syndicate costs

The price of the ground is the first issue then there is the increase being placed on the positions by the lease holder.
Cadex i think 333 pounds to have a chance at three deer is not good value at all. But if people are willing to throw money at a lease and the Forestry companies are willing to take it is there any wounder why we are in the state we are in regards deer and there control.
If i was a weekend stalker and had 500 pounds to use on stalking i would go on 10 stalks accompanied and i would bet i would shoot more than 3-5 deer with out the hassle.


Who is offering that deal?
Thats pretty good value buddy, do you get to keep the carcass?

My thinking is - in the grand scheme of things £110.00 per deer shot is reasonable value . . . Bearing in mind you can shoot 365 days of the year if you want [and the meat is yours to take home}.

You might be lucky and shoot 3 nice 6 pointers . . On a paid stalk you would be lucky to lift the rifle to a 6 point roe buck for double that amount . . . . let alone go home with the carcass.

I have partaken in a few bought days here and there and have enjoyed them, but with a syndicate {certainly mine anyway} your not only buying the chance to stalk deer, shoot ducks, ground game and vermin, but your also buying the freedom to stalk and shoot whenever the notion takes you. . . you don't get that with a paid stalks !!!
 
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Whilst accompanied stalking is ok when you are a beginer or if you have a busy work and social life
but it is not true hunting.

Hunting is when you are out on your own with the freedom to stalk 200, 500, or 1000 acres.
feel the breeze on your face, with the possibility you might see a deer or two and might
get a stalk or a shot. What value do you put on that....well its priceless.



so anybody with free or cheap stalking...good luck to them
Stalking for most is not cheap you have to pay for it.... usually £100 to £350 a day,
with someone guiding and telling you what to shoot, and looking over your shoulder

or £500 to £1000 for a syndicate...lean pickings perhaps sometimes ( especially when its been shot out.)
... but its yours to enjoy.... the only real sport going..............hunting deer using your own skills........
....getting to know the ground.. the favourite spots..the regular crossing points.....who wants it easy ..how many deer do you need in a year anyway?

Having said all that, we need give the younger , poorer, beginers a chance to share the excitement.


.
 
I joined a syndicate through this site last year along with 2 of my friends. There are 6 of us in the syndicate each paying around £1k for 3.5k acres. At the time I thought it was quite expensive but as I was paying around £120 for a days stalking + £40 if I shot a beast with the carcass remained the property of the estate, the price didn't seem quite so bad.

In the end it has proved to be a bargain with 49 roe including a good number of 6 pointers taken to date with 6 weeks of the season remaining. I get to stalk as often as I like on some very good land and keep the venison.

Its worked out a lot cheaper than bought days for me and my colleagues.

Willie
 
I joined a syndicate through this site last year along with 2 of my friends. There are 6 of us in the syndicate each paying around £1k for 3.5k acres. At the time I thought it was quite expensive but as I was paying around £120 for a days stalking + £40 if I shot a beast with the carcass remained the property of the estate, the price didn't seem quite so bad.

In the end it has proved to be a bargain with 49 roe including a good number of 6 pointers taken to date with 6 weeks of the season remaining. I get to stalk as often as I like on some very good land and keep the venison.

Its worked out a lot cheaper than bought days for me and my colleagues.

Willie

nowt wrong with that.

Well done
nutty
 
John, stalking is not exactly cheap in any form, some will choose day stalking, and others will choose to go the lease route possibly forming a syndicate.

Now when you take a lease there is a fair chance you will get the venison but not always so, usually you can stalk when you wish though there may be some restrictions if there is also game shooting on the land

The land will only be stalked by you and your group , at least it should be.

And last but not least you will get to stalk on your own, not be dictated to by some hairy a***d stalker.
:old:

Bought days can often work out cheaper, but what you are paying for with a lease in a lot of cases is exclusive rights, and many people are prepared to pay a premium for exclusive rights.
 
