The Unwritten Rules of Being a Good Club Member

[Txhunter3000]

I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.

[Monark]

No smoking in the cabin. Don't laugh. It is an issue at our camp. The old guy's who's wife won't let them smoke in the house think it's OK to smoke in the cabin.

If you take the last cup of coffee, make another pot.

[PondPopper]

what in hell did i ever do to you ?

lol.

[PondPopper]

Besides the given (common sense, legal, etc) would be 1. management plan. NOTHING worse than a newby shooting a 4 year old with HUGE trophy potential.

Who determines "trophy potential"?

[Aggiehunter08]

Who determines "trophy potential"?

The lease manager and the experienced lease members. I was using a real life example from a previous experience with a former lease member in the panhandle. We had a solid mid 140s 4 year old on the no shoot list until he was 6. I personally set down with this guy and went through numerous pictures of the deer NOT to shoot. Well he ended up shooting it and got kicked off the ranch that day. He had no previous “trophy” lease experience.

You’ve got 2 lease types: trophy and non-trophy.

[Huntingfool]

IMO the best unwritten rule is to have written rules - they should be basic, common sense rules but having them written and each member signs off on following them then it can alleviate a lot of the drama.

As mentioned above guest policy, stand set ups, etc. should be addressed. And as stated above there are two types of leases - trophy and non trophy - either is fine but issues start coming up when a member looking for one of those ends up on a lease doing the other option. Good luck

[locolobo]

I haven't seen the #1 major rule that should be on any/every rules list. Really shouldn't have to be on a list. Should be second nature for any hunter. "No Loaded Firearms anywhere close to camp!"

[Snowflake Killa]

I'm really lucky. Our members are really good. Everyone makes mistakes just don't make them often. Rules are shoot mature deer and shoot deer you know pretty easy. Guest can hunt just follow the rules and you are responsible for your Guest. We have 12 members and it's no problem at all.

[DedDuk]

Dont be "that guy".

[TX_Hoghunter]

This is a hard one. My experience has been the first year you put it together half of the people will cause at least some issue you will have to deal with. It does not matter how you setup the rules they will find a way to break them. After about 3 or so years you will have a good group finally put together and then the rules become basically useless because they are going to do the right thing anyway. Also remember common sense is a rare thing. I wish you luck.

-john

[Static1968]

No guest or Family without Onsite Lease member supervision!!!
We had this issue come about with the son of a member (18) showing up unannounced and unsupervised when nobody was at the lease. (He was told by the father to do so)
Member did not think it was all that big of a deal. The rest of us were like WTH!!!!

Seems to me that would be the most obvious of unwritten rules.

[jdavidson]

Respect
Honesty
Be an Adult
Clean up after yourself

Find this and you won’t need a bunch of rules

[dustoffer]

Worst thing I experienced was a guy from Pennsylvania who lived in Alaska who knew everything there could be to know about Texas hunting after 10 days—