How to Make Your Land Work for You by Deer Texas Leases Episode 9: Land Management and Wildlife Management Associations – How To Make Your Land Work For You
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Sportsman of Colorado Radio Show
Guest: Greg Phillips
host: Scott Whatley
Scott Whatley: Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado. Colorado’s premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns, and ammo from Colorado’s top outfitters, featuring the industry’s leading experts on how to enhance yours.
Experience the great outdoors.
Now here’s your host, Scott Whatley, welcome to Sportsman of Colorado. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hope everyone is enjoying and a great weekend already, just to reminder we have our show that replays here on Sunday. If you miss it for a live show from Saturday 1 or 2:00 PM, you can catch us twice on Sundays and that’s from eight to 9:00 AM, or once again, the evening from seven to 8:00 PM.
We’re going to kick things off today with some relatively new friends of mine over the last several months.
I’m finally glad to get them on the show. And this is called deertexasleases.com is their website. And we’re going to talk about a little Texas hunting today.
We are glad to have Greg Phillips with us today.
So Greg, how are you, sir?
Greg Phillips: Doing Great Scott , doing very well. It’s a little cool where I am in Houston right now, but probably not prepared.
Scott Whatley: No, don’t talk about cool man. And we’re in the twenties here. Yeah. So we’re in the high forties. Yeah. As they say, it’s a different kind of coal, but you know what? I, there are certain temperatures you get, it doesn’t matter. It’s still cold for sure. Yeah. But Hey, this is, this is a great idea.
And of course my friend, Jeff Payne got me in touch with you guys and told me about this great concept, I think for several ways for landowners and for hunters out there. And I don’t know anybody, that’s not looking for good places to hunt and get a lease on.
So let’s just talk about the concept behind your company.
Greg Phillips: Yeah. My family is from East Texas, both my mother and father from a small town in East Texas called Grapeland Texas. And we have property that I was told, has been in my family over a hundred years and we’ve always run cattle on it. And my, my dad passed away a few years back and I’ve had a few uncles passed away.
And they left me and another uncle I’m in Houston and Uncle G lives in Killeen trying to run cattle on this property. And it’s just tough when you’re not there. And so we got rid of the cows and we just started trying to figure out what are we going to do with our property? And we are hunt deer hunters. I grew up deer hunting, stuff’s a little boy, eight years old.
And every year I get people begging me to go hunting. And so I started thinking, I said, you probably have a lot of smaller landowners like myself who have land that’s underutilized, sitting there. And then I started thinking about all my friends and people who were begging me to go hunting on our property.
They cannot afford their own land to buy it, or they just can’t find private land. So I said, why not try to match them up in a forum where hunters can find underutilized land and put that land to use. And that’s how we came up with the idea.
Scott Whatley: Again, great concept. And so let’s look at it from the folks that might own land out there.
And maybe they’ve been ranching, farming, whatever, but there’s wildlife there. And now maybe, some of the family is getting at age. They can’t do that ranching or farming anymore. And maybe the kids don’t want to do that, but they’re looking for some income. Is this something that you typically just want to talk about leasing that from them or is there some cases buying it from them or how does that work?
[00:03:30] Greg Phillips: The way it actually, and by the way you described me, right? The younger generation that now this land is falling into their laughing boy, what do I do? I can’t run cows or cattle. I don’t live there. So I’m the prime example. So the way we’ve set it up it’s actually, we can manage the lease meaning if the landowner comes to us and they say, look, I don’t know anything about leasing land for hunting, and I don’t really know anything about this.
[00:03:59] Can you guys just manage this for the whole process?
Greg Phillips: We will actually manage the property, the attorneys, we have will actually draft the lease. We’ll deal with the hunters and we’ll manage the entire process for them for a fee, — or a landowner if they’re savvy enough, they can actually do it themselves.
[00:04:20] The landowner could manage the entire process themselves. So the choices is completely up to the landowner and Scott, here’s a neat thing. We’ve developed an algorithm. That for landowners, that they input information about the property and we will provide them with a Huntability Score, meaning it’ll give them a range of the price that they can lease their land out for hunting.
[00:04:44] So those are the two options.
[00:04:46] Scott Whatley: And and I’m sure there some out there would want to do it, but man, I think I would want. The people that know what they’re doing to do this. So thank you. You guys managing the lease is certainly a good option. Because then everything just works through you and I get a check as a landowner.
[00:05:02] That sounds like a win-win deal.
[00:05:04] Greg Phillips: And it doesn’t cost the landowner or anything. Really, we get our fee as a portion of the lease, so there’s no cost to the landowner. If there’s a lease, we get our portion and they just get a check.
[00:05:17] Scott Whatley: [00:05:17] Right on it. Absolutely.
[00:05:19] Once again, the website is deertexasleases.com. And if you’ve got any questions for Greg, you can reach him at (832) 317-6880.
And our show reaches all over here, Wyoming down to Raton, New Mexico. Hey, if you own some land or, some folks and maybe relatives that own land down in Texas, and they might be interested in this, I hope you’ll give Greg a call again.
