EVERY ......let me think about it......YES.....EVERY hunter I know in NC baits. I have nothing against it. Nothing.

And you're right. I have NEVER heard someone from a baiting-legal state (meaning ....someone who actually KNEW something about the practice) have this mindset. They know better.

I just wonder if I "would" be at a disadvantage.....if 14 parcels held bait and mine didn't. I can't plant anything, either. No place. I asked.

I'm gonna look it over and see.

Interesting read...My family owns 186 acres of the same type of mountainous terrain. Its bordered by state game land and other private land. Sometimes it feels like is ten acres. I am trying to manage and hold deer with some success but I have had better hunts on smaller tracts that I have gotten permission to hunt on. What I am saying is that make sure you take a good walk around to see what the borders of the property look like. You will know when you see untouched areas or remnants of stands and or candy wrappers.

Bait to a sanctuary doesn't mean you have to hunt over it.

Too many unknowns to make an appropriate decision at this time. I'll be interested in your report after you visit the place. Take a digital camera and takes some pictures to post here when you get back.

$700 a person for a lease seems high to me, but I do realize that leases go for different amounts in different parts of the country (supply and demand and all that). Here in WV, I've never heard of anyone paying over $500 a person for ANY lease. My own lease (3500 acres - 36 members) is only $250 per person and 100-inch plus deer are not only common, but are plentiful. I just amazes me that anyone would pay $1000 to $5000 a person for an average lease.

similar thing where we hunt, we lease aneighboring section to our cousins peice, so between us we have almost 400acres, if it was our deal, we'd do the same, set up a couple sanctuaries, and everyone could hunt everything, but not what he wants, he want's to hunt his, and we hunt ours, needless to say things could be better, oh well.

And how much would it go up in succeeding years? Unless it's a long term lease with a set price it will go up, especially if the others get a better offer.

Jeff, is this a Timber company lease? It sounds a lot like the way my lease is set up. Nearly everyone on my lease has feeders setup. My lease is $740/membership.

Feel free to PM or email me if you want to.

I'm workin nights (7pm-7am) though, so my responses won't come til tonight.

Waid

We pay 1200$ a yr for 1000 acres in georgia but we can hunt all over it and it's mainly my family so not to many problems. Then again 100+ inch deer are pretty common with 125" to 130" being pretty normal, and theres only 7 of us.

You definitely should go look at it. As far as the cost goes, it depends on the area of the U.S. that the ground is located in. I am in on a lease with 10 guys for 420 acres. Some of the guys are only in it for the waterfowl hunting, some only for the turkey hunting. We all get along great and have had ZERO problems "crowding" each other. Luckily, one of the guys in on the lease is a close friend of mine who owns 200 acres that runs right in to what we lease, so that opens up a little more ground. We can plant food plots and pretty much do whatever we want. We do have a minimum antler rule in place, and we try to take at least two does each. Back to the cost thing, since the ground is in the state where we all know there is a B&C buck behind every tree [:@], it runs us $10,000 for 420 acres.

I think you may have bad a mistake saying no before going out and checking to see what they had going on. 146 acres per person is plenty of ground. I know here in Illinois you would not be able to get 150 acres for $700, I don't care how bad the ground is. Before I would have said no, I would have looked into a little more. Asked questions such as, are they allowed to bring guest, if so how many. I would have put a boot on the ground and taken a look at what they were offering me. Sure, one of the other guys may have switched tracts, but I doubt they are offering up a dead 150 acres. Once you are in and another opening is available, you could have been the guy to get to switch. Might be worth a call back and see if you can at least look into it.