Big Horn Ranch Sells to Kentucky Couple

EXETER, Mo. — A Kentucky couple plans to purchase what was once J.B. Hunt’s private and for-hire hunting lodge near Exeter, Mo., about a 40-minute drive from Bentonville.

Big Horn Ranch consists of an 8,000-SF seven-suite lodge, a three-bedroom bunkhouse, six outback cabins, a game cleaning facility, a 48-run dog kennel, skeet and trap shooting areas and 1,800 acres of fenced woodlands and pasture filled with Whitetail deer. Three streams — a total of 1.5 miles — suitable for trout fishing run through the property, including Big Mike’s stream, which must be forded to get to the main lodge.

Terry and Carolyn Hamby won’t say what they’re paying, but the ranch was listed recently for $6.4 million.

If all goes according to plan, the Hambys will take possession of the property by Oct. 1 and they will begin transitioning it back to its former status as a world-class business designed to entice discerning hunters and the corporate retreat crowd.

The Hambys believe people will eventually travel from all over the country to hunt at the ranch. But until it garners national attention, its location will easily attract serious hunters from the Northwest Arkansas, Tulsa and Springfield markets as well as have a handy secondary reach to Little Rock, Oklahoma City and St. Louis.

Terry Hamby said they hope to offer the first bobwhite quail hunts as early as November.

Pricing wasn’t finalized but Terry Hamby said it will likely be a “by the experience” price with full- and half-day quail hunts available.

“It won’t be ‘put and take,’” he said. “It will be like hunting in the wild.”

“It’s perfectly suited, it’s beautiful and the facilities are there,” Carolyn Hamby said.

The two will continue to improve the property. They may build a pro-shop stocked with hunting and fishing gear and may even build another facility that will provide greater capacity for retreats and events.

Current capacity is about 10 people sleeping and hunting, or about 50 for day-long meetings in the lodge. Capacity can be more on nice days where the lawn can be utilized. Food can be prepped in the commercial kitchen or catered.

The Hambys will employ seven to eight people, including a full-time wildlife biologist.

The two are avid hunters and recently returned from a wild goose hunt in Canada where Carolyn Hamby bagged a “world-class” elk.

Terry Hamby estimates they spend 40 to 50 days per year hunting turkey, deer, duck, quail, elk and other animals.

They said despite the economy, now is a good time to develop a business like the ranch because they’re in it for the long haul.

And, “the key will be hospitality, hospitality, hospitality,” Carolyn Hamby said.

Wildlife Manager

The Hambys are buying the ranch from Branson-based wildlife biologist Grant Woods, Ph.D., who purchased Big Horn Ranch from Hunt’s estate in late 2007.

Since he purchased the ranch, Woods and a small team have worked to re-establish native habitat and about 200 acres of maintainable food plots suitable to feed the Whitetail population and repopulate the property with bobwhite quail. They also made improvements on the property’s 7.5 miles of roads, making travel a cinch.

Woods is owner of Woods and Associates Inc., a wildlife management consulting group that assists private landowners, government agencies and universities with research and management plans, mostly for white-tailed deer.

His book “Manage Your Way to Better Deer Hunting — Deer Management 101” is considered the authoritative document on the subject according to Terry Hamby and many other deer hunting enthusiasts.

Woods purchased the ranch for personal use and along with his toil in the fields, has mostly hosted family and church gatherings on the property.

This spring the Woods team performed a prescribed burn on about 80 percent of the land, which was designed to allow native grasses and weeds to bloom from dormancy. As of mid-September, there was little evidence of a burn — most areas were knee to waist high with native warm season grasses — and the tops of the many of the managed soybean plants were well browsed, proof the deer heard has enjoyed the bounty.

The native grasses will provide ground cover for bobwhite quail. The property already is home to some coveys but the Hambys and Woods intend to bring in more “close to wild” birds and encourage natural population.

Woods estimates the deer herd at Big Horn is 200 strong, or about one deer per 10 acres.

When the deer are healthy, hunters can harvest between 25 percent and 33 percent of the herd each year, Woods said.

He likened a healthy herd to a healthy tomato plant: “you pick one and they keep coming.”

The Hambys will retain Woods’ services as the ranch’s wildlife manager for the foreseeable future.

The Hunt-er

The Big Horn Ranch was established in 2001 by J.B. Hunt. He and Pinnacle Group partner, Tim Graham, partnered on parts of the project with Hunt owning the land and the pair sharing the animals at one point.

Graham said he first saw the land in about 2000 and it was a goat farm.

Hunt built the lodge, erected about 11 miles of fence around 1,800 of the 1,910 acres and began marketing hunts to chapters of Safari Club International. Hunt also used the property to entertain guests and executives from partnering businesses.

“We had people in every week,” Graham said, with a lot coming from Michigan and Texas. “It was all first class and that’s the way we tried to treat people.”

It was a project both men enjoyed and worked at most every day for the first year or so, Graham said. The proximity allowed them to stay or drive home as they wished.

Hunt’s initials are branded into some of the giant wooden dinner tables located on different parts of the ranch, on the plates connecting the lodge’s support beams and even in the rockwork surrounding the outback cabins.

The Hambys have no plans to change any of it. They view Hunt as a well-respected businessman and the lodge as part of his history.

There’s an intrigue about the place Carolyn Hamby said, and they intend to preserve it and share it with their guests.