Most everybody WANTS to hunt managed land but how realistic is it to try strict management on paper company land? Meaning, it’s just a matter of time before they sell it off. At least from my experience with clubs I’ve been in. I’m in one now (if I rejoin, which it doesn’t look promising) that literally just sold every inch of hardwood and has nothing but pines, but is trying to make it some trophy club. I don’t mind paying for a trophy club, or following a strict set of management rules but, in my opinion, all land is not equal so you can’t manage like it is.

in my opinion leased land is not "manageable" like people want it to be. in my club we are surrounded by WMA on 2 sides and private/club on the other. those people are not killing everything but they kill the heck out of deer. out president wants 8 pt or better or if its 4.5 years or older then it doesnt matter the rack size.

our green fields are shit as they try to get cheap seed from someone on facebook at a discounted rate if you buy it by a certain date and then they want to plant late aug or first of sept and the drought really hurts it.

they allow members to ride 4 wheelers all hours of the night moving cams and putting out corn and hanging stands. we members have voiced out opinion and its falls on deaf ears

i could go on and on but it would really piss yall off

Incongruent goals between leaser and leasee - the paper co's land management practices just don't translate. The wildlife just exists out of spite. No burning, wall to wall pine stands, small foodplots, sprayed cutovers, thin SMZs with few if any oaks, etc. It is a losing battle for a trophy manager. DMAP will give you a dumb amount of doe tags that you will struggle to if ever fill because the habitat is so poor they want you to reduce the head count to nil so that the remaining deer are better fed off the poor habitat. Which translates to lower deer sightings and frustrated hunters that will have a hard time holding out for that elusive trophy buck that meets the club criteria. Lease price will continue to increase and one day you will lose it to a higher bid or land sale. Sorry to say, but its a bleak outlook. Just enjoy it for what it is while you can, plant your kill plots and let the does walk on them, make the rules where you can still have fun and are realistic, look at what has been historically killed and expect bucks of the same caliber. If one 140" was killed three years ago and thats what you are wanting to hold out for its going to be a long wait for most members.

You answered your own question. All you can really do is supplemental feed heavily and I don't really think that helps much. If the high quality goat browse aint there, then it just aint there.

Westervelt does not allow baiting/supplemental feeding on their properties.

You can plant, and that's about it.

Westervelt isn’t against burning their property. Could always get your burn manager and carry enough insurance to burn it yourself if they’d be up for that. Doubtful, but doesn’t hurt to ask. Seems like a win win for them.

Thinned pines can be manipulated to have understory in some areas. Just need the right stuff in the tractor. It won’t accomplish as much as burning but it will accomplish a lot. Or so I’ve been told. 😂

You may be on to something!

I hunted westervelt land for 17 years in Bibb county. It was where the old slab was on the Cahaba. When I first joined, we had awesome turkey hunting, but westervelt cut and cut and cut until the turkey were in much smaller numbers. We had the WMA across the river and clubs all around us that shot everything that moved. But we didn’t worry about them. We all stuck to our standards. My biggest Alabama buck came off of that property. So did several upper 140’s and a mid 150” and even another that went over 160”. We did not have a large population of deer, but we took care of the ones that we did have and let them mature.

I get the whole thing about westervelt not being serious about helping with the local herd but that is why you have to make a difference yourself. Summer planting, minerals, etc. we did it all.

Like I have said on here a thousand times before, deer management starts with your own trigger control! Don’t worry about what your neighbors doing. You can’t change that!!!

Lease prices will continue to climb!!! If you give up your lease, they are stacked up waiting to take it. Make the best of your situation!! Limit your membership to one man per 250 acres.

I ended up deciding to get out. Hard copy of the new rules came out yesterday and they were just too crazy for me and I haven’t pulled the trigger on a deer in years so it isn’t about self control on what to shoot. I won’t go into all the rules but one of the craziest ones was, you could only drive as far as the camp house then you had to walk everywhere else. That included ATV’s and golf carts. That’s hard to do on 2,000 acres. Even if you had a deer down, you couldn’t drive to go get it.

🤨

That's bonkers

I understand what they are trying to accomplish, but how do they expect members to operate under that rule? Everyone have to get electric maybe?

Walking in and out those long distances might put more pressure on the place than driving a 4 wheeler.

Frak that.

My old QDM club was park and walk until we all got too old. Electric is the way to go. The deer on my plot hear my buddy crank his 4-wheeler 700 yards away and are gone when he passes by a few hundred yards away. I have cleared long strips in 5th. row by hand and planted them. It works good in the right place.

On our lands, walking like that WOULD place more pressure on the tracts. We have series of natural gas wells on our properties, so deer are used to vehicles driving in and out on a regular basis. I always tell our guys to park on the well pads and walk to their stand from there because deer are used to vehicles in those places.

Didnt know we were in the same club.

They don’t even want you to use electric. Makes no sense to me. Seems like walking would spread a whole lot more scent than riding an electric cart. Oh well, doesn’t matter to me anymore. Guess I’m on the look for a new place

Yeah that makes absolutely no sense. I've seen loud 4 wheelers send deer underground but not golf carts. Might as well be hunting public land.