If you had no ground of your own and chose to book a few outings a month with a guide you would never have to sit in the same highseat twice and you could spread your money about to get outings at all 6 deer species and boar if you like. With a syndicate I reckon you'd be lucky to have more than 2 species on the ground. I think that we are fortunate here in the UK to have some of the best pro guides in the world when it comes to deer stalking and a lot can be learnt by stalking with somebody else even if you already consider yourself an expert.
I would feel happy paying for a few stalks a month knowing that every outing can be in a completely different place to the last, and that I can borrow the estate rifle should mine play up, and that I can choose whether to take a carcass home for the freezer or not and that the guide will do his best to make the outing a success whatever the conditions.
I wouldn't be so confident giving a large lump sum to a stranger claiming to have ground with deer on it. A syndicate is something you should be invited into by friends, not something you buy your way into, in my opinion.
 
Hi guys, so many good points in this discussion. I suppose all have ther merits and, everyone has different circumstances, budgets and time constraints. personally, I would struggle with the prospect of a syndicate situation due to time (although that might be a long term aim) but can only say that the time that Iv,e spent stalking has been on paid days and I cannot complain about the value. I,ve only been out for hinds so far ( being a beginner) but for a stalker,
for the day, plus an Argocat and maybe another underkeeper for £150....can,t be too bad value. OK, you might not fire a shot, but equally, you might fire three.
Incidentally, Barry (Thom) , you helped me through my level one and I,m enjoyed the experince, ATB, Iain
 
Is it just me or are syndicates to blame for the constant rising costs for leases. Ive just looked at the 1 on ebay and this got me thinking again.... Ok now I understand that 1/2 dozen mates could all chip in and split the cost of a 3k lease for £500 each. But in todays climate what would they get for that money??? Perhaps 800 acres and certainley perhaps not overly good. Realisticly if it had Red and Roe the lads may get a Red and 2 or 3 Roe for their money each.. I know that recently a forestry mnager was bragging he could get £7.20 plus vat per hectacre minimum all day long as there were too many syndicates looking for ground and would easy pay that sort of money!!! Now Im not trying to knock syndicates by any means or manners. After all Im in 1 and actively looking for another. But Ill only part with my hard earned money for the right syndicate.

Are wee to blame for the rising costs? I believe we are!! What do you think?


Nutty

You only have to look at the places offered here, and the amount of feedback and interested responses to see that theres probably too many people without stalking, and are willing to pay regardless of price to join a syndicate.
Our syndicate covered approx 2500 acres,there were at least over a dozen members that i knew of, myself included all paying £400-500,plus a few more further afield,not leasing directly from the FC,but through a lease holder.

I shot my first deer here,so it's very special to me and I am eternally gratefull,but I think you have to balance the initiall outlay in comparisson to say a days stalking + carcasse,+trophy fee.
In this respect, i managed around 4-5 trips a year, and managed around a dozen beasts,enough for me and my family and friend,my mate who joined with me 4 years ago shot his first stage last year on this ground,a 12 pointer,his first red stag,and i guarantee that it would have cost him more than £400.
 
Is it just me or are syndicates to blame for the constant rising costs for leases. Ive just looked at the 1 on ebay and this got me thinking again.... Ok now I understand that 1/2 dozen mates could all chip in and split the cost of a 3k lease for £500 each. But in todays climate what would they get for that money??? Perhaps 800 acres and certainley perhaps not overly good. Realisticly if it had Red and Roe the lads may get a Red and 2 or 3 Roe for their money each.. I know that recently a forestry mnager was bragging he could get £7.20 plus vat per hectacre minimum all day long as there were too many syndicates looking for ground and would easy pay that sort of money!!! Now Im not trying to knock syndicates by any means or manners. After all Im in 1 and actively looking for another. But Ill only part with my hard earned money for the right syndicate.

Are wee to blame for the rising costs? I believe we are!! What do you think?


