Memberships

Private Club Concept

Thank you for your interest in Swanson Lake Ranch.  We bought this property in March of 2007 as a general agricultural ranch for farming, livestock and other ranching activities but believed the ranch had unique recreational value as well.  Three years later, we are convinced more than ever that this is the case.  The property is blessed with extraordinary wetlands, forested river-bottom and native grasslands habitat, supporting a rich array of wildlife, and the SLR management team, its members and partners have helped improve this amazing habitat to bring the ranch’s recreational value closer to its fullest potential.  These efforts have involved extensive land management practices such as crop rotation, food plot cultivation and invasive-species management activities, carefully researched and monitored resource management, and continued investment in infrastructure - and the results to date clearly validate the effort.  That said, we think we can do more and expect to maintain a high level of land and resource management over the coming years to maximize the potential of the property.

Three years ago we launched the SLR Private Hunting Club to help us achieve this objective of creating a world-class recreational hunting and fishing ranch.  Our members have become key contributors to the effort and a very limited number of slots remain for individuals interested in joining the team.  And as we just got underway in 2007, there is still an opportunity to become a founding member of this club and "get in on the ground floor," as it were, to help influence the direction and decision-making of this venture.

Our primary consideration for this private club is that we limit the membership to numbers appropriate for the natural resources of the ranch.  A study is underway to determine the specific species harvest levels that are best for the ranch, and this study will define the annual membership cap.  Please note however that SLR is a wild game ranch with NO HIGH FENCES or “put and take stocking” so estimated harvest levels and membership caps will vary from year to year depending upon general environmental conditions and state and federal game management initiatives.  Given those uncertainties, we intend to approach harvest objectives and memberships conservatively and our current thinking is that the club will be limited to 5 memberships for the 2011-2012 season.  An equally important consideration is the quality of the membership base.  We are looking for ethical, responsible members who will respect the property, wildlife, and other members.  In a word, we are looking for quality individuals who will help make this an enjoyable hunting club for years to come.

Individual Membership Details

Fees (for the 2011-2012 hunting season - Sept 1 2011 through August 31 2012) *

• No Initiation Fee *

• $6,000 annually ($3500 for a deer-only membership)*

• Optional lodge use fee $500 for the season or $75/night

Membership entitles the member to hunt: **

• One buck deer, with one guest per day during scheduled time slot

• Three doe deer, with one guest per day during scheduled time slot

• Three tom turkeys, with one guest per day during scheduled time slot

• Waterfowl twice per week during open season with one guest per day

• Upland birds twice per week during open season, with one guest per day

• Doves first two weeks of September, with three guests per day

Membership also entitles the member to:

• Summer fishing & recreation (camping, archery, canoeing), with five guests per day

• Use of ranch facilities and equipment (for use of the Lodge additional fees will apply)

* Fees apply to the current year only and are subject to change for future years.  For the 2011-2012 hunting season there is no initiation fee but SLR reserves the right to impose an initiation fee for members signing on after the 2011-2012 season.

** Hunting and summer access are subject to the overall ranch rules and restrictions on hunting and memberships, defined below, and Swanson Lake Ranch, LLC makes no guarantees or representations as to the quality of the hunting or fishing, hunting or fishing success, or the quality or quantity of animals available for harvest. 

Membership Rights & Obligations

General

Members and their guests have an annual right to hunt, fish and recreate on Swanson Lake Ranch, subject to restrictions noted herein.  Hunting is limited to 6 people on any given day, or the maximum number of guns permitted for a specific hunting activity (the first two days of dove season excepted, where the limit is 20 people per day).  Bird hunts are not allowed on days members are deer hunting (except by the deer hunter, if desired), and all hunts are confined to designated blinds, stands and other permitted areas, as determined by SLR management during the course of the season.  Waterfowl and upland hunting is limited to two days per week during the applicable seasons and the same area, field or pond shall not be hunted on consecutive days.  There are no restrictions on the number of days for dove shooting the first two weeks of the season.

Please note that at certain times, members may be hunting or participating in their recreational activities with other members, guests, and the SLR owners.

Work Detail

Each member is expected to contribute at least two work days annually or $1,000 toward maintenance projects.  Members will be responsible for scheduling their own work day and giving notice to SLR.  In general the work detail will entail such items as tree-stand lane clearing and tree-stand maintenance, cattail control, surrogator set-up and maintenance, trash and fallen timber removal, trail maintenance, and pond management work.

Time Slots

In general it is expected that members will work with one another to coordinate hunting and recreation slots, though priority will be based upon the seniority of the members to the extent conflicts exits.  One-time hunts, which may be phased out as membership grows, have a lower priority for date preference in the event a member and one-time hunter select overlapping dates.  All dates, though, once selected and agreed upon by SLR, are firm unless otherwise negotiated among the members and SLR.  Requested dates must be communicated to Swanson Lake Ranch, LLC at least 1 week prior to the hunt.  Summer (June, July and August) fishing and recreation is limited to 10 days (time slots) per member per year, turkey hunting is limited to 4 three-day time slots per member per year, and deer hunting is limited to 2 five-day time slots per year (no more than 1 time slot during the rifle season).

