number of guns on a lease

How many guns do you prefer on 1200- 1600ac? What about a 4000ac ranch?

Reason for asking is the lease I got off of was suppose to have only 8 guns. I found out after the dues were paid that there were 10 1/2 guns. Can't see where they get a half a gun when that hunter can hunt any blind they want as if he/she was a paid gun.

I can only feel sorry for the guys that got on that lease in Spofford. Have warned a few, but ya can't warn them all.

I told them that the reason I was getting off was because of the 11 guns and only seeing does w/ few to no mature bucks. Their comment was that they didn't hunt that much and that it was OK for them to add the extra guns.

It should be based on the deer numbers on the p,lac e and the type of habitat.

On some places 4 hunters on 1200 acres would be maximum. On others 10 or 12 hunters would not be too many on 1200 acres.

Too many varibles for a "One Size Fits All Answer".

True that its to hard to give an answer but I know what you mean, I have am lucky that I have never had to be on a lease however I have seen people that will hunt 6-8 people on a 160ac lease and wonder why the land owner gets pissed.

When your told 8 guns and can try to prepare for a full crew is one thing. When they tell you 8 guns and put 11 guns that is WRONG.

Our new lease is 4k ac w/ some areas off limits for hunting. We hunt our own blind an have maybe 2 guns per 2k ac pasture. Only bad thing is one area has been enlarged from what we were told. Deposits are in and we've made adjustments for the change. It maybe good to help keep the deer on our ranch w/ a secure area for them to rest. Maybe we need 2 less guns for next year and up our dues to absorb the 2 less guns. Any oppinions on this?

did you sign a lease agreement?

every lease I've been on specifies the number of people hunting, and the acreage. If either of those were off (especially number of hunters), and there wasn't some good reason, I'd be getting off, and possibly getting my money back

I'd look at variables first...if you're on a high fence place with no cattle, protein feeding, and a good deer population, then you could handle the number of guns per acre. However, most places are not that way.

A lot depends on the type of lease you have or want to be on. On our lease you can shoot a trophy every 2 years but it's less than a lot of leases. We shoot really great deer every year, but know that the land can only produce so many trophies.

I'd expect 4-6 guns on a 1200 acre lease. 8 if 1600, but that's stretching it a bit as well.

Depends on location but I'm wary of a lease with less than 350 acres per hunter.

If you do not like what others are doing with the lease get your own place or become lease boss.

The numbers of hunters on any given place depends entirely on the cover. I've seen places that could accomodate 1 hunter for every 50 acres, then again, I've seen places that are void of tress and could prolly only handle 1 for every 1000 acres. My lease is 1000 acres and we have 16 hunters. But then again, 2 don't hunt Deer. 5 only came to the ranch 1 time this year. One never came at all.

I think it really boils down to the hunter's goals...meat or horns. If you're after meat then pile the hunters on. If you're after horns then the fewer the better.

we figure 3 bucks per section so the number of guns is determined by how many sections we have for lease.