The personal experience of having to suddenly leave a deer lease prompted two Texas hunters to create a new company to help others deal with the transition.
The business is called Deer Lease Moving and is co-owned by Tommy Wright and Harper Ray.
“Most people tend to stay on a ranch from anywhere from three to four years, on average, is what we’ve seen. These days, it’s just hard to, number one, have the time to get out there and move your equipment. Number two, have the equipment to do it, and, not only that, but have the manpower to do it,” Wright said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “There are too many people leaving good equipment on ranches to go to another one. And so we decided to put this business together to really just give back to the hunting community in Texas and to provide a service that we felt was dearly needed.”
Among its services, the company can disassemble hunting equipment, move it and set it up at a new lease location or store it. They can also sell it, if desired, and offer helicopter flyovers for game census counts.
“We quickly found that people come to us for everything. We also come across a lot of land. So, when people see us, they might leave a place, and they might come to us and say, ‘Have you heard of anything that’s available,’” Wright said. “So we find ourselves really in the midst of being able to partner up good hunting individuals and groups with new ranches, as well.”
This is the time of year when services are most requested, according to Wright. He said most of the lease moves occur between April and August.
“We get calls on a weekly basis, for sure, whether it’s a person with just one blind, or it’s somebody with 10, 15 blinds and a whole hunting cabin,” Wright said. “When you’re leasing property, you’re kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, if you will, and it’s never a good predicament to be in.”
He said he knows what it’s like to be caught in the transition from one deer lease to the next.
“In the past, I found myself all of a sudden moving from one deer lease to the other. And I think in a five-year span, I moved to three different places. It’s just hard to do that, to get the group together to move and to find one day and have the equipment to do it. A lot of people don’t. My experience going through that, it’s never fun,” Wright said.
For more information on Deer Lease Moving, visit www.deerleasemoving.com.