Am i missing something? who can afford a 30000 acre lease? is dog hunting really that fun? don't get me wrong i've always wanted to try it but,that seems like a lot of coin! how many members can dog hunt on 30K acres? what would the lease cost?

1000 members for 30,000 acre is about the normal for deer dog hunters! So at 350 dollars a man they could also plant greenfeilds and make daily liquor store runs!

we were paying $5.10 per acre.
Unless they got a great deal by leasing areas that were previously unleasable or just unleased I dont know.

But to put it another way, I am sure we aren't the only club displaced by this. We only had 2800 acres in our club so there has to be other. Now all of this land had clubs that by Westervelt rules, were 6 point or better clubs. All of this land taken care of to produce bigger bucks with low kill rates in the effort to grow those big bucks... well that equals some mighty fine hunting land with some mighty fine bucks. I'd say top dollar could be attracted or as mentioned here, family or employee discount.

From what I understand, westervelt and several other land owners had a bunch of land that has not been leased in a couple of seasons. There was already a 20k dog hunt club in the area. They offered all the land owners to lease everything but they had to get it all so they wouldn't have to worry about disrupting/complaints from a hold out club. Looks like a business decision.

if they had problems getting clubs to lease more land then mabe they should drop the price. We had an additional 2500 acres we leased but let it go after they allowed the dog hunt club that you mentioned to lease right ontop of us. We couldn't fill areas with still hunters in that area so we let it go. We asked for discounted rates to keep it but we were refused. We also tried gaining several other sections that had sat Idle for a few years, but westervelt refused to lower price so we could afford them.

There is also another 40,000 acre dog hunting club just west of the county line that a friend of mine was a member. There isn't a lack of dog hunt areas in this particular plat of land.
It may be a business decision but it is a bad business practice to boot out long standing paying customers who took care of their land and offered to expand and help their empty areas. Mabe if they would treat folks like us better then they would not have to rely on the dog hunters to lease these large tracks.
It should also be noted that until about 15 years ago this whole area was dog hunt area and it was shut down because of all the tree damage that the various clubs caused including a huge fire started by rival clubs over disputed land. The land owner then shut out all dog hunting and that is when westervelt took over nd started leasing for the landowner.

Received no call back from Bill Baker yesterday. That is the first time ever tat he has not returned a phone call from me.

I called again about an hour ago, straight to VM, left another message. We'll see.

I'm guessing you aren't going to get anywhere with him...you might as well take advantage if you do get the opportunity to talk with him to let him know what POS he is...

Fixed it for you.

I really hate to hear that has happened to yall. [s][/s]My only advice would be on your next lease have one person stay in contact with the person over the lease on a biweekly basis. Changing club Presidents every year is ok but one person preferably the lease holder should work at building a relationship with those overseeing your lease. This has worked for my family as we have leased the same tract for over 40 years. Because of these relationships built we have been given a heads up a few times when someone was trying to get our lease out from under us. I hope this advice helps on your next lease.

the whole concept of our club was to avoid the common complaints that we all brought into the club forming meeting. The main complaint, and one I have seen echoed here many times, is the Nazi president who plays favorites and is on some kind of power trip.
We decided that no one person will be in charge but that the president would represent the club in all legal matters including him/her being the lease signer. We then have a council of Five which is the rule making committee and problem solver/ oddly we have no rules except for Westervelt rules and common sense rules. The only official rule the club has relates to the Shooting Range and deals with the safety aspect of the members whose areas border the backstop.

When you join the club you pick your area, each area is 150 acres min) and you are free to do with it as you please but are encouraged to improve it with supplemental feeding either by feeders or plots or both.

I will however mention to the guys that mabe we should consider having a single person keep in contact with our next lessor to develop that personal relationship.

JTapia,

The one person is the key for building the long term relationship as far as how yall run the day to operations ie rotating presidents is not a problem at all, but I would suggest that the one person be the one you trust the most.

I have no history dealing with a paper company. I do however have several freinds that have had problems with Westervelt. The biggest issue that can hurt you is being honest on your harvest log. If you log that you killed 5 mature or 5 real trophy bucks, your asking for an increase. As much as I hate to lie, it is in your best interest to fudge a little.

Man I hate to hear that. I know it sucks

I would have a hard time keeping myself from hooking up to my sprayer and doing some weed control for them(Pramitol). It will kill the weeds in the field and leave the ground sterile for up to 2 years. Don't get caught doing it though cause that might be a big lawsuit.

We had one pulled that the club had for 14 years in Marion junction. A lawyer from bham owned it but decided to let a banker from Selma handle it for him and that is when the problems started. The president was called and reemed out because pine beetles had killed some timber and we didn't notify the owner. The pres told him we were hunting it didn't realize we were suppose to be managing the timber for him. The banker told him that the following year it would be bid out and we knew we couldn't compete so we went postal on the deer we had been managing for the last 6 years. We would normally kill around 30 deer a year about half and half. That year we killed over 60 off 1700 acres and I think 17 of them were spikes but did kill 3 nice 10 pts that year which made it suck that our management plan was really kicking in. That kind of crap really ticks you off when you do your best to do something and get your lease pulled for total bs.

Oh man I can feel my anger in your words!

This came out of the blue after the season ended.
I have left 3 VM over 2 days for Bill Baker and have not had a response from him yet.

I agree, we were just starting to see the fruits of our management coming to bare and now the Hounds will surely run these into a shooting lane this upcoming season. Given the notice or even the hint that we were going to lose the lease and there would have been no deer that would be given a pass thinking he'll be bigger next year.

I try to remain a christian man had have christian thoughts but I am only a man in the flesh so it is hard.