Hi, this is John Williams. It seems my club gets occasional chatter on here, so I’ll give some back story and hopefully everyone can understand the history of the club, how the club and property are currently, and form their own informed opinion.

I took over running the club two years ago. When I took over I had only 3 months to find 9 new members and pay a pricey lease. I also had to essentially start from scratch. New rules, planning and planting food plots, creating maps for new people, planning work days, etc., all while having one goal in mind - growing deer to their potential for this area. As others have mentioned, and as anyone familiar with the Woodley Road area knows, we have a lot of deer and great genetics.

It would be foolish and dishonest for me to say the first year of the club went perfect. In fact, there were a lot of growing pains - hence the frustrations that some people have expressed or said they’ve heard. They are warranted in having concerns if those concerns are based solely on the first year of the club (which they appear to be). And yes, I look back and can say I would have done some things differently if given an opportunity to revisit certain decisions that I made.

Year #2 (2023-2024) was an improvement. The buck population and quality visibly improved. Club members saw more deer on average each sitting. Members expressed favorable opinions regarding the trajectory of the club and how things were progressing.

Fast forward to Year #3 (2024-2025) which we are entering now. We are in a very different spot than the club, property, and deer herd were in Year #1. All the members that joined last year have returned this year. In fact, at our end of the season dinner in February that we host for all members, the overall sentiment from the members was that it was a very “drama free” year. Those are their words, not mine. I’d be happy to give you phone numbers to every member. Call and talk to them, don’t just take my word for it. So, now we have a great core group of guys who are all focused on working together to continue to improve the property and the deer herd, while also enjoying hunting experiences that are better than members were enjoying 2 years ago.

Here are some things we are doing to maximize our efforts to harvest trophy deer and improve members’ hunting experiences:

⁃ Working with biologists on herd management. A big part of this is recommended doe harvests and overall deer health analysis.

⁃ Working with habitat professionals on a habitat management plan to create a property that creates maximum forage for our deer. This July I am getting my burn manager certification so we can create and execute a burn plan. This is the first step in changing the habitat to improve overall health of our deer population.

⁃ We paid a consultant from a seed company to come and do an analysis of our soil. We are in the heart of the Black Belt and I want to make sure we get every advantage our soil offers us when we are planting, whether that is fall or summer plots.

⁃ Finally, we also have a company coming in to do 5+ miles worth of serious road improvement work in our place. Our roads need repair and maintenance to make it easier to move around the property. Last summer I took two weeks off from running my business and rented an excavator I personally operated every day to fix bad spots on roads in order to get through this past summer, but it was only a temporary band-aid. We will be implementing are longer term solution with the roadwork that will be professionally done this summer.

So, I will admit, this club isn’t for everyone. I know many think the price is crazy, and that’s ok to disagree about personal tolerance for certain lease or club membership costs/prices. At our club, you are paying for prime deer hunting that includes a nice bunkhouse, excellent food plots, and a low pressure hunting experience with members who know how to age bucks appropriately and show trigger restraint. We currently are at a 1:200 hunter-to-acre ratio. The goal is to eventually be at 1:300. We won’t cut members to get to that ratio. We’ll either use natural attrition over time, or add more land to the club. But, that is a few years down the road. And I say that to show that openings will become fewer and less advertised.

I encourage anyone that has serious interest in the club to reach out to me. I will be happy to talk to you. I’ll give you phone numbers of current members to talk to, and share photos of deer that actually are on our place.

Again, posters who have expressed opinions or sounded off about the club have a right to, but ask them if their experience was recent. It was all from the first year of the club. If anyone has ever started a new club and had a bunch of new members you don’t really know well, you can understand that challenge. And yes, I own my part of the frustrations of certain members who were in the club that first year. None of those guys are bad guys, and I don’t hold any hard feelings about it. Like I said, if I had the opportunity to make some different decisions than certain ones that were made that first year, I would gladly take it. It was a learning experience that I regret caused some people to have negative experiences in an unfortunate trial-and-error scenario that no longer exists at the club. I have learned from those mistakes.

I hope we can finally put to rest all the noise about the “Woodley Road club.” I can guarantee you that over the next few years all the talk about what actually currently goes on in the club will be about the big deer we are killing.