Im thinking about getting out of "clubs" and getting a private lease.

There are several postives and negatives I see to this.

Positives:
1)You dont have to worry about where you are going to hunt. (if you are going to be able to get where you want to be)
2) Make your own harvest rules & manage how you want.
3) just dont have to put up with other people in general.

Negatives:
1) The club I'm in has some of the best turkey hunting you will ever find.
2) Not going to have as much land to hunt. Not as big of a deal for deer, but it is for turkeys (and I'm one of these people who get bored with tracts of land quickly).
3) Have to put in the time to plant food plots yourself, and do all yearly preperation yourself.
4) The club im in is in a prime location and is one of the largest clubs left. 13,000 acres in one chunk.

What say yeh? Pros & Cons I may have missed? Just a general opinion.?

I have had private leases before, but never have I not been in a club as well as the lease.

I've done the club thing for most of my adult life. if you can afford to have your own place and implement your own management program you will be a lot happier . nothing like being at work all week and a club member sitting in your climber while you are not there.

Like you said, good and bad to each.

I do both, being in a club and also having a small lease. The only difference is I've been in the club I'm in now for three years and haven't met another member yet. They hunt theirs and I hunt mine. I aim to keep it that way.

I'm kinda in the same boat but my club is 800 acres.How many members in your club?

I have 96 acres that only I can hunt, I run one club and am a member in another club. That being said they all have plus and minuses but if yo.u can find the right property and have the time and money to do it right I would give it a shot.

52 members, but thats still a 250 acre per member average. More than most clubs.

plus a good many of our members are out of staters. We dont have a ton of pressure.

Private lease is the way to go...I've done it for years..I'm still a member of a club if you want to call it that, 900+ acres and 4 members that actually hunt...but I have several small private leases I personally lease..
Pros are: see more deer, kill more deer, do it your way, no bitc%^&* and complaining from members, etc... opening weekend is pretty much guarenteed because the deer have been in the fields eating everyday with no one is riding all over "scouting", farting, looking at deer tracks in the field, etc..my boy "11" has killed a good buck every year on opening weekend for the last 3 years, last year he killed a 120"...of course that is with almost no pressure on the land...
Cons: of course if you only lease say 150 acres, of course you can't hunt it every weekend without putting too much pressure on it, so to do it right, you will need a couple of leases which can obviously get expensive, of course there is obviously a lot more work that has to be done by yourself to keep it up and that gets old quick!...just my 2 cents

Private land is great for less headaches but it's easy to over pressure a private lease unless you've got some DEEP pockets.

Perfect world: Get a handful of like minded buddies, WRITE COMPREHENSIVE RULES BEFORE ANY LAND IS LEASED, then get together and lease some land. No boss, all equal voters, go by the WRITTEN rules. Yes somebody will still get pissed, but majority rule, no dictators and no cliques.

Get 1 person to split it with, its expensive but no drama

You would be hard to find anywhere better for turkeys than where you are. All i would say is make sure your lease is in a proven area even if this means you have to wait on one to come open. Most timber company lands are crap. And i dont care if you have a place to yourself if its in a bad location then its going to be tuff to kill big deer. I have never been in a club but my guess is the thought of having someone shoot deer that i pass up would drive me nuts!

How about paying just for turkey hunting on your club? Take the leftover $ and get a deer or duck lease.

Dr. B

My club wont allow Turkey only memberships. It will NEVER happen lol

I havent been in a club in probably 8 years, I put the money towards a trip out west or AK every year. Been to NM a couple of times, TX and AK so far. I will also hunt public land/WMA
to fill the voids. I just cant justify it anymore, spending thousands to kill a whitetail.
Not going anywhere this year, went to NM and AK last year. But next year, ITS ON JACK!!!

The best thing I ever did was lease my own place. Its a lot of work and expense but well worth it.

Am curious....Timber companies own approximately 50% of all huntable land in Alabama. Most of the working class stiffs like me can only afford to lease timber land to hunt. Are we doomed to hunt only "crap" land? My two best friends and I lease 400 acres of pine plantation in lower Alabama. We enjoy the work, time, and fellowship. Is it top of the line hunting land? No way. Do we see good deer? Yep. The main positive.....its not a hunting club with BS rules and loaded with asshats. To us, thats a far cry from "crap".

I have both. It hard to afford a big enough Tract to manage yourself. If I could afford it I would just buy a huge farm and manage it perfect. I have around 800 acres total of private land (3 tracts) and Im in two clubs. One is 4500 acres and one is 1200. I like having a lot of places to go. Private land is hard to beat, zero drama.

It's my 3rd year with just myself, my dad, and bro in law. It's a great thing we have. You don't have near the crap or yaya to deal with. I also miss some of the "campfire stories" and all the good things that come along with a GOOD group of guys. We have 700 acres between us, and that's plenty IF you have good neighbors.

This is what we did, there are 3 of us that hunt 500+ acres.

ShaneB, most of the land in this part of the world that's owned by big timber co's isnt very good for deer. I have some land that i turkey hunt thats owned by a timber co. and its great for turkeys. If you got a property that has any size to it im sure you could turn it into something but most of it is shot up and have 1/4 acre food plots and thick as hell. There are some exceptions but with the prices usually a lot lower if they are good they are not available. These tracts you hear about and seem to open up every couple of years open up for a reason. Around here they do a lot of sub-leasing. Guys get a piece of property and if its good then they keep it and when times are hard they find some out of town/state group and sub-lease it until they want to hunt it again and they kick them off. Weyerhaeuser land is all sub-leased up here. So knowing where teamduckdown hunts now, i wouldnt think he can find anything from a timber co. around here that would be very good in comparison to what he's hunting now. I should'nt have used the term crap, maybe quality would have been more accurate. In other parts of the state you might be able to find good hunting land owned by big timber co. for $7 an acre, in Wilcox not the case.

The right lease can be great. That being said I also lease 350 acres and it is great being able to "do as you please" I enjoy doing all the planting by myself (other than the money).