As the leaseholder of mine, starting this year, I can speak to this. Our lease went up 3%. I had 19 members, 2 are leaving, which gets me down to 17 on 1050 acres. The lease says 11. Some of my guys rarely hunt. I have 24 green fields, and if they thin and cut timber, they are supposed to add 2 more fields, which will be an acre or so more, that we will have to lime. My previous soil tests all indicate 2 tons per acre, so I will probably have to get 2 tons of pellet lime.

Fertilizer is up. Herbicide is up. I need to fertilize 3 times a year minimum. Thats 90 bags if I can find the stuff I need to use. I would need 100 bags of pellet lime. So at $20/bag for fertilizer, I need $1800. Lime at $5/bag is $500. Seed will easily be $600. The departing members are taking up to 4 ladder stands, which I need to replace more than likely. Figure another $500. All the ladder stands I have, and both tripods need new seats. We need to do some maintenance on the shooting houses, and probably build some new ones. I need to get a scale, and make sure I get jawbones this year too. We need to probably replace some ratchet straps as well.

I have spent the last 3 years planting in spring, expanding food plots, getting them limed, and planted in Whitetail or Durana Clover, along with Whitetail Chicory. I have a couple spots that have extreme. I put out minerals during that time, and even got mine out before Westervelt banned that this year. Of course I was the person footing the bill for all that. I say this to say, I finally have a high quality food plot structure, which should help keep the deer on the property and grow them as well. When I joined, they didn't plant in the spring, and they planted rye grass in the fall. I don't plant rye grass. I plant a brassica and cereal grain mix, and add clover to it.

So we did a few things to try to lower the member count without telling someone we aren't going to renew them. We raised dues $200. We cut the doe limit per member from 5 to 2. We lowered the kid limit to 1 buck and 1 doe. You can bring a guest, but their kill comes off your number. And we said no killing doe's off a green field. The goal being increasing the doe numbers on the property, and hopefully luring a buck out on a green field.

If I keep 17 members, then I will have enough $ in the treasury to do everything we need to do and have some left over, which I prefer, because I sent out invoices already and only 1 guy has paid me. Since 25% of my lease is due May 1, it would be nice to have that in reserve to just pay without waiting on the other guys to pay.

The biggest problem in all the clubs I have been in is getting people to work. It takes a lot of time and money to build and maintain shooting houses and green fields. And not alot of clubs put in the time to get their fields test and limed and fertilized properly. Even with all the supplemental fertilzing I was doing, we weren't putting enough out.

If you are having to work to chase members every year, then you can't focus on keeping the club up. So alot of clubs lower the price and get more members. Just depends which way you want to go.