Ames Plantation Hunting Club Shrinking

[MickThompson]

Thinking of some of the clubs I work with, some have in excess of 250 acres of food plots to mow, plant, spray and everything else. And these are not in big fields that can be maintained by a single large piece of equipment. They are all broken into 0.50 to 2.00-acre plots. They all get maintained several times a year, and many planted once if not twice a year. Then think of the herbicide bill for that? A couple of clubs I've mapped have in excess of 40 miles of interior dirt roads to maintain. To do all this work, they often have 3 to 5 tractors, a bulldozer, a track-hoe, and all that equipment must be fueled and maintained. They may have 5 or more full-time employees that must be paid a living wage. I even know clubs that run their own put-and-take quail hunts as well as one that raises its own ducks (by the hundreds) to improve the local duck hunting.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I know a club with a total management budget of around a million dollars per year. Pretty hard to pay for that when there is little income coming from the property other than club dues, considering they make nothing off the crops they grow (they are just for the wildlife to eat). About their only revenue beyond dues is timber sales.

I always thought these were supposed to run at least a little in the red for tax write off purposes

 

[megalomaniac]

I always thought these were supposed to run at least a little in the red for tax write off purposes

You can't run in the red year after year after year without incurring the ire of the IRS.

To be legit in their eyes for tax writeoff purposes, you have to be legitimately farming the property with a net profit at least 1 out of 5 years. If you are always taking a loss, the IRS doesn't consider it a legitimate farming business and you are getting taken to the woodshed by the IRS. At leat that's what my accountant advises me...

If expenses on the equity club far exceed the dues, it's time to increase dues.

 

[Buzzard Breath]

If expenses on the equity club far exceed the dues, it's time to increase dues.

Or, cut expenses.

Wouldn't that be something if deer hunting trended away from food plots and shooting houses?

Edited - I'm a hypocrite and posted before having any coffee.

 

[BSK]

Or, cut expenses.

Wouldn't that be something if deer hunting trended away from food plots and shooting houses?

Edited - I'm a hypocrite and posted before having any coffee.

I'm not sure if deer hunting will trend away from food plots and shooting houses, but one trend I have seen local to my place is a trend away from deer hunting all together. Deer hunter densities are WAY down. Shots fired opening weekend of MZ and gun seasons are nearly non-existent. Everybody has gone to duck hunting and focusing all their management efforts on ducks. Of course, that's probably because my place is close to KY Lake.

 

[DoubleRidge]

I'm not sure if deer hunting will trend away from food plots and shooting houses, but one trend I have seen local to my place is a trend away from deer hunting all together. Deer hunter densities are WAY down. Shots fired opening weekend of MZ and gun seasons are nearly non-existent. Everybody has gone to duck hunting and focusing all their management efforts on ducks. Of course, that's probably because my place is close to KY Lake.

No...its not just areas close to KY Lake...last several years we hadnt heard anywhere near the shooting in MZ and Gun season....dramatic decrease in number of shots fired.

 

[DoubleRidge]

I'm not exaggerating when I say I know a club with a total management budget of around a million dollars per year. Pretty hard to pay for that when there is little income coming from the property other than club dues, considering they make nothing off the crops they grow (they are just for the wildlife to eat). About their only revenue beyond dues is timber sales.

I would think that a club with a total management budget that large, thier return on investment would be just to have a fantastic piece of property to hunt...my guess is the owners and members probably are not worried so much about cost as much as they are about the experience....sounds like an amazing piece of property.

 

[BigAl]

Thinking of some of the clubs I work with, some have in excess of 250 acres of food plots to mow, plant, spray and everything else. And these are not in big fields that can be maintained by a single large piece of equipment. They are all broken into 0.50 to 2.00-acre plots. They all get maintained several times a year, and many planted once if not twice a year. Then think of the herbicide bill for that? A couple of clubs I've mapped have in excess of 40 miles of interior dirt roads to maintain. To do all this work, they often have 3 to 5 tractors, a bulldozer, a track-hoe, and all that equipment must be fueled and maintained. They may have 5 or more full-time employees that must be paid a living wage. I even know clubs that run their own put-and-take quail hunts as well as one that raises its own ducks (by the hundreds) to improve the local duck hunting.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I know a club with a total management budget of around a million dollars per year. Pretty hard to pay for that when there is little income coming from the property other than club dues, considering they make nothing off the crops they grow (they are just for the wildlife to eat). About their only revenue beyond dues is timber sales.

Do they have agriculture as well? Seems like this would help.

 

[beefydeer]

Shots fired opening weekend of MZ and gun seasons are nearly non-existent.

I have noticed the same. When I was a kid deer hunting in Weakley and Henry counties, on opening days the shots would ring out almost constantly. Now shots within earshot, maybe one or two.

 

[BSK]

Do they have agriculture as well? Seems like this would help.

No. They have no bottomlands or flat areas large enough for agriculture. Every flat spot on the property will have a 1/2-acre to 2-acre food plot though.

 

[TheLBLman]

I'm not sure if deer hunting will trend away from food plots and shooting houses, but one trend I have seen local to my place is a trend away from deer hunting all together.
Everybody has gone to duck hunting and focusing all their management efforts on ducks.

THAT my friend is sadly (to me) the biggest "trending" of all:
Dramatically fewer people "excited" about deer hunting.

Many are just simply no longer willing to pay unreasonably high amounts of money for the "ideals" that have been so effectively "marketed" to them, i.e. they actually believe they "need" much of what they don't, just to truly enjoy going deer hunting.

Actually, many just don't have the money, period, for leased private property, land ownership, and all the other gimmicky things they've been indoctrinated to believe they "need" to enjoy and be a deer hunter.

