First off... This isn' t an add!
I' m the one thinking about the lease but wanted to see if anyone could give me some advice on the whole thing before I go up to check it out. A friend of mine has gotten hooked up with the largest cattle rancher in Missouri, owns ranches all over the state. So my friend called up his wife (his contact) and asked about land to hunt on. He called back a few days later and said he had 600 acres up about 1 1/2 hours north of I-70 (in MO this is like legend land), right by mark twain lake. He' s owned it for a LONG time and has never had anyone hunting on it for as long as he' s owned it. In fact he doesn' t allow anyone to hunt on any land at all but since my friend is a long time friend of his wife' s he' s making an exception. So here' s the deal:

600 acres, 12 people, $2000.

my questions:

How' s the people to land ratio here? Is it do-able? It' s setup this way by us to drop price (now it' s about 160 per person).

Does anyone know anything about the land up there by Mark Twain? I just know that it' s next to a large national forest.

The owner says that all he knows is that there' s deer tracks EVERYWHERE. I don' t think that he would lie about it because he' s not in the land leasing business.

So what thinketh the forum council??

I don' t know the area, but given 600 acres, that is less than one square mile. I would think that 12 bow hunters there at one time would be, well, not good. Fewer hunters makes more sense to me. If you get too many hunters going and coming, seems like you' d be spooking more deer than one would want.

Check the deer harvest and BBR record for Missouri to see what kind of potential exists there, then narrow it down to 4 guys at $500 a pop, and jump all over it.

My thoughts are the same as Howlers.
If you can cut the hunters by atleast 1/2.
I know this means more out of pocket for you but your chances of seeing more deer would be greater.

Sounds good to me. That' s 50 acres per person....which is alot more than many folks have. If it' s all woods...you probably couldn' t cover it all, not to mention the fact that if it' s anything like our club(13 members)....we usually only have 3-4 hunting at once, except maybe on the rifle opener. I' d be all over it....it' s getting harder and harder to find good land to hunt on. It could turn out to be fantastic!

see that was my initial reaction but my friend' s response made sense. He said that in spooking the deer we' d just be moving them around to each other... kinda like an unintnetional drive. I just can' t handle the $500-$600 per person...

I' m not sure about MO, out here land generally leases for $1/ acre for hunting. Not sure abuout the deer density in that area but 12 people sounds like a lot. With 12 guys you have 50 acre per hunter. Do you think there would be a mature buck per 50 acres, if so, how long will that number be sustained taking 12 a year.

50 acres per hunter is not enough??? I don' t get it, if you guys do a good job dividing up who goes where, you should be fine. We have a club thats works out to about the same number and as long as those guys stay out of my area, all is good.

The thing about it is that I' m not sure we' re all " mature buck" hunters. I know at least a handful of them just want meat in the freezer. Not to say that none of htem would take the mature buck if they happened upon him.

right now I' m hunting on 6 acres with 2 other people so 50 sounds GREAT!!

$8-$15 where I hunt[:@]

My thoughts exactly. $500 per year is dirt cheap for good hunting land.