Nutty

Yes you are !! lets take a look

I joined a syndicate through this site last year along with 2 of my friends. There are 6 of us in the syndicate each paying around £1k for 3.5k acres. At the time I thought it was quite expensive but as I was paying around £120 for a days stalking + £40 if I shot a beast with the carcass remained the property of the estate, the price didn't seem quite so bad.

In the end it has proved to be a bargain with 49 roe including a good number of 6 pointers taken to date with 6 weeks of the season remaining. I get to stalk as often as I like on some very good land and keep the venison.

Its worked out a lot cheaper than bought days for me and my colleagues.

Willie

The farmer now knows that he can get people to pay £6k / yr for stalking here. So you've applied your management plan and banged the cr-p out of the ground. Keep it up for 2/3 years and everyone starts saying we don't see as many deer as we used to. So syndicate members leave new ones get disillusioned but the farmer will still want his £6k probably more. Eventually all you manage to do is make the ground worthless, instead of treating like the naturally renewable asset that it should be.
I looked at a piece of ground today (600 acres) that I last looked at about 6 years ago. It was well managed then. Nice number of deer with a scattering of some good heads. My colleague and I (we both surveyed it 6 years ago) said that we would have to leave the ground nearly untouched for 3 years just to let the deer recover to a shootable state because the idiot who now has it wants to shoot enough to get his money back.
The truth is that if people pay a high price for their stalking then they want to get their money back so as they can justify the price next year. The trouble is that ground cannot keep on producing if you are not applying the correct value to the animals you are shooting.
Take Willies example above and apply it to a commercial outfit. Of course its going to cost a lot more if you had to pay commercially but I bet you won't keep that rate up for long.
 
If you had no ground of your own and chose to book a few outings a month with a guide you would never have to sit in the same highseat twice and you could spread your money about to get outings at all 6 deer species and boar if you like. With a syndicate I reckon you'd be lucky to have more than 2 species on the ground. I think that we are fortunate here in the UK to have some of the best pro guides in the world when it comes to deer stalking and a lot can be learnt by stalking with somebody else even if you already consider yourself an expert.
I would feel happy paying for a few stalks a month knowing that every outing can be in a completely different place to the last, and that I can borrow the estate rifle should mine play up, and that I can choose whether to take a carcass home for the freezer or not and that the guide will do his best to make the outing a success whatever the conditions.
I wouldn't be so confident giving a large lump sum to a stranger claiming to have ground with deer on it. A syndicate is something you should be invited into by friends, not something you buy your way into, in my opinion.

Yeah this is exactly the way I look at it myself a change of scenery/deer every time I go out if I so wish I'm enjoying it at the moment that's for sure.....
 
Yes you are !! lets take a look



The farmer now knows that he can get people to pay £6k / yr for stalking here. So you've applied your management plan and banged the cr-p out of the ground. Keep it up for 2/3 years and everyone starts saying we don't see as many deer as we used to. So syndicate members leave new ones get disillusioned but the farmer will still want his £6k probably more. Eventually all you manage to do is make the ground worthless, instead of treating like the naturally renewable asset that it should be.
I looked at a piece of ground today (600 acres) that I last looked at about 6 years ago. It was well managed then. Nice number of deer with a scattering of some good heads. My colleague and I (we both surveyed it 6 years ago) said that we would have to leave the ground nearly untouched for 3 years just to let the deer recover to a shootable state because the idiot who now has it wants to shoot enough to get his money back.
The truth is that if people pay a high price for their stalking then they want to get their money back so as they can justify the price next year. The trouble is that ground cannot keep on producing if you are not applying the correct value to the animals you are shooting.
Take Willies example above and apply it to a commercial outfit. Of course its going to cost a lot more if you had to pay commercially but I bet you won't keep that rate up for long.


Yes I am what???

