Pheasant Club

I think another big problem you would run into with a group is everyone wants to hunt at the same time. The openers, etc.

Personally, like someone else said, if you have 250K to spend on a land purchase, find a small parcel and buy it. Land value only goes one way and they can't make more of it so you won't lose money. If you end up finding partners you can work with later on, you can always sell your piece to purchase a larger piece.
 
Around 10 years ago I went into a purchase of land that had an old farm (house and out buildings) with 4 other guys. The first couple of years went fairly well as it was “fun” and new so everyone pitched in to help. Then one year the roof on the house leaked so it needed to be replaced. After a long debate, it was finally decided to replace it. The next year the tractor broke down and blame was placed by some on the guy who used it most. Maybe it was true but he was the guy who mowed the yard, made sure the lp tank had enough fuel for the hunting season, etc. the guy who complained the loudest was also the last guy to kick in funds for gas for the tractor, electric bill, etc. Within 5 years we sold it.
 
benelli-banger said:
I bot a 1/4 in 2000 and enrolled it in WRP, a perpetual easement. I have 1 partner. Pretty smooth, I arrange the food plots every year, as well as any other work. 1 partner is enough, more than that would suck. My dad and 10 guys bot a fantastic duck camp in ‘76 on a primo lake in SW MN…lodge slept 24, we had a brick farmhouse as well where the caretaker lived (young family). That was fairly crazy…convinced me not to ever do that, but I did it anyway on the Delta Marsh in ‘99 with 4 others…small amount of $ so risk was small. Had good times, but that imploded due to our local “sweat equity” partner not holding up his deal. But I drifted away from waterfowling and focused on upland birds. Had fun for a few years on the ND/SD border doing multi-species hunting…sharpies, pheasants, waterfowl. I have hunted 21 days this fall, mostly in public land, mostly for sharpies and huns, but 6 days for phez. I’d focus on midweek hunting and learn all about public land. 3 a day isn’t hard if you’ll walk 7-10 miles and scout before 10 am. We had good hunting 2 days last week in a “poor” area (per DNR roadside count) in MN last midweek…wasn’t hard to get our 2 bird limit each day on WPA’s. People are a PITA…stay free and flexible and hunt midweek…and knock on doors and get on private land when you can, and treat those landowners like royalty. That’s the real fun anyway!
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7- 10 miles? Jesus
 
I appreciate all the thoughts. Here are a couple responses from me:

3car - if you ever see pasture land go for $300-$500 an acre please let me know. I would buy that in a heartbeat but I am extremely doubtful there is any property in the pheasant triangle that is going for that price today. The cheapest I have seen land is around that $1,500 an acre with an easement on it and a huge pond on the property. When I say big pond depends on the year but I would say pond is at least half of a quarter of the land. I don't mind having a pond on the property because I like the diversity but I hope it doesn't take up the whole property. If you have decent land then it's more like $2,000 an acre.

I agree, rather than buy a section with partners try to find a quarter by myself. Even at $2,000 an acre that's $320,000 which could be doable in a year or two when I can save a bigger down payment. Might be better to wait a couple years anyways because interest rates are around 8% for a 20 or 25 year loan and that was before the interest rate increase yesterday.

Somebody else said, you'll never get that money back. Depends on how you look at it. You could go to a really nice pheasant lodge (I know the whole debate on wild vs. pen raised) and spend $3,000 for a nice 3 day 4 night hunt and if I hunt for the next 40 years of my life that's $120,000. That is no where near the cost of buying a membership into a club or your own property around $250,000. I guess you just hope the land keeps appreciating in value and you have a place to take you kids.

I agree LLC needs to be rock solid. I used to work at a duck club in California. Back in the days the membership dues to buy in were close to 1/2 million and I've been told it has gone up even more along with an annual due of $25,000. That has gone up too of course. What hasn't? These guys had money though and flew in on private jets and went hunting for a couple days a year. I can only dream I win that 1 billion dollar lottery ticket but it's a 1 in 292 million chance to win so I never buy lottery tickets to begin with.

Lastly, land prices that are not in easements are out of control. I just saw a listing for 240 acres around Carthage, SD and it was for listed with Midwest Land Group for 1.25 million. That's $5,200 an acre. I could never afford that. The sad thing is I don't really ever see land prices coming down drastically. I saw where the world population is approaching 8 billion people and they're not making more land.

Thanks for all the feed back and if any of you ever come across a nice wealthy laid back individual that will let me do all the hard physical labor and would buy 3/4 of the membership and be nice enough to let me in on the deal, let me know.
 
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