Think I'll join this club

[MCgunner]

http://www.ricelandwaterfowlclub.com/page-index.html


Contacted these guys FINALLY. Tried to get 'em several months ago, but no one would answer. They're having the pre-season banquet or lunch in Eagle Lake Saturday. The guy says they have 4 individual memberships unfilled. Now, it's expensive and I've already missed teal season, but hey, I'm a duck and goose hunter and I've really been wanting to do this. AND, this is the cheapest individual membership I've found. Others run 2500 dollar range. The Texas light goose (snows) season runs unto February, so I will get lots of use out of it and it allows for a guest which will make my goose hunt loving buddy from Waco happy. I go up there every year to hunt doves on his farms, so it's only fair I return the favor. He's not much into deer hunting, but he loves to goose hunt. Next season I can hunt teal. It's only several weeks, anyway, but it's always a good starter offer and there's no gators where this hunting is to eat my dog. I think, too, one of their duck ponds is about 400 yards from my bedroom. I got woke up for church first Sunday of teal season to the sound of shotguns. The site says they hunt Rock Island, the little settlement about 3 miles down a dirt county road from me.

Anyway, I'm kinda excited, now, about this season. I won't have to drive all the way down to Calhoun county to hunt public land and I'll have GOOSE hunting any time I want to. Gonna have to pick me up some 10 gauge steel T shot, I guess, and dig out my Texas rags.

 

[hoghunting]

Looks like good places to hunt, congratulations.

 

[longknife12]

I'd try to talk to some members. Been burned by American Sportsman and Western Sportsman.........you get cautious after two of them. The above were over gunned and lesser value properties! Just cautious...
Dan

 

[MCgunner]

I think I remember American Sportsman Club. I was in National Sportsman for a while and found it okay mainly because they had some VERY good leases out in west Texas that were never crowded. They never had more'n 4 or 5 groups hunting 13000 acres there after opening weekend. I always got something out there if it was just a doe. Got a tall point 8 pointer out there that I had mounted.

Well, I've been reading over that site. I've got my Qs for the guys when I get over there tomorrow. This is a local waterfowl outfit. National Sportman club was mostly deer leases in Texas, but they had 12 spots on Larry Gore's Eagle Lake/Katy Prairie Outfitters. I could always get a guided hunt when I called over there. None of the other members were into goose hunting, I guess. I've always hunted ducks on public managed marsh and on various tide land around the coastal areas of the mid to upper Texas coast. I had a dove lease for a while, $300 a year, and it had some geese on it, but it wasn't managed for waterfowl.

Lots of outfitters around here it being lots of rice. Not many year round clubs, though, but there are several I've found. Eagle Lake used to be pretty well know nationally for goose hunting. That was probably due to the episodes on ABC's American Sportsman back in the 60s when Curt Gowdy and Phil Harris hunted around Eagle Lake on the Lissie Prairie. It's where the practice of using rags was developed. That was novel at the time.

 

[longknife12]

The ones I mentioned were out of Colorado......just bad experiences on my part.
Dan

 

[MCgunner]

Well, I got there early. The brisket and sausage and fixin's were good. I had time to chat with multiple members as we waited for things to get kicked off. Everyone seemed real happy with the hunting. They seemed to know how to manage their properties and they don't mind putting the money into it. The guy that runs it is some sort of duck calling champion, "Dave Pruitt".

Seems like a well run outfit. I guess I'll find out since I upped the membership fees. I'm locking forward to making the old 12 and 10 gauges talk this season, for a change. Two years ago I didn't even go duck hunting. Last season I went twice. This was my old public stomping grounds down on the coast, which are good, but not really for snow geese. These guys have some prime goose properties around the "goose hunting capital of the world", self proclaimed, of course.

Another thing I like about it, all self guided. I prefer to hunt with friends, not strangers I'm put with and a guide. I call better than most of the guides I've hunted with and my dog, even though she's not well trained to blind retrieves, is better than SOME of the dogs those guides have had. And, part of the reason I wanna hunt birds more is for the dog, she just loves it.

These guys have goose hunting, duck hunting, teal hunting, and dove hunting and the light goose season lasts into late February, so I'm going to get me some action over about half the year, at least, along with my deer hunting. I suppose small game and fishing, as always, will keep me busy the rest of the year. No more boredom watching duck hunters on TV in envy.