[00:05:42] There number is (832) 317-6880. Are you, is there any kind of minimal makers that you look for or any kind of guidelines that you guys have in Texas.
[00:05:56] Greg Phillips: Generally in Texas we typically, when you look at the land in Texas, the deer hunting, especially we’re mainly where we have whitetail deer.
[00:06:06] But we say typically it’s 25 acres as a start-up, it’s good enough size to be able to really get, maybe put up a deer blind or two with a feeder. So 25 acres and we typically we’ll manage up to 500 acres. Although, we will certainly look at more acreage than that, but the range is 25 acres to 500 acres.
[00:06:28] This is our sweet spot, so that’s typically the guideline
[00:06:32] Scott Whatley: [00:06:32] that we use.
[00:06:33] Good deal. And we want to make you guys do not do guiding at all. It is strictly were me. I want to come and hunt there. I just do that. And then I’m on my own. Correct.
[00:06:45] Greg Phillips: [00:06:45] That’s exactly right. That’s the idea is to give you the Hunter, in essence land, that’s yours, right?
[00:06:51] Yours for hunting for the hunting season to manage to, set up your you’re shooting paths. You’re blind, your feeders. It’s your property is this, it’s a lease, that’s yours. That’s the idea. But no, no guide costs, we don’t do that.
[00:07:05] Scott Whatley: [00:07:05] Sure. And I think there’s a lot of opportunity for this because I think the thing that has hurt with some landowners, if I think we’ve all walked up and said, Hey, you mind does hunting on here and they go no way.
[00:07:15] We’ve done that before and people didn’t take care of our property. So I think I know that’s one big thing that we just want to tell everyone, Hey, This is a big deal. You guys lease it and manage it and do all that. We really want to stress to everyone to take care of the property as if it was their own.
[00:07:31] Cause in essence, it is for that length of time, isn’t it?
[00:07:35] Greg Phillips: That’s exactly right, Scott The good thing for the landowners we do, we do put the time in, we’ll do the background checks and the screening. So we take the time to do the due diligence. To try to ensure that, you could reputable hunters on the property.
[00:07:51] Scott Whatley: Absolutely. Once again, Greg Phillips is with us. The website is deertexasleases.com. Their phone number is (832) 317-6880.
All right. Let’s look at it from the hunting side now. So explain the process. Do I join something to get informed about leases or how does that work?
[00:08:11] Greg Phillips: [00:08:11] Yeah. So you go to the website and the website, basically two paths you can go down, the first: Are you a Hunter?
[00:08:16] and Are you a Landowner?
And he can click on, there that you are a Hunter and that link takes you down that path. And it’s a subscription service.
We have a free service and a premium service, which is paid. So you get access to certain hunting leases on the site for free. But then you can actually use the paid premium service at $13.99 a month to get a ton more information.
For example, you get access to some of the premium sites. You’ll be the first to be notified before we release the information to the general public. There are also a lot more benefits which we list on the site.
[00:08:55] We talk about stay in placement. We talk about theater placement. We talk about the terrain. So we have a lot of content to aid hunters, especially beer honors in being successful in the hunt. So that’s basically, it’s a simple process. Once you get to the site.
[00:09:11] Scott Whatley: I’m gonna tell you what for that amount to stay informed on the leases.
[00:09:14]Man, that’s a great value because here’s the thing that happens. I think we all grew up those that grew up hunting. You may have your favorite spots, but man, over time I dropped back to Dallas area now where I grew up and man, the places we used to dove hunt or deer hunt, whatever are no longer there.
[00:09:31] There are buildings, all that kind of thing. Properties change a property sale, different things like that. So this is a chance to really have your own place, personal deal. And man, I’m just saying a great deal of, for families and all, the dad and mom and take the kids out hunting and all, and just have a place that, that they know well.
[00:09:48] And like you say, Hey, it’s theirs for during that time. So that’s really cool.
[00:09:54] Greg Phillips: That’s exactly right. It’s yes. A customized place for the hunters. And so far, our hunters have enjoyed the process. It’s been a good deal. And there’s been a couple of hunters that sent us pictures of some of the takes that they’ve harvested.
[00:10:08] So it’s been good.
[00:10:09] Scott Whatley: [00:10:09] Absolutely. And I’m sure archery or rifle, whatever on most of these
[00:10:14] Greg Phillips: [00:10:14] leases. Yeah. Actually, if you go to the site is a landowner, we’ll let The type of hot, archery or rifle or, and even the type of gaming. So as a Hunter, you can see the sites that fit, your particular hunt.
[00:10:31] And yeah, it’s all customized. Wow.
[00:10:35] Scott Whatley: [00:10:35] Oh man. I think you guys are onto something here. And I said that when we first met several months ago, but I think this is a great deal because. So many places are just not there anymore. And a lot have been bought up corporately by big Outfitters, different things like that.