Some of the land leases have just greedily increased prices to the point, that alone became a major driver in causing many middle-class hunters to just give up deer hunting. As to those with deeper pockets (and I'm referring mainly to TN deer hunters), many of them have switched over to waterfowl hunting, and going on "vacation" hunts, not just out-of-state, but even outside the U.S.

Much of what's happening comes back to basic economics, price vs. value. In many cases, price has exceeded value, and even people with money are not going to over-pay. Never mind many of them will actually pay more for "vacation" hunts, focusing more on what they're getting for their money, instead of how much money they're paying.

For those in the CWD zones, or even counties adjoining CWD counties, CWD policies (and fears of those soon coming), have greatly damaged biologically sound deer management ideals that many hunters HAD embraced. CWD, and more pointedly CWD policies, has also been a recent major driver in shifting West & Middle TN deer hunter over to waterfowl and hunting in other states.

CWD policies were the primary driver causing the complete shut-down of many West TN deer processors. So everything has adversely effected "sport" deer hunting in TN.

 

[TheLBLman]

But it needs to be pointed out there are some huge differences in our "sport" deer hunting in TN compared to simply wanting to go kill a deer as an organic food source. The opportunities to just go kill a deer in TN are very good, and very low cost. You're just typically going to be "hunting" those deer on small-acreage tracts, often within sight of the landowner's house, or on public lands (which can actually be a great option).

Many homeowners/landowners are actually begging people to come kill deer on their property. The caveat is they want those people to be people they know & trust, not strangers. If you just want to go kill a deer, and you're trustworthy to a few people, you should find plenty of places to do that "for free".

Then there is the issue of public land deer hunting. Contrary to the myths being pushed by land sellers and lessors, deer hunting pressure has also gone down on most large-acreage public lands.
In fact, what many private-land hunters have been finding is less antler-high-grading on public lands than their comparably expensive private leases, AND less competition for those top-end bucks!

Go figure that one!

Personally, I've been blessed with some of the better private lands to hunt in TN for most of my life. But I'm still doing around a third of my deer hunting on "public" lands. This is mainly because I enjoy hunting in different places, and because I seem to have a comparable opportunity to a top-end buck on public lands as I have on a typical well-managed TN deer lease.

You see, the people willing to pay the high prices, they tend to be more avid & more accomplished deer hunters. This can result in more real competition between hunters for those few top-end bucks on private leases than on public lands. Worst of all, it results in more antler high grading, much more on "well managed leases" than I see on most public lands.

 

[TheLBLman]

When I was a kid deer hunting in Weakley and Henry counties, on opening days the shots would ring out almost constantly.

I also began my deer-hunting "career" in Weakley County, and during the early 70's, on thru the 80's, into the 90's, opening weekend of deer season sounded like war had broken out between the states. You would actually hear hundreds of shots in a day.

It should be pointed out though, back then, most Weakley County hunters were using shotguns, the same shotguns they used for quail (no rifle sights, no scopes). That changed in the 80's/90's, but prior to the 90's, there were still quite a few TN statewide deer hunters who had not yet embraced using a rifle scope, and the old lever-action, iron-sighted 30/30 was perhaps the most popular deer rifle.

Another thing, statewide, deer hunters are generally better now than then, and much better about both understanding and taking mainly high-probability shots at deer. Much of this has come from decades of experience in becoming accomplished deer hunters, as the average age now of a TN deer hunter is quite old, as is also the case in most other states as well.

Unlike times past when many hunters would immediately unload their gun on a white flag, when you hear a shot today, it most often means a deer was killed.

 

[Buzzard Breath]

Everybody has gone to duck hunting and focusing all their management efforts on ducks. Of course, that's probably because my place is close to KY Lake.

Its not because you live next to KY Lake. A few of my hunting buddies have been getting away from deer hunting and concentrating more on ducks, and they're just scraping up a few here and there in the dead middle of Middle TN. They still deer hunt a little in November, but instead of going on long weekend trips for deer and hunting through the season, they now switch completely to ducks after Thanksgiving and spend their time away hunting ducks.

 

[fairchaser]

Ames considered food plots at one time and determined that food plots concentrated hunters more than deer. Secondly, there was ample food in the natural habitat. Thus, supplemental feeding was unnecessary. Third, once a food plot was hunted, the deer were trained to use the plots at night. They already had 3000 acres of row crops anyway. Food plots were a waste of time and money at least for Ames.

 

[Iglow]

Is that place still a thing for bird dog stuff?

 

[Iglow]

State of Mississippi bought our timber lease and several others a few years ago that my family had been leasing since the 1930's. It's now part of a state WMA. Lots of good memories growing up at deer camp I have that my sons will miss out on.

Was your place in the south delta?

 

[BigAl]

Is that place still a thing for bird dog stuff?

They still have the National Championship there every year.

 

[fairchaser]

Is that place still a thing for bird dog stuff?

Yes, they hold the National Field Trials there every year in February and competitors come from all over the world to compete. I've heard they come from as far away as Japan. I've ridden behind the dogs twice and it's a cool experience.

 

[BSK]

Ames considered food plots at one time and determined that food plots concentrated hunters more than deer. Secondly, there was ample food in the natural habitat. Thus, supplemental feeding was unnecessary. Third, once a food plot was hunted, the deer were trained to use the plots at night. They already had 3000 acres of row crops anyway. Food plots were a waste of time and money at least for Ames.

With 3,000 acres of production agriculture, food plots are completely unnecessary.

 

[Don'tDrinkTinks]

Way, way better than a subdivision. While it is a loss to a select few many others will hopefully be able to enjoy it for years to come. Plus the OP and others that were on the lease can still hunt it. I thought the place was sold and all the deer had died out according to some of the posts I've read over the last couple years.

Might be a subdivision down the road but I wouldn't think they would do it now.