I am looking for a (needle in the haystack) deer lease for 8-10 guys possibly 12 guys....looking for something around 250-300 acres per hunter....so around 3000-3600 total acres. Preferred areas are from Mason/Junction on the northern line to south Texas. Year round access. Long term mgmt minded and we provide all of our own blinds, protein feeders, corn feeders etc and keep them filled year round. Family oriented.

Good luck! The search can be tough! I was searching myself, as the landowner of my current lease is selling. I contacted friends, taxidermy shops, meat processors, feed stores, realtors, etc, with no luck. Finally I lucked into a lead a friend gave me and it lead to a new 2000ac place I will start moving my stuff to in a month. I have no idea whether it will be any good or not, but "a bird in the hand…" It's only 45 miles from my current lease so the move won't be too bad. But, we've got a LOT of stuff to move!!!

I hope you find what you're looking for!

I don't know your specific situation but with that many guys you should consider buying your own property instead of leasing. You might be surprised at what you can afford and have the freedom to do what you want with the property instead of working within someone else's rules.

Dang, any room for a few more?

I have been searching HARD for years now and nothing. Places are either too far or way too much. Almost had a place through AMR/Scott Huggins but then saw his contract.

BTW, anyone else with any experience with Scott Huggins? There are some bad reviews here and there online on him and in my short experience can confirm some of them. His contract was un-signable. He seems to also manage half/most of Brady/Menard/Junction areas so impossible to find something not managed by him. I don't understand why land owners use him and wish they wouldn't. Would like to lease directly from a landowner.

No experience with the guy but an un-signable contract for the lessee sounds like a good one for land owner.

Ag_07 said:

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No experience with the guy but an un-signable contract for the lessee sounds like a good one for land owner.

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It wasn't for land owner. It was for Scott's company, AMR (Adventures Missions and Retreats).

Basically have to give up your 1st Amendment rights (could not talk about Scott or his company in any disparaging way either online or to media source, etc.), if you talk to the land owner directly your lease gets canceled and you owe Scott double the lease amount, very strict management program that requires you to know the age of the deer in question, if you are not sure you have to send pic of buck to Scott for prior approval, if you mess up there are $1000 fines, no jaw of a buck can leave the ranch... I can go on and on...

jpb1999 said:

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Dang, any room for a few more?

I have been searching HARD for years now and nothing. Places are either too far or way too much. Almost had a place through AMR/Scott Huggins but then saw his contract.

BTW, anyone else with any experience with Scott Huggins? There are some bad reviews here and there online on him and in my short experience can confirm some of them. His contract was un-signable. He seems to also manage half/most of Brady/Menard/Junction areas so impossible to find something not managed by him. I don't understand why land owners use him and wish they wouldn't. Would like to lease directly from a landowner.

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I don't have any openings my friend. If I did, I'd sure talk to you about it. I know your frustration well. I can relate to the "too far away and/or too much" problem. I ended up having to compromise and expand my self-imposed distance limitations to find a suitable place that I could also afford.

I've never heard of this AMR/SH you speak of and haven't searched for leases in that area of the state, but based on your description, I would never agree to his terms or deal with such hassles either.

ghollow said:

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I don't know your specific situation but with that many guys you should consider buying your own property instead of leasing. You might be surprised at what you can afford and have the freedom to do what you want with the property instead of working within someone else's rules.

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I've looked at that possibility several times, and although on the surface it sounds appealing, each time I do the math it never works out. First, as stated above, I don't want to go into a business deal with that many people. Second, for the acreage needed, it always works out to each person being on the hook for around $450,000. With a large group, you then have the problem of what to do when someone later wants out, what if you end up having major disagreements on how things should be done, what if a member dies, and on and on. It's tough to get a large group to always be in sync with the goals long-term. That on top of the problem of getting the loan approved to the group entity as mentioned.

I do not have any experience with leasing an entire place from Scott, but I did hunt one season on their "membership" leases several years ago. At the time, you had access to 4 or 5ranches across the hill country totaling 20,000+ acres. There were ~100 memberships and each membership was allowed 2 WT bucks and 2 does. You could substitute your 2 WT bucks for 1 male Axis or Blackbuck and your does could also be substituted for Axis does. My wife loved the accommodations compared to our run down camper at our previous lease, but the animals weren't what we were expecting. We were told they killed multiple 140-160" deer yearly and would restock the ranches (HF) with the equivalent size deer to what was killed the year before. I never saw anything with more than 6 points out there. I ended up killing a 26" Axis on the last weekend of season, but that was it.

You also only had 16 "hunting" days throughout the season and you could only hunt Thursday through Sunday each week. All stands were community stands and you had to sign up online to reserve your spot. Opening weekend of gun season, after an 8 hour drive, I show up to find out they double booked the hunting area I had reserved. Thankfully, the other hunter was a family friend who had decided to join the lease at the same time I did, so we were able to make it work. Needless to say, I dropped my membership after season.

I also know that they offer day hunts and based on pictures of the lodging in the advertisements, I have a hunch that those hunts are occurring on the same ranches as the membership leases. I asked Scott about it and he said the pictures were for advertising only. I had a buddy go on an unsuccessful Axis day hunt with him but he couldn't tell me exactly where the ranch was that he hunted on, so I can't confirm whether that is the case or not.

Yep, looked into the membership as well, but heard from others, like you, that did not have a good experience and dropped after a year.

I have also caught Scott in lies here and there. Really wanted the lease to work out, but just can't deal with him anymore or sign one of his contracts.

