if you guys paid for the well and the electricity, I'd think you've earned the right to discuss the feeding with him. Perhaps you guys should invite him out for a meeting / discussion and a steak Friday night of gun opener and see if a mutually agreeable solution can be reached. Ask him if he can either feed after the morning hunt (10 or so?) or closer to the gate. He likely doesn't realize the hopper spooks the deer.

we asked our cattle guy to feed away from our house. His chutes and pens are connected to some sheds behind the house and he keeps his minerals in the pen. We just asked him to drop bales well away from that area so they don't crap everywhere.

Thats like a MEGA X2

If yal lease hunters shelled out the cash to drill a well and run electric service to it then I think that land owner better be more than willing to work with you, give you a heck of a lease rate, and be willing to lock in a looooooong term contract with yal and work out feeding times and locations to be acceptable to both parties. That is a big investment, dont make demands, but I think you have some barganing power here.

matt

You can't expect the landowner to move his cattle for hunters. You can expect him to move back their feeding times til 9 AM or so.

Cows are a PITA when it comes to deer hunting (and most any other activity for that matter) but unless the landowner agreed to remove them as a condition of the lease agreement then it's not reasonable to expect him to remove them now.

Fence them out of camp and ask the landowner if he could feed after 10AM and before 3PM on weekends.

That changes the scenario considerably.

It also emphasizes the importance of a written contract covering all the specifics and variables.
Do you have a copy?
Doesn't it state something about these issues you're having?

The money y'all invested in his property increases it's overall worth, he should be grateful and work with y'all.
Leave and he still benefits from every aspect of your investment long term.

Before we put water & elec on a lease some years ago the contract was re worded stating specifics about the improvements and included a $400 per year for 4 years decrease in cost. At that time this covered 100% of what we spent.
When the 4 years was up he tripled the price, we left, he had it leased in 3 days.
He was an easy to get along with helpful great guy too.

It sounds like y'all have a old contract that wasn't updated to include specifics of the improvements. Could be the lease boss aint doing his job, updating the contract looking out for the interest of the hunters should be part of his job.


I wouldn't chap the LO's arse now that water & elec is at camp, he can get new hunters willing to pay more in a flash.

Well put

This is why our place was removed from the lease pool. I also know of quite a few other ranchers that quit leasing because the hunters wanted "cattle free pastures". In our area I would guess there are at least 10 ranches that are not leased because of this issue.

Supply and demand, less land available, the higher the lease price.

This is what "lease agreements" are for!

If this wasn't disscussed at the time you signed up for the lease you are pretty much out of luck.

Good luck looking for your next lease and make sure cattle issues are in the next lease agreement.

Right now cattlemen are sufferring bad and feeding daily is a must as is utilizing any water available. You do have a leg to stand on if you had the well put in but only as far as negotiating maybe him paying a part of the electricity or maybe fencing off the camp. If he has several places to feed he probably has several places leased for hunting. He works on a schedule too.
I don't lease because of bad experiences with hunters thinking that by paying a lease fee which isn't enough to cover 2 months worth of feed gives the right to tell me what to do. I know a lot of ranchers that feel the same as I do so my best advice is to stay calm and ask him nicely if he could feed at a different time.

If his feeding is causing you a problem, go buy a pallet of cubes and take it to him and ask that he feed mid-day or let you do it after the morning hunt. A pallet of cubes will be less than the gas you spend getting to the ranch and will be much appreciated by the rancher.

We try to get our work done in a manner that will cause the least disturbance to our hunters by timing our trips through the pasture. During hunting season, I try to keep out of most areas during the weekends but wrecks do happen. To be honest, I do not like sharing space with folks shooting high-powered rifles. :-)

On the other hand, sometimes things happen and the problem can not be adverted. As heavy as I am feeding my cattle right now, I may have to cross paths with my hunters this year more then any of us would like. As far as fencing, I fence all my protein feeders and have fenced off all of the camps. Hunters are free to put feeders/blinds anywhere on the ranch except near the ranch house and they can fence them off if so desire. Some feeders are fenced, some are not. Hogs are tough on those not fenced and I often gather up pieces and parts and leave them at their camp.

I spooked some deer one weekday morning last year while feeding. As I left the area, I glanced over at a blind and was surprised to see a hunter. He and I waved at each other and I went on my way. Later I discovered his truck parked in a spot different from the normal parking spot for this blind. But I would be willing to bet that the deer came back to the feeder as soon as I left. Sxxx happens!