You make an interesting senario from Willies post and yes at present it is good value and IF as you say they bang the crap out of it then yes it would be worthless and that would again apply to my side of this discussion... But thats all hypothetical as that hasnt happened!!!!!

nutty
 
Nutty as I said the number of people wanting stalking has gone through the roof and your not always gaur entered deer when you go on an accompanied stalk I like to be on my own that's why I prefer syndicate land but like everything there is good and bad and always people on the look out for your cash things in my mind are going to get worse then the bubble will burst
Atb tom
+1 would be cheaper to keep your rifles for punching holes in paper, then go dine in a fancy restaurant for your venison, then go for a walk in the park for your fresh air!!!
 
The tragedy of the commons!

That is excellent. I never realised that hey had put a name to it. I suggest that people wikipedia it.

Nutty, it is a sad fact that what I have hypothesised about I have infact seen a good number of times. I have seen it enough times that I have also seen some farmers who will not touch a private stalking individual that is not local for the very reasons stated ( shooting too many ). Most landowners I meet only want the deer managing, not eradicating.

Let me give you a real example

Approached a large local estate. "Yes" they said they wanted a new stalker. The last stalker hadn't paid his bill for 3 years and owed them £10,500. He is now a CIC measurer!! So we arrive, do survey on 3,500 acres. Cost £3500. What with forestry interests (FC) and shooting (pheasant)and walkers the deer were being severely pressurised. One farm (the estate was made up of 4/5 farms) had 500 acre and just 2x animals on it!! On the whole estate we reckoned there weren't even 100 animals. We lasted 1 year as it was not commercially viable. The estate was then sub let to a syndicate of 3x individuals. After a couple of years they then started to question if their money was being well spent. There were not any decent trophies to talk of, the forestry wanted more deer shot and the estate wanted all of their money too.
I can't tell you if they're still there or not. I can tell you that I don't see many deer around there anymore.
 
For my Two penny worth, seen recently on here, and indeed elsewere"Swap's" or Trade off's for Stalking. In principle I think this is a positive intiative, be it a Professional such as a Motor Mechanic/ Builder/Plumber, someone whom as access to a bit of Duck or Rough shooting, and for instance one guy was offering an Holiday home for a week, his trade off to go out and do a bit of Stalking. I should imagine quite a number of people have something of value or interest. Provided there is some common sense applied, expectations are not through the roof, then maybe it could have some merits. Seen on here a number of times lads whom merely wish to get out into the feilds and forest, experiance a stalk, maybe just see one or two Deer in the wild, if not on the first then maybe an outing or so later get the chance to take the shot. No doubt probably opened a can of worms, but its only my opinion and as I say i can see some merit with it.:)
 
That is excellent. I never realised that hey had put a name to it. I suggest that people wikipedia it.

Nutty, it is a sad fact that what I have hypothesised about I have infact seen a good number of times. I have seen it enough times that I have also seen some farmers who will not touch a private stalking individual that is not local for the very reasons stated ( shooting too many ). Most landowners I meet only want the deer managing, not eradicating.

Let me give you a real example

Approached a large local estate. "Yes" they said they wanted a new stalker. The last stalker hadn't paid his bill for 3 years and owed them £10,500. He is now a CIC measurer!! So we arrive, do survey on 3,500 acres. Cost £3500. What with forestry interests (FC) and shooting (pheasant)and walkers the deer were being severely pressurised. One farm (the estate was made up of 4/5 farms) had 500 acre and just 2x animals on it!! On the whole estate we reckoned there weren't even 100 animals. We lasted 1 year as it was not commercially viable. The estate was then sub let to a syndicate of 3x individuals. After a couple of years they then started to question if their money was being well spent. There were not any decent trophies to talk of, the forestry wanted more deer shot and the estate wanted all of their money too.
I can't tell you if they're still there or not. I can tell you that I don't see many deer around there anymore.

Teyhan thats not good at all. And good on you all for walking after the 1st year. Its pleasing to hear that most land owners youve met are after good stewardship of their Deer.

nutty
 
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