I wish the word would get out about it and land owners would stop using him. If so, there would be plenty of deer leases to go around for everyone on the Texags OB. I am thinking once a landowner signs a contract with him, it is hard to get out of it based on the wording in the contract he gave me. With the "non-disparaging" clause in the contract, I think it is keeping people from bad mouthing him online. There are a few things here and there, but not much. Supposedly, he also has legal issues with paying bills from time to time, actually probably constantly. Not sure if he is a crook, or just incompetent and can't keep up with his books/billings. Based on his lies to me AND his ridiculous contract, I am leaning on a crook.

It is really frustrating.

Thaddeus Beauregard said:

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ghollow said:

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I don't know your specific situation but with that many guys you should consider buying your own property instead of leasing. You might be surprised at what you can afford and have the freedom to do what you want with the property instead of working within someone else's rules.

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I've looked at that possibility several times, and although on the surface it sounds appealing, each time I do the math it never works out. First, as stated above, I don't want to go into a business deal with that many people. Second, for the acreage needed, it always works out to each person being on the hook for around $450,000. With a large group, you then have the problem of what to do when someone later wants out, what if you end up having major disagreements on how things should be done, what if a member dies, and on and on. It's tough to get a large group to always be in sync with the goals long-term. That on top of the problem of getting the loan approved to the group entity as mentioned.

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If I were going to go down this path again, I would get just a few trusted (possibly family) members to actually purchase the land together. The others would be paying members. If someone wanted out, I doubt it would be hard to replace them based on what I have seen on this board over the years.

Land is a great investment. It rarely ever loses value. We have owned our property for 40 years. Land we paid $275/acre for 40 years ago is now selling around us in the $4000 to $5000/acre range. Loans on land are extremely reasonable and pretty easy to get. There is also the possibility of leasing the grazing and/or farming rights which will allow you an ag exemption on the property taxes. We have a neighbor who grazes cattle on our place during the spring and summer. We have hunting rights on his place for payment.

Having the freedom to do what you want to do on your own place and improve it the way you want without having to put up with someone else's rules comes with a price.

RikkiTikkaTagem said:

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MyNameIsJeff said:

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jpb1999 said:

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Ag_07 said:

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No experience with the guy but an un-signable contract for the lessee sounds like a good one for land owner.

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It wasn't for land owner. It was for Scott's company, AMR (Adventures Missions and Retreats).

Basically have to give up your 1st Amendment rights (could not talk about Scott or his company in any disparaging way either online or to media source, etc.), if you talk to the land owner directly your lease gets canceled and you owe Scott double the lease amount, very strict management program that requires you to know the age of the deer in question, if you are not sure you have to send pic of buck to Scott for prior approval, if you mess up there are $1000 fines, no jaw of a buck can leave the ranch... I can go on and on...

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Scott must be a friend of Brad, Mitch, and Jerry.

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AMR actually stands for brAd, Mitch, JeRry

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That does seriously ring of that same deal, doesn't it?

Do a search on TBH, lots of mixed reviews of AMR posted there.

ghollow said:

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Thaddeus Beauregard said:

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ghollow said:

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I don't know your specific situation but with that many guys you should consider buying your own property instead of leasing. You might be surprised at what you can afford and have the freedom to do what you want with the property instead of working within someone else's rules.

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I've looked at that possibility several times, and although on the surface it sounds appealing, each time I do the math it never works out. First, as stated above, I don't want to go into a business deal with that many people. Second, for the acreage needed, it always works out to each person being on the hook for around $450,000. With a large group, you then have the problem of what to do when someone later wants out, what if you end up having major disagreements on how things should be done, what if a member dies, and on and on. It's tough to get a large group to always be in sync with the goals long-term. That on top of the problem of getting the loan approved to the group entity as mentioned.

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If I were going to go down this path again, I would get just a few trusted (possibly family) members to actually purchase the land together. The others would be paying members. If someone wanted out, I doubt it would be hard to replace them based on what I have seen on this board over the years.

Land is a great investment. It rarely ever loses value. We have owned our property for 40 years. Land we paid $275/acre for 40 years ago is now selling around us in the $4000 to $5000/acre range. Loans on land are extremely reasonable and pretty easy to get. There is also the possibility of leasing the grazing and/or farming rights which will allow you an ag exemption on the property taxes. We have a neighbor who grazes cattle on our place during the spring and summer. We have hunting rights on his place for payment.

Having the freedom to do what you want to do on your own place and improve it the way you want without having to put up with someone else's rules comes with a price.

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All great points, and I'd love to be able to do that, but the fact remains I simply don't have the $ to do that and neither does anyone else in my group of friends. Any way you slice it, it always works out to a $400,000 - $500,000 investment for each member for any property I've looked at, and I've looked at a lot of them. If I could do that, I would've already done it.

My buddy has deer in his yard around canyon lake .. you want to hunt his back yard ? He would be happy if someone killed all those things .. like cats over there

jpb1999 said:

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Yep, looked into the membership as well, but heard from others, like you, that did not have a good experience and dropped after a year.

I have also caught Scott in lies here and there. Really wanted the lease to work out, but just can't deal with him anymore or sign one of his contracts.

I wish the word would get out about it and land owners would stop using him. If so, there would be plenty of deer leases to go around for everyone on the Texags OB. I am thinking once a landowner signs a contract with him, it is hard to get out of it based on the wording in the contract he gave me. With the "non-disparaging" clause in the contract, I think it is keeping people from bad mouthing him online. There are a few things here and there, but not much. Supposedly, he also has legal issues with paying bills from time to time, actually probably constantly. Not sure if he is a crook, or just incompetent and can't keep up with his books/billings. Based on his lies to me AND his ridiculous contract, I am leaning on a crook.

It is really frustrating.

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Never attribute to malice that which can be easily explained by incompetence.