Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Tractor guys at clubs

Always something to be broke and always someone who wants you to use your farm tractors like skidders and dozers. I’ve done it a lot of years, but this year gonna cap it off for me I think. Club “discounts” aren’t worth it. Let me pay regular money like everyone else and just show up with some nippers, and set around at crossroads drinking beer and shooting the chit like rest of em.

I actually got to be a road nipper guy yesterday at my new club, first time ever in a Hunting club I didn’t have to be the tractor guy. When you farm for a living, everyone assumes you can bring your tractor. But I’ll tell ya, that road clipping ain’t bad work at all. I could get used to that!! 😁😁😁

Another thing I always find comical, is how guys want to plant food plots and how important they think food plots are. People way over complicate food plots, how to plant, what to plant, when to plant etc etc. Just always comical to me.

Equipment guys at clubs will always get the short end of stick, someone always wants some crazy road or lane made, or try and make grass grow in a load up pad etc etc.

Just random thought this morning. 😁

Been there and done that!

You dang right and everybody has alligator arms when you get flat out in the middle of BFE🤣

Yep. I’m still one of the tractor guys but I don’t let anyone operate my equipment any more. People think a tractor and a dozier can do the same work.

Most people don’t realize just how expensive having farm equipment really is. It cost me at least $100 every time I haul my tractor to the club and do any work with it. And like you said, something is gonna break almost every time. It’s $10 here and $40 there, always something. The road “nippers” definitely got the better end of the deal as my club doesn’t even give a tractor discount.

I plant food plots for a couple of clubs and our own place. It’s amazing how guys seemingly don’t realize it has to rain for them to sprout and grow. It’s either bad seed or planted too deep until we get some rain.

People trip out over the stuff that's so simple. But it boils down to just a few things.
Prep seed bed when you can
Plant and fertilize when you can
Wait for rain

Some common mistakes people make ?

Thinking there is a magic blend that's far superior and will draw out the 140s on a rope
Underfertilizing the soil
Loning out their equipment

I’ve always been the tractor guy on every place I’ve hunted. I like plowing, tilling and planting fields and maintaining roads. It takes a lot of time and money to keep up even a small place, few hundred acres not to mention a few thousand acres.
Like WE22 said it takes at least $100 fuel every trip. If something breaks, truck, trailer, tractor, equipment it’s all on you.
I’ve never gotten a discount for doing the tractor work and seldom anyone offers any $ or thanks.
If you pay 2k to join a hunting club and a couple work days at least thank the tractor guy.

I know several clubs around here that have had disasterous results in patch planting the last few years. They set a weekend to plant way ahead of time rather than watching the weather and planting before it starts raining. If the turkeys don't scratch it up it may sprout and die. The weather has changed in the past few years and we seem to have extended dry spells late summer/early fall. You have to plant with rain in the forecast or you will likely waste a lot of time and $.

Compare what it would cost to hire someone to do the tractor work. That should be the discount. But they would end up owing you a free membership plus more money. A tractor is a farmer's livelihood. Are the lawyers and accountants in the club handing out 20+ hours a year of legal and tax work to members in exchange for a $300 discount on club dues?

Hunting club land is some of the hardest work on tractors and equipment in terms of wear and tear and stuff breaking. It's usually once a year mowed/plowed thick overgrown brush and not the well maintained row crop fields tractors are designed to handle for daily use. And like you say, everyone has a good idea for where a new plot should be and asking you to push the tractor to its limit to do what you really need a dozer, mulcher, etc to accomplish.

If tractor guy enjoys it and sees it as volunteer work to help his fellow club members have some fun, then that's about the only good reason to do it. If the club treats it as transactional and no one seems to care how much you are helping them out, then tractor guy is always getting the short end of the deal.

I don’t farm for a living so I enjoy the “diesel therapy”. That being said, I agree, at least say thank you to the tractor guys in your club. They have way more invested than most people think. I just spent $200 to repair my bush hog damaged when I hit some rough ground when putting in a new field that one of the members insisted that we needed to plant. Funny that the same member had corn and a camera out within a day of cutting said field. He did at least offer to come out and help with the repair (physically not financially)

I agree......Most folks make planting way harder than it has to be

Absolutely. And the ones who grew up in Birmingham will be the first to tell a farmer how to do it right. If the deer are already well fed and aren't mowing down your existing plots, adding another one is just a new "pretty" green and open spot to hunt. It didn't create a new mounter or lure him in from the neighbor.

I think clubs are better off when people take care of their own areas. It makes things competitive. People will go extra miles when it's theirs and they're trying to outdo than they will if it's a shared project. So, overall you got more and better done in the spirit of competition than the drudgery of work days. I'm at the point that if a club has work days, I'm not joining.

I do participate in one because we have the place in exchange for keeping it up and the whole project is about all that's keeping a couple of the older dudes going. It's more elder care than hunt club work day. When they're out, I'm out.

I'm not going to go in the the number of ways tractor dudes are annoying, even though there are clear positives. It's just part of the pile of nonsense you always have in hunt clubs.

That’s right!! Most seeds we plant in food plots will grow on concrete. They dang sure grow good in the bed of the truck or where you spilled some on that red dirt road where nothing g else in the world will grow. It ain’t rocket surgery.

After spending the last two days on a tractor, I’d want way more than a small discount off club dues.

It aint rocket surgery but it is soil science.....A little bit of knowledge goes a long ways......And you're correct, most things we plant will come up really easy.....Way more labor is spent on planting than need be in many instances......and then that's what leads to the tractor guys complaining

Yes Sir I agree, stopped that years ago. I had 2 tractors and used both, got abused said heck with that.

I damn sure wouldn't be maintaining nothing without a huge discount on a membership. People don't realize how much shit costs especially these days. They damn sure do not know how much maintenance is involved in maintaining equipment, storing it, hauling it, loading it, unloading it, repairs and breakdowns. Not to mention the years of learning it took to know how to do good work.

Those tractors aren't designed for road maintenance or breaking new ground. Even excavating rental equipment ain't good enough for a job like that if you're expecting professional results. Those pieces of equipment at the rental places have been turned down so they don't destroy themselves and they aren't the same quality as a CAT, Komatsu, Takakuchie or Volvo skid steer, dozer or trackhoe. There's a reason why all the professional outfits only use Cat, Komatsu or Volvo. Or Takakuchie skid steers. John Deere, Case, New Holland and all the other brands are just home owner grade equipment. It's light weight stuff that aint designed to be ran all day everyday. I run all types of commercial equipment and even the biggest baddest dozers struggle to cut new ground if it's red dirt or Churt. We have to run rippers across it or cut it out with trackhoes. I run a wide track 2024 D5 that replaced the big D6Ts and it won't cut a tenth of dirt if it's extremely hard ground. Some spots are just hard. Ain't no way a tractor is gonna do anything except rattle itself apart.

People will flat out bleed you dry if you let them. Especially those silver spoon idiots that clubs are full of these days. They have no idea about hard work or the value of a dollar.

No sir. They are tired of others tearing up their chit and being taken for granted. The annoying member is the gated subdivision guy who’s watched two YouTube videos.