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First light breaking through dark hardwood timber

We hunt the ground before we list it.

Cole Mercer has sat a stand, a blind or a ridge on every property Iron Fence sells. Whitetail timber in the Ozarks, flooded duck ground in the Delta, high-fence and free-range ranches out on the southern Plains.

Acres on the market now
240 to 3,400
Asking prices, six properties
$780K to $9.2M
Tracts sold since 2009
214

Sample listings

Six properties, scored from the stand

Every listing gets five numbers out of 10, written by Cole after at least one hunt on it. Filter by acreage, by what you hunt and by fence, then sort by the thing you care about most.

Acreage
What you hunt
Fence

6 of 6 properties. Orange marks a 9 or a 10.

A mature whitetail buck on the east pasture at Wolf Bend
High fence

Wolf Bend Ranch

$6.86M

Callan County, Texas

Acres
1,960
Per acre
$3,500
Score
43/50
Game
Water
Timber
Access
Improvements

Species: Whitetail · Turkey · Upland birds

  • 11.5 miles of 8 ft game fence, rebuilt 2019
  • 14 years of scored harvest records
  • Four-bedroom lodge, skinning barn, 9 feeders
Cole's note: Every buck taken here for fourteen years was aged and scored. You are not guessing what walks this ranch. You are reading it.
Sunrise mist over the north impoundment at Cypress Brake
Free range

Cypress Brake

$2.45M

Harrow County, Arkansas

Acres
612
Per acre
$4,003
Score
39/50
Game
Water
Timber
Access
Improvements

Species: Waterfowl · Whitetail

  • 3 impoundments, 180 ac flooded by two wells
  • 85 ac green-tree reservoir
  • 4 concrete pit blinds and a mudroom camp
Cole's note: The two wells flood all three units in nine days. The north unit has held mallards every season I have hunted it since 2014.
Evening fog over the grass below Red Mesa
Free range

Red Mesa

$9.2M

Tolan County, Oklahoma

Acres
3,400
Per acre
$2,706
Score
37/50
Game
Water
Timber
Access
Improvements

Species: Elk · Whitetail · Turkey · Upland birds

  • Two live creeks, 6 stock ponds, 3 wells
  • Free-range elk come off the mesa in December
  • Headquarters house, barns and working pens
Cole's note: Still a working cow outfit. The grazing lease pays about $61,000 a year while you hunt it, and the neighbours are all ranchers, not subdivisions.
Working the fall food plot on the Spur Creek bottom
Free range

Spur Creek

$3.54M

Kittering County, Kansas

Acres
1,180
Per acre
$3,000
Score
36/50
Game
Water
Timber
Access
Improvements

Species: Whitetail · Turkