wear

Sounds like a great deal. You just have to check the lay of the land. I hunt about 25 miles NW of Mark Twain in Shelby County. Farm land up there usually consists of about 25% woods to 75% fields.(Give or take) 6 guys would be about the max.
Let us know how this goes. Good luck.

bscofield

I think I just may have come up with the solution!! I think that most of the guys who have signed up are rifle hunters. Which means they pack out the place for maximum 2 weekends, help pay the lease and then leave the place to me and 3 other bow hunters for the rest of bow season after rifle season! This might just work out. Now we just have to look at the land

Wear, this isn' t farm land, it' s a cattle ranch. Do those have pretty much the same layout as what you said about farm land?

Rangeball

bscofield, can you get the area of the farm, and call the county CSFS office, they are the federal department that handles farm recording for farmers. They maintain aerial photographs of all the land in the county, and if you give them the coordinates, they should be able to mail you a copy of the pic. That would be the best way I know to get a feel for the layout of the land without making the drive.

You could even perhaps find the pic on the net, but most of the good sites seem to have gone pay per view...

Angus74

Im from Mo also but about 1 1/2 hour South of I-70, Ive been in that area before and it has a lot of open land, and you said it was a serious farmer, so I assume it has a lot of open ground on it. The price is good but if its open it will be hard to hide 12 hunters, and just plain dangerous in rifle season. I can also understand not being able to afford 500 a year, but the more money you and a few others can scrape together the better youll be. My lease is 600 acres of half open half timber and brush, we hunt it with 6 or seven people, but we got a steal at 1200.00. Anyway you look at it, you should take it. As for running the deer around to each other, that might work for about an hour, then the deer will get the idea and leave the farm completely, and stand the chance of being shot by someone else, you need to try your best to keep the deer there and undisturbed. If you have to hunt with a lot of people, maybe you can draw straws to see who hunts each day and only have 5 or six hunting each day. Just an idea.

bscofield

He' s a cattle rancher so I' m not sure how the layout will be as far as the open field/woods ratio... We' re planning on going out to see it next weekend.

ijimmy

If its all deep woods I would think about 4-6 wuold be good . 12 is way too many , We had 8 on a 1000 acer lease last weekend , all deep woods and it was just about right , of coarse it depends on the members , a couple bad eggs can ruin it , make sure you have some hard and fast rules with concequinces for beaking them . In georgia they get $10 an acer .

wear

If the land has a good amount of cattle on it for a long length of time, the low level bush and grasses won' t be there for deer to browse on. Like you said, you' re going to have to check it out first. Hope it works out for you.

SW Iowa Hunter

No matter how many people you have on a lease you better have a policy on visitors. This will come up quickly. So and So wants to bring his son, a friend, wife, ect. The more people the bigger pain in the butt. I would think the 100 acres per person would be ideal but 50 is alright if there is enough timber for everyone to get a ways away from each other. Have a set of rules at the start though it will save alot of problems later on.

MI_Bowhunter

for $2000 I' d keep it all to myself. Well maybe my brother, and maybe my dad, and maybe..

no more than 6. that is affordable.

hvyhitter19

Sounds like GREAT Deal to me... I paid $200 for 140 acres with like 8 people... We killed alot of deer on the farm that year, so we opted not to lease it again... But 600 acres for $160 I might be interested.