The image above is a rough overview of what I spent most of the past summer working on. All areas color coded on the map (except for gray) are properties that ended up being leased to BHC by the new owners that bought all of the outlined property above in April 2011. BHC had been leasing a lot of the property from the previous owners for almost 30 years. When the land was sold, we had no idea if we would be able to lease it again or not. The future of the club was in doubt. We did still have around 5k acres from the original landowners that we still leased down near the coast to fall back on.
Dealing with owners from South America, who had never dealt with leasing for hunting, presented many challenges. There were language barriers, not to mention business and cultural barriers to bridge as well. With the amazing assistance of JD Wallace and my wife Tina, we were able to cram what normally takes me 5 or 6 months to prepare for into 6 weeks…and a deal was struck with the new owners.
Being that time was running short before the start of season, BHC couldn’t absorb the cost of over 16k acres for the entire farm in addition to the 5k we already leased. So we invited all of the other previous hunting leases that were affiliated with the previous ownership, to come back and have their leases through us. All in all it worked out well and we brought the majority of the waterfowling community in the area back together.
