I am forming a group to put in for a Potlatch lease next spring. Does anyone here have any personal experience with the process?

Is there a preferred party size?

Thanks

Use to hunt grouse on some of the Potlatch tracts, but more and more of them are being posted under their program. I think it is a good deal for the hunters, but kinda sucks for our group.

I agree with Cobb. It is breaking up the forests as far as being able to get free hunting in. I have a friend who thinks its a great idea but he has money to do it.

For the paper mills its free money.

My brother's been leasing a chunk for about 5 years. I think we're averaging about $1,500.00 per deer, if you factor in the annual rent.

As the trees that were not knee-high now look down at me, it does make it harder to see the deer that are hiding there.

On the other hand, no one else bothers us, and we aren't making loan payments either.

I am curious as to those on this forum that do, or who knows hunters that do lease from Potlatch.

We hunt SW of Bemidji, near a crossroad call Becida. Potlatch has a few tracts in this area, although we hunt grouse on mostly public or state land, we did hunt some of the Potlatch land for grouse when available or not posted.

For deer we hunt 100% private land next to Becida, which I am assuming what most of the Potlatch leases are for, deer and not grouse.

I've never heard of this. I am going to have to look into it.

Potlatch has had a booth/tent at least for a few years at the Game Fair in Anoka. I always stop in and talk about available land, where we have land and what Potlatch has in our area.

One of the sections that we use to hit for grouse 3 years ago just south of a campgrounds on the Mississippi that Potlatch owns was leased 2 years ago and therefore posted.

I've been leasing a Potlatch track for several years now.I have 45 acres for a little over $300 a year. The lease is for the entire year and can be used for hunting, camping, hiking, snowshoeing or what ever. You can post the land, you just have to use Potlatch signs. Most tracks have a road (trail) and a spot for camping. If they do any logging on your track they will let you know in advance. Its actually quite fascinating to watch how they log now days.
You can hang deer stands any where you want they just dont want anything permanent.
They are very safety conscious and it helps when applying for a lease if all members of your party have a DNR firearms safety certificate. They have yearly newsletters and contests. Winners can get a reduction off next years lease.They also have bird camps for kids. Its worked out well for my family and get my monies worth from my track.

Click on the "Available Leases" option in the menu explore what is available. It changes once in a while. Around May there will be more available for the next year.

Minnesota Leases

Friend of mine has a potlatch lease. He's pretty happy with it. Although he damn near had a heartattack shortly after leasing.

I guess he went up there one weekend to put up a treestand and a bunch of the trees had been taken out. He was all worried that they were going to be clearcutting land he had leased specifically for deer.

Turns out they were just thinning out the trees a bit. Basically getting rid of the ones they weren't going to log anyway. End result is he was happy as it opened up several previously blocked lines of sight/fire.