Other Hunting Restrictions

Deer hunting will be in five-day blocks with no more than 2 hunters at SLR at one time.  Access to certain blinds and stands may be made via state ground across the Republican River, if passable, and access to all blinds and stands must be made along marked trails.  These restrictions are in place to minimize the impact of human pressure and scent in the deer hunting areas.  While SLR encourages the harvesting of mature bucks, there is no minimum size for bucks taken, as we recognize there are many factors contributing to the quality of a hunt (weapon choice, etc).  For wounded and unrecovered bucks, the member’s buck quota is considered filled but the member may continue to hunt does.  A member's limit of one buck and three doe deer harvested per year includes deer harvested by the member's guests.  Turkey hunting will be limited to no more than two groups per day of three hunters per group and there will be one three-day slot available each week of the season.  A member's limit of three toms harvested per year includes birds harvested by the member's guests.  All upland hunting will occur in designated hunting zones, with no more than five upland hunters per party.  Waterfowl shooting is also restricted to five shooters per blind.  Fall turkey will be limited to September 15 - October 17.  The remainder of the fall turkey season will be restricted to incidental archery hunting only (i.e., while archery deer hunting, you may shoot a turkey, provided you have a fall turkey license).  Also, doe harvests will be limited to September 15 - October 24 and then December 18 - January 18.  October 25 - December 17 will be buck-only deer hunting.

Guests

Additional guests beyond the number of guests allotted per membership will be allowed subject to member priority and overall ranch restrictions.  Guests beyond the number allotted per membership will be subject to SLR's current Fee schedule for one-time hunts.

SLR Lodge

For an additional fee of $500 annually or $75/night SLR will allow its members use of the three bedroom lodge on the property.  The number of guests permitted per stay is limited to the guests allowed per activity (hunt, fish, etc), as noted herein.  Members and guests must adhere to the Lodge Cleaning Checklist and Rules and abide by all other SLR written requests regarding the use and maintenance of the facilities.  Members have the option of cleaning after their stay or requesting SLR provide cleaning services at $10/hour, to be charged to the member.  If a member elects to do his own cleaning, but SLR believes additional cleaning is necessary it may, at its own option, provide this additional cleaning at $10/hour, to be charged to the member.  Please note that open fires are not allowed at SLR at any time.  Grilling is permitted only in the grill provided and fires are allowed only in the wood-burning stove.

Licenses, Waivers, & Membership Revocation

Members and their guests are obligated to adhere to their assigned slots, hunt ethically, responsibly and safely, obey all state and federal wildlife hunting and fishing laws, have in possession all required state and federal hunting and fishing licenses, refrain from damaging or littering the ranch, and maintain as little impact as possible to the environment.  Please note that Memberships do NOT include hunting and fishing license fees or guide services.  Members and their guests are also required to read certain documents which go into greater detail about ranch rules and safety, and read and sign the Liability Waiver and Release Agreement (see More Info).  Note that Swanson Lake Ranch, LLC may revoke a membership at any time and no fees are refunded, whether a member leaves voluntarily or involuntarily.  Swanson Lake Ranch, LLC, makes no guarantees or representations as to the quality of the hunting or fishing, hunting or fishing success, or the quality or quantity of animals available for harvest.

Progress Update - as of June 2011

Our fourth season is in the books and we are again happy to report record harvests and/or viewed numbers in all species categories.  The turkey season was perhaps the best yet, followed closely by notable gains in upland, waterfowl and deer, leading us to believe our habitat management and wetlands restoration work are paying dividends sooner than anticipated.  Also, after four years of site evaluation and impact studies, we constructed Swanson Lake Ranch Lodge – a beautiful three-bedroom facility with a large wrap-around deck overlooking Horseshoe Pond.  We are please to note that within days of completion, and through the remainder of the season, Horseshoe Pond held thousands of migratory ducks and geese - providing a spectacular view from the lodge.

In the waterfowl category our aeration work, contracted with Absolute Natural Resources, continues to pay dividends and we have secured bids for new aeration locations, perhaps for the 2012-2013 season.  Concurrent with the SLR Lodge construction, a new length of aeration conduit was run toward Horseshoe Pond, our next aeration site.  The most notable impact on waterfowl, however, came from the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) wetlands restoration work completed late summer 2009.  This work resulted in the elimination of a large number of invasive Russian Olive and Cedar trees and the creation of six new shallow-water ponds.  The invasive tree removal work has helped maintain higher levels of ground water for the wetland habitats and should allow for higher-quality native trees, shrubs and grasses to grow in their place.  The partial dredging of the mile-long slough that runs east-west through the property, that created the new wetlands ponds, removed a large quantity of cattails, which are water-intensive and a poor cover plant, and will allow for growth of native wetland grasses which will provide better cover and nutrients for migratory waterfowl.  As noted previously, within weeks of the completion of the WRP project we witnessed a substantial increase in waterfowl on the property, utilizing the new wetland ponds and this has continued throughout the past two fall migratory seasons and resulted in some spectacular (“World Class,” as one member described it) duck shooting, both in these newly restored wetland regions as well as on the older SLR ponds.