I can kind of understand Saturday morning and not realizing it was bow season but to do it again Sunday morning before 9:00 seemed a little disrespectful after he was informed we were hunting. We actually put an end to us using motorized vehicles during hunting season unless you are retrieving game or filling feeders. I had my youngest son with me in the blind and trying to keep him quiet and still for two hours was a lot of work to have them deer run out of the area soon after getting there was probably the most frustrating part. He was so excited to be that close to the deer I thought he was going to hyperventilate.

Communication is the key, we hunters need to understand that cows are the real money maker for the land owner. Most of the wildlife is used to the normal routine on the ranch and are not affected much by it. The land owner (or in my case the guy that leases the grazing rights) should be reasonable about working with hunters but always offer solutions to what we think is an issue, not just bitch about problems.

As a land owner heres what I do with our leasees. They have a campsite, three bedroom house, c/h and a/c water and elect. I feed every other day. I have specified feeding places not anywhere in their line of fire or close to their stands. I'm going to tend to the cows regardless of what is going on. If I hear any carping about anything, as long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to do and them doing the same, the hunters won't be on the lease next year! I have had deer stand and watch me feed from a distance. There is some give and take to be had on both sides. I agree with redchevy.

As posted before I would go to the rancher and politely ask if you (the hunters) can feed the cattle for him on the days hunters are in camp. Ask him to show you how, where, and how much. Dont be shy about telling him why you ask. If he agrees after every cattle feeding give him a call and let him know it was done. Also, if any hunters see something wrong (sick or injured live stock or well not working/leaking) give him a call and if you see a down fence fix it then call him and tell him where it was down (why down if know) and let him know it is fixed. Little thing like that will possible let him know you can help be the eyes, ears, and hands while there hunting. I have never owned any land but worked for ranches and often part of my job was to find reason to be on the part leased to hunter at least once a day to keep an eye out on the hunters.

my stand used to be on the road to the rest of the pasture so i always had traffic whether the rancher or other hunters coming by my feeder, they would even sometimes stop to admire my deer at the feeder before they would see me in the stand ( they alway apologized profusely for that ) but w/in 15-20 min of them leavin i usually had just as many deer back at the feeder and sometimes different ones,,,,, thought of it as just a good shuffle

I have the same issue but just have to deal with it. The cattle come before deer hunting for sure on our place. The owner has stated every year that all cattle will be removed or locked up at the front of the property, but never happens...and yes this guy has thousands of acres to relocate. One positive note though..it seems the game is use to seeing these trucks and tractors drive across our open pastures daily. They have tried to limit coming out on the weekends but in some cases have to when water pumps break, need to repair fences, ect.. Nothing in the contract to prevent it... I've signed it, I'll deal with it.

be still and relaxe, dont get busted and u usually turn out alright biggest deer on ranch were always taken out of that stand

10,000 acres

Did you have any kind of written agreement with him discussing any details as such?

Like he said, if they feed every day or 2 the deer might spook for a little bit, but they will be back to their routine by the time he clears the gate.

I'm on an oil lease. The guy that checks the pumps usually only comes on the weekends. The road to the pump is about 100 yds from my bow stand.

Last year, there was a doe I wanted to shoot at about 50 yds. When he drove by, she spooked and ran toward me and stopped at about 20 yds to look in his direction. I sure was glad he spooked her. Have to buy him a beer, when I catch him off duty.

Spooked deer aren't always a bad thing!

It is good to hear everyone's input. Great forum with great people.

Speaking of oil leases and land owners, this isn't directed at anyones post in particular but, you might want to rethink going and complaining about anything to the land owner.

I'm on one of those leases and have relatives that are also on land that have oil leases, and with the big oil shale boom in south Texas there are a whole lot of ranchers that are now richer than they ever dreamed they would be, and they will have little patience with a bunch of sniviling complaining hunters.

One land owner I know warned his deer lease manager of just that scenerio, and told him he didn't need the hunters now, and that he would not tolerate any complaints about too much truck traffic activity or whatever, and that he had more money than he could count because of the oil, but he would continue to lease as long as the hunters didn't make his life miserable.

You don't have to believe this, but if you don't, go ahead and test your land owner and see what happens!

So the bottom line is, if your land owner is getting oil money I would keep my mouth shut and just keep on keeping on!

Just my .02 cents. I have been in the scenario before. Most of the time, (In my case) the landowner has been feeding his cattle the same way for years, and most likely leased the land to hunters for years. I have watched deer at my feeder get spooked as he was driving around feeding, but they either go a little ways out of site and then come back, or just stand there and look at him. As stated above, perhaps he didn't know it was the 1st day of hunting. I don’t know about anybody else, but if I was the land owner, I wouldn't want to p*** any of the hunters off by feeding during hunting times. It's hard to fight a 270 shell flying at you accidently. I agree with the take him out to a steak dinner, and try to hash it all out like adults. He may just not realize.