[00:10:48] So this is a great place and a decent drive here from the Colorado area as well for our listenership here. You can be down there 10 to 11 hours and get down there and enjoy some great hunting in Texas. So as we speak now if you could start at the lower part of Texas and move your way up what are just a couple of the current areas that you’ve got some leases in?
[00:11:10] Greg Phillips: [00:11:10] Yeah, it’s interesting. You asked what we did is name it Deer Texas Leases (deertexasleases.com). We actually mapped out the counties in Texas and we said, okay, we’re going to start with the platinum deer hunting counties. And then we’re working our way up to the gold counties and then everybody else.
[00:11:27] And when you look at Texas, the platinum counties are in Southeast Texas or South Texas for deer hunting because it’s the, the Davy Crockett national park, right? There’s a lot of brush and a lot of woods and trees where, you have some good hunting for deer down there.
[00:11:43] So we, most of our properties we’ve started down in Southeast Texas. And slowly working our way up to Northeast, Texas, and then we’ve started actually working our way towards South in West Texas. So it’s that area in Southeast Texas. Working our way up to Northeast Texas, because you’re still in the Davy Crockett National Forest and the brush area.
[00:12:06] And we’re working our way down to South Texas and West Texas. And then soon we’ll start walking towards the rest of the state, which is central and North Texas. So that’s the thinking there.
[00:12:17] Scott Whatley: Once again, if you’re just joining us, Greg Phillips is with us. Check out the website, deertexasleases.com.
[00:12:25] Just let them know. You heard about them here on Sportsman of Colorado. And they’ll answer all your questions and I’m telling you for landowners, this is a great deal for you. Again, you can choose to self-manage if you want. And I’ll explain that process, or if you want to let them manage the lease, which personally, I think I highly recommend letting them do that.
[00:12:43] And they will take good care of you. So is it, can we give some kind of range right now? At least maybe some people are saying, okay, this boy, this sounds awesome. Is it going to cost me, 20 grand at a season? Or how much can we give some kind of range of possibly what Elise might run
[00:12:59] Greg Phillips: [00:12:59] a guy?
[00:13:01] Yeah, no, we can, I can give you an idea. So let’s just use this simple kind of a simple think about our algorithm and how it works, but let’s say it’s I just use a hundred acre property. Our algorithm will look at, the type of trees, access to water, running through the property.
[00:13:18] We’ll look at, how close are you in your residential areas? I would say for a, just give someone an idea for a hundred acres, if it’s platinum property, meaning that it is ideal for deer hunting or ideal for hunting, plenty of water, plenty of acorns trees, food for the deer to eat, far away from residential areas.
[00:13:39] Good places for the hunters to set up shop, our, our platinum a hundred acres would probably go $40 an acre. So that’s $4,000 a year for an annual lease. Wow! Probably the range, the gold, it would be $30 an acre, it would probably not sit that platinum that’s $3,000 annually and probably on the low end, the bronze, maybe it’s too close to.
[00:14:01] Not too close to closer to residential homes and maybe doesn’t have enough Creek running through. And so the deer are traveling through not really bedding down in the area. Probably around $20 an acre $2,000 annually. That’ll give honors.
[00:14:17] Scott Whatley: [00:14:17] Yeah, man. That’s perfect. I hope we can, follow up on this.
[00:14:22] I just want to get you on and get an initial concept, explained to our listeners, and I think it’s a win-win deal. Know I got to go to deertexasleases.com now and buy me a membership. Look forward to doing that.
[00:14:33] Greg Phillips: [00:14:33] Got it. I’ll get with Jeff, he’s our web designer and marketing person, maybe for the listeners, if they, come to the site and just give us a note and say that they heard about us on the show, we’ll give them a premium membership for a year.
[00:14:49] Scott Whatley: [00:14:49] Okay. All right. Man, I’d appreciate that. Yeah, that’d be great. I’ll tell you what go to dear Texas leases.com and we’ll put, follow us on Facebook, sportsman of Colorado radio. And once we confirmation on that we will put that on our Facebook page as well. And then we will certainly be promoting that on our show.
[00:15:06] So yeah, we appreciate that. And I know a lot of. Friends are already. And like I told you, the day I’m heading to Texas do a little hog on here and myself here. And so a lot of us like to come down there and hot. So a man that sounds like a great deal. Greg, we appreciate your time and good luck to you guys.
[00:15:21] And maybe one day we can hook up down there and getting a stand together.
[00:15:26] Greg Phillips: [00:15:26] That sounds great, Scott. Thanks for having me on the show. This is great! I appreciate it.
[00:15:29] Scott Whatley: [00:15:29] Absolutely. It’s deertexasleases.com. Go check it out. And once again, landowners of friends, if any landowners down in Texas let them know about this and give them Greg’s number (832) 317-6880.
[00:15:44] And these are good guys. And were very careful who we promote as well. And I promise you, these are great. Guys that’ll take care of the land and do people right. And just make it a win-win situation for the landowner and for the hunters as well. DeerTexasLeases.com or (832) 317-6880.
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