half mile by myself.

The Cade place also joined Flatwood back then. I was hunting the Cade place by myself another day when a group of hunters walked across the line from Flatwood and had a man drive on the Cade place. They had me surrounded, whooping and hollering, so I just sat tight. Sure enough, they ran a buck by me and I shot at him and missed. They all went to calling to each other, trying to figure out which one had shot. When they figured out it wasn't one of them, they got real quiet and got out of there. I hurried to the road to see who it was; figured I probably knew at least some of them. But they were all running up the road and nearly back to Flatwood by the time I saw them.

That was the best deer hunting I've ever experienced. Lots of deer, lots of big deer, and even a bunch of fallow deer. It was a sad day when it got leased and I lost my permit.

I drove down the county road back in February and it looked so different I had a hard time figuring out where I had hunted.

LOL Steve. The guys I hunted with back then were scared of Roy Childers, I'd guess with reason.

Childers back then had more, and bigger , bucks than anyplace I ever set foot on. And I have set foot on some jim dandy places in Alabama.

I only met him a couple of times and didn't really know him, but I knew I didn't wanna be on his place without permission. My dad told me later I should have just driven around to his house and gotten permission and I could have driven close to the deer. But I didn't know; no cell phone to use from the woods in 1975.

I remember Mac Lawless about that time had permission from Mr. Roy to kill a fallow buck. Mac told me some unreal number of racked bucks he had passed in one morning trying to see a shooter fallow. I'm sure that place is still good, but I don't see how the Cade place could be as good as it used to be. All those big fields are grown up now. I kinda regret that I drove by and looked at it; I'd rather remember the way it was and how fortunate I was to get to hunt it for several years.

The Cade place was a fine place in the early 80s when I hunted there. I killed a nice fallow buck right on the line with the COE along the river bank. And a dang fine 10 point WT buck that weighed 230 pounds right behind the big house.

Hunted with Riley Smith on the land across the road from the fields also.

Last time I was by there most of the fields were planted pines.

We leased the Cade place from Watson Jones from mid 80s until about '95, beautiful land and great hunting.

did ya'll have the part where the house sits or across the road??? Both great places.

Had the house. From COE property to the property with catfish lakes (Bud Chambers maybe, it's been a while). Coming from bridge, we went from the first rd on the left, and then if you viered left on the next paved road past the little minnow bucket store, we had both sides of that road for a little ways.

gotcha , good land, all of it.

Watson Jones owned a huge big ole antebellum home in southern Greene Co, right at the old muslim place near Tishabee.

I can't figure that out. Roy and his brother Miller were two of the nicest old guys I've ever met. Then again any time I was around them it was a pleasant social setting.

I'd have to agree that Sturdy Oak is one of the top clubs in Alabama. I've been lucky enough to hunt there as a guest several times and I killed my biggest buck there in 2010. And the $10k that it costs for a membership there is peanuts for the members. Most of them also have leases in mid-west along with their Sturdy Oak membership.

Well everybody needs a place to hunt until mid February when the Midwest is snowed in.

Those guy's and I would get along great as I do the same as them. I'm just looking for a place to hunt the rut in Bama. With my work schedule and using all my vacation in March and November it does not leave a lot time for my home state. I do like to have a quality place to spend that limited time though.