Giant Goose Ranch Update - 03/07/15 05:08 AM
Well, we have spent the last 15 months working full bore on renovating the Giant Goose Ranch in Canton, IL. Here is an update on whats happening:
We have worked our tails off, but things are really starting to come together! We have already sold over 60 private lakefront cabins and have our first 2 rental cabins ready to go starting next week! The plan is to build 3 cabins per month for clients and hopefully add one rental cabin per month for the next 4 years...
We are in the process of adding a 300' beach, garden, mini farm, 4 miles of new roads and have 200 additional seasonal campsites and cabin lots under construction as well. Altogether when everything is done we will have 481 seasonal cabin and camping sites.
Its a massive undertaking that keeps getting bigger by the day.
Whats crazy is we are selling the lots faster than we can develop them and at this pace we will have 90% of them spoken for by about 4th of July this year!!! Thats without any advertising! Also we have sold 50 annual fishing memberships as well.
How it works is people own their own campers or we custom build them a portable cabin and they lease their lakefront lot by the year. The lease includes membership to the whole 828 acre property and all amenities. Camping leases are $1925-$2550 per year and cabin lot leases are $2500-$4000 per year.
We do all the work and people just simply come out and fish, swim, hike, golf cart ride, grill and campfire. Its alot cheaper and alot less intimidating than owning ones own property.
We have 52 lakes and ponds (the biggest one is 121 acres) and each one is being intensively managing for different species of fish: Largemouth, Smallmouth, Hybrid Stripers, Walleye, Tiger Muskie, Northern Pike, Bluegill, Crappie, Bullheads, Carp, Bowfin, Yellow Perch, Gar, Catfishes, Rainbow Trout, Brook Trout, Brown Trout, and Crappie...
We also are building 40 hatchery ponds this summer and a fish science building and are working with several universities, private corporations and the Illinois DNR on all kinds of lake and pond and fisheries research, experiments, including several endangered and oddball species of fish.
Hands on training, research, and case studies on pretty much every fish species and pond issues you can think of. Will be putting together several Pond Boss field days and who knows maybe a conference some day in the future as well... we are making plans to be able to host all kinds of various large events from family reunions, weddings, corporate events, etc etc down the road.
So anyhow I havent been on the forum much the last 15 months because literally have been working and planning about 100+ hrs a week... my brothers and I have done everything in house from planning, engineering, zoning, designing, permitting, dreaming, scheming, selling, marketing, developing, financing and constructing on top of running our other businesses, filming a full season of our tv show, and raising families.
Cant keep this pace up for much longer though, I am actually not working tomorrow and going ice fishing and looking forward to it! We just recently moved our Herman Brothers office to Goose Ranch and now have about 20 people working full time out there. Our plan was to hopefully be able to be to this point in 3-5 years, but it happened in 3-5 months!!
Our website is up and running www.giantgooseranch.com and our Goose Ranch Facebook Page has lots of recent fishing pics and updates too. And since this will be my first real ice fishing trip of the year I have a hunch there will be quite a few fish photos posted soon... or at least I can hope!!!
Anyhow there is a goose ranch update. Come on up sometime and I'll give you a tour and probably put you to work taking largemouth out of high rise lake or reducing the female bluegill population on spool lake or feeding the stripers on Ski Lake or checking the trout stomach contents on big lake.....
We have worked our tails off, but things are really starting to come together! We have already sold over 60 private lakefront cabins and have our first 2 rental cabins ready to go starting next week! The plan is to build 3 cabins per month for clients and hopefully add one rental cabin per month for the next 4 years...
We are in the process of adding a 300' beach, garden, mini farm, 4 miles of new roads and have 200 additional seasonal campsites and cabin lots under construction as well. Altogether when everything is done we will have 481 seasonal cabin and camping sites.
Its a massive undertaking that keeps getting bigger by the day.
Whats crazy is we are selling the lots faster than we can develop them and at this pace we will have 90% of them spoken for by about 4th of July this year!!! Thats without any advertising! Also we have sold 50 annual fishing memberships as well.
How it works is people own their own campers or we custom build them a portable cabin and they lease their lakefront lot by the year. The lease includes membership to the whole 828 acre property and all amenities. Camping leases are $1925-$2550 per year and cabin lot leases are $2500-$4000 per year.
We do all the work and people just simply come out and fish, swim, hike, golf cart ride, grill and campfire. Its alot cheaper and alot less intimidating than owning ones own property.
We have 52 lakes and ponds (the biggest one is 121 acres) and each one is being intensively managing for different species of fish: Largemouth, Smallmouth, Hybrid Stripers, Walleye, Tiger Muskie, Northern Pike, Bluegill, Crappie, Bullheads, Carp, Bowfin, Yellow Perch, Gar, Catfishes, Rainbow Trout, Brook Trout, Brown Trout, and Crappie...
We also are building 40 hatchery ponds this summer and a fish science building and are working with several universities, private corporations and the Illinois DNR on all kinds of lake and pond and fisheries research, experiments, including several endangered and oddball species of fish.
Hands on training, research, and case studies on pretty much every fish species and pond issues you can think of. Will be putting together several Pond Boss field days and who knows maybe a conference some day in the future as well... we are making plans to be able to host all kinds of various large events from family reunions, weddings, corporate events, etc etc down the road.
So anyhow I havent been on the forum much the last 15 months because literally have been working and planning about 100+ hrs a week... my brothers and I have done everything in house from planning, engineering, zoning, designing, permitting, dreaming, scheming, selling, marketing, developing, financing and constructing on top of running our other businesses, filming a full season of our tv show, and raising families.
Cant keep this pace up for much longer though, I am actually not working tomorrow and going ice fishing and looking forward to it! We just recently moved our Herman Brothers office to Goose Ranch and now have about 20 people working full time out there. Our plan was to hopefully be able to be to this point in 3-5 years, but it happened in 3-5 months!!
Our website is up and running www.giantgooseranch.com and our Goose Ranch Facebook Page has lots of recent fishing pics and updates too. And since this will be my first real ice fishing trip of the year I have a hunch there will be quite a few fish photos posted soon... or at least I can hope!!!
Anyhow there is a goose ranch update. Come on up sometime and I'll give you a tour and probably put you to work taking largemouth out of high rise lake or reducing the female bluegill population on spool lake or feeding the stripers on Ski Lake or checking the trout stomach contents on big lake.....
