Talked to Mertz last night. Take this for whatever it is worth...
Bottom line is that he says the lease I sent him, 16,000 per year for 2002
to 2005 looks good, it is the money he wants, we take good care of his
place, shoot mature bucks and we will get the lease, BUT he won't sign the
lease until next fall, "because I don't have to". Whatever.
I said we just wanted to know for certain that we had a place to hunt for
the next four years and wanted to make sure we did not need to start looking
for another lease. He said we had the place and not to worry about it, he
just wanted to see how the new protien program panned out before signing
off. Once again, whatever. He also says he's pouring the stuff out heavy
right now.
He gave me his word and seemed upbeat about everything. I'm going to leave
it at that until next fall. I'm not going to worry about it anymore. His
great deal on the Zander's old lease fell apart on him (he was suppossed to
have out of state hunters show up for two weeks and they were going to pay
him 30k a year). Maybe the concept of some good lessees who pay on time and
take care of his land will look more realistic and attractive.
He, as usual, stressed his never ending desire to grow a big deer. He's
counting on this new super food to do it this year. I guess the best we can
do to assure a lease renewal is to hunt hard and kill him some big deer.
Site in your guns and bring plenty of ammo next fall.
Erik.

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