Have run an awesome lease for many years. I have had to try to find good hunters and members. I went through a pretty stringent process to find a new member if we needed to find someone new.

I Always met with them face to face. Then I did a background check on them (I know........ a little overboard but I want to know who this person is that is going to be living with all of us for a 3 month season). I learned that many folks can talk the talk but not walk the walk.

Overall, the vast majority of the new members we added ended up being awesome people and members. But there are always exceptions.

Our worst one??? I let a guy join us and all he did all season was bitch about everything. Guy signed a lease agreement that outlined all of the rules and requirements but from the get go he started bitching.

So at the end of the season I sent an email out to all members asking who planned on coming back for the next season. This guy emails me that even though he was very disappointed with the lease and the deer he would give it one more year.

LOL - I emailed him back and said "no SIr - if you are not happy then we do not want you to return. So you are not invited back for next season period. Goodbye.

Next thing I know I get a certified letter from his attorney asking for his buy in money back. So I sent a copy of the lease agreement that this member signed stating there are no refunds -never heard another word.

In closing - the vast majority of our lease members over many years have been awesome people who I remain friends with - but every once in awhile a bad apple shows up. If one does on your lease then fire them.

And to those here who say do not lease but just buy your own ranch - I respect that. I owned my own ranch but sold it and found this lease which I would not trade for - to each his own

Nothing too crazy, just the typical lazy SOB’s, don’t help mow, rarely feed and leave trash everywhere. Same guys show up every opening weekend and gripe they don’t see much.

Too much pressure to kill a deer not for me. I understand you have to have rules and everyone get along.
I bought my own place and glad I did.

I'm so glad I finally found a group of ex-cons with anger issues and totally disrespectful to women & children... Just kidding, they're the best.

On a serious note though, thinking back.....I think the one that always stuck with me the most was the "lease manager" on a place in Duval County. I was working at a plant in Corpus, didn't have a deer lease that year, and this guy had a last minute spot available for cheap. No time to set up my own camp etc so this older fellow offered for me to stay in his converted school bus (it was actually pretty nice). I offered to pay him for that but he declined, so OK. His buss got robbed (illegals) and he calls me at 11 pm on a work night ripping me a new [censored] because I was the last one there and it had to be me that stold his stuff. Talk about gettin' the blood pressure up. The more words I said to him on the phone the more angry and louder he got and I don't like getting yelled at, I hung up the phone. This was right before Christmas and he had told me about every item that was missing from his buss. I went and bought everything that was stolen from him, wrapped it up myself with bowes & everything, drove to his house and placed all by his front door with a card that read "Thank you Sir for letting me stay in your really cool camp house. I don't steal. Merry Christmas".

Never got a thank you.

Some people are just f'd up.

Just the drunks & tweakers

Only bad member problem I ever had was with the lease manager on a place near Huntsville. I left mid-season.

When I was kid my dad busted our property owner bringing his buddies in during the week. My dad made an unexpected mid week trip lol

I'm not sure I'd call that lazy (except the trash part). If I were to ever be on a lease, I'm under the impression my fees are going towards the owner keeping the place up. If not, I would ask for a reduction in the fee. Free access is a situation where I'd be glad to help.

Glad I have my own place and we don't lease.

Some dude from Dallas that constantly wore camo face paint and took his shirt off to rub some kind of scent crap on himself before every hunt. When he wasn't doing that he was trying to sell everyone insurance. Weird mofo, I left that lease.

You lost me since I’ve never had a turnkey lease where I just show up to hunt. Frankly, I’d be sad I was missing out on a good part of the fun

Had a couple Dbags get wasted and decided to shoot a bunch of pigs the land owner had trapped to take to market. Just left them to rot in the pen for an 80yr old man to deal with. Being lease manager my azz got the chewing. I ended up paying for his loss and kicking the idiots off the lease.

Had a quail after deer lease years ago. Lease specifically restricted deer hunters and the owner from hunting quail or training dogs on the property. We showed up for the first day we were allowed to quail hunt and had birds flushing 40 years ahead of the dogs and found new shotgun hulls, dog tracks, and boot prints all over the property.

We talked to the landowner and he told us that lease manager had been guiding hunts during the week.

What was the outcome of that?

Never experienced one. Main long term lease I was on for years there were a couple of us who traveled internationally for work a lot so could not help out or contribute often but we bought pallets of deer corn and protein to have them delivered for everyone. On occasion us travelers would pay a contractor to do certain things instead of us being there.

The other members understood it was not because we weren’t interested in helping. We were just gone, usually out of the country or just coming back and family time was important.

Property ended up selling to neighbor.

We are fortunate to have our LO fill our feeders, shred our senderos, etc. so that the members are not required to do so. Some of us still enjoy going down in the off season to do improvements but it is not required. We have community blinds.

Hey the forum was pretty slow lately so I thought I would attempt to liven it up a little

A guy who was subleasing without the landowner's knowledge or permission. Early into my fourth year of the lease, a guy shows up and claims he has the landowner's permission to hunt and will do so knowing it was currently leased. I would soon locate and contact the landowner and now I'm leasing the property directly from him. The landowner would later thank me before telling me had told the guy who showed up with the intention to hunt his land that he had only told him he would think about it. The landowner and I now stay in touch daily and have lunch about once a month.

Of course, the guy who was subleasing without the landowner's permission had to accuse me of "starting chit" by contacting the landowner.

Worst one was a guy that dated the landowner's daughter and hunted for free (never paid). He even set up a blind for his ex- stepson. He pulled in @10:30 pm with a trailer and blind on the Friday night before opening day and spent 2 hours setting it up in the middle of the 250 acres. A real POS. We were paying very little to hunt (300 bucks) so we didn`t complain. We found out that he was supposed to be paying but he never did. After 2 seasons, the landowner sent out a letter to everyone stated that he needed the $$ by a certain date or their spot would go to someone else. He never paid and we never saw him again and the sot was never filled. They just knew he didn`t have the money to pay for a spot. The landowner knew he was a POS but he had a daughter that he didn`t want to upset. He even said that if he showed up at any time to let him know.

LO son would show up on opening day with friends and think he would hunt in our blinds over our feeders. Ha!

yep

anytime you have a bunch of men who don't really know each other that well, it's just a matter of time till somebody pizzes somebody off. it NEVER works.

I only hunt with friends. Even then I can't take more than a few days with them. I'm sure they feel the same about me too.

We had a guy(s) who would never show up on workdays, never showed up to help fill feeders and when it came time to cough up corn money, they disappeared. Always late getting their lease money paid. just a royal PITA.

THEN, they would bring all their broke down grills and junk from their homes.

We got half our money back (only because of the land owner) and were allowed to finish out the season. Two of the four deer hunters on the lease did not renew because they felt if the lease manager could not be trusted on the quail hunting then they did not trust him on deer hunting. No idea if the landowner let him keep the lease.

The worst is the land owner that let's your team do all the work and improvements then kicks you off next season to lease to some others for more money.
No lease for me.

We had more issues with the land owners or lease managers than any members. For
The quoted post above and other reasons