The moist soils that were displaced from the WRP slough dredging work were deposited in certain areas that became our newest food plots (now numbering six).  Adam Wells has considerable experience in food plot development and has deployed a custom mix of seed varieties for SLR to establish our food plots.  The results to date are impressive.  Our alfalfa food plots have taken extremely well and are now home to a large number of turkey, deer and pheasant and our first planted food plot – a pheasant mix of milo, sorghum, etc – showed amazing growth again this year and continues to hold more birds each year.  In short, the food plot effort at SLR is underway and should be a significant contributor to the property in the coming years.

We last reported that the upland hunting remains a work-in-progress and we continue to expect this to be the case for some years to come.  In 2009 SLR made a significant step forward in its upland bird program after evaluating several early-release pheasant and quail field systems and finally selecting a system called the Surrogator – a self-contained watering, feeding and heating system for quail and pheasant chicks.  We purchased two Surrogators and in each ran three cycles of 125 quail or 75 pheasant.  The birds were placed in the Surrogators as day-old chicks and released into the wild at five weeks, with low mortality rates.  Human contact with the birds during these five-week timeframes was minimal which enhances the birds’ ability to survive in the wild, integrate with our existing wild bird species and, possibly, imprint to the Surrogator locations.  The early results were promising.  We located several large (50-plus) coveys of quail and groups of pheasant in late summer and came across our first coveys of quail during the fall hunting season. The pheasant harvest was also improved slightly over previous years and throughout calendar 2010 we heard and/or saw increased numbers of pheasant roosters on the property.  For the 2010-2011 season SLR decided not to run new Surrogator cycles because of commitments to the SLR Lodge construction project, but we are pleased to announce we have resumed the Surrogator cycles again this year and currently have 300 quail in the field and nearing their 5-week release objective.

In deer hunting the 2010 hunting season was yet again a mixed blessing.  The highlight of the season was increased doe harvesting efforts by our members and an increased quantity of large bucks viewed on the property - but harvest efforts for these monsters were again largely unsuccessful.  The good news is we believe a few of the largest bucks survived the hunting season and should be around in 2011-2012.  We also made a few improvements in stand locations and access and believe these changes will again result in a better doe harvest and increased opportunities for large bucks.

As mentioned previously, the ultimate vision for SLR centers largely around ongoing habitat management, though we think the land is already quite unique and the less we impact the better.  That said, there are some notable infrastructure improvements we have made in our first 36 months of ownership and we have plans in place to do more.  In addition to the aeration system mentioned above, we have a large five-man duck blind on one pond and are planning to add aeration and a second blind to another pond.  We also have waterfowl ground blinds and, as noted, added several 15-foot ladder stands for deer hunting to compliment the box blinds already on the property.  Earlier summer 2008 we installed a 3-D archery target course and last summer completed an 11-station sporting clays course.  Lastly, we installed a covered boat dock located on Horseshoe Pond to enhance the fishing and canoeing experience and for the 2010-2011 season we are pleased to report our members had great success fishing for bass, crappie and bluegill.

The final infrastructure project on our roadmap, as mentioned previously, was the addition of a ranch home and we are pleased to report that the SLR Lodge was completed late 2010.  Timber Creek Homes of Stratton, NE and other local contractors helped construct a beautiful three-bedroom home with a wrap-around deck and large garage and we are in the final stages of landscaping and road and driveway improvement work.  A few minor improvements remain (a bird cleaning and deer processing facility, dog kennel and storage area) but the home is up and running and available for use as an option for our members.

As you can see, there are a lot of interesting things going on at SLR and more to come in the future.  Please note that the above mentioned improvements and services will be evaluated on an ongoing basis and provided only if determined to be in the best interest of the Club and Swanson Lake Ranch, LLC.  While we expect future funds from membership fees and other sources of income will be used for these improvements and services, Swanson Lake Ranch, LLC makes no representation to current or future guests or members that these improvements and services will be provided, and may, at any time, revise membership fees, rights & obligations to reflect the addition of improvements and services or other factors.  Contact us for more.

Other

We feel it is important for our members and prospective members to know we are committed to running SLR as a professionally-managed business.  The property is owned by a Nebraska LLC which maintains liability and asset insurance in-force covering all aspects of agricultural farming, ranching, hunting, fishing and other related outdoor recreation activities.  We have developed relationships with over forty vendors, established memberships for SLR in Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever and the National Wild Turkey Federation, work closely with the NRCS and WRP, and maintain a website geared toward promoting the club and establishing and maintaining relationships with noted individuals in the outdoor world to help our venture along.  In all aspects we endeavor to make SLR a well-managed, safe, enjoyable hunting club.

Thanks again for your interest in Swanson Lake Ranch.  We look forward to hunting and fishing with you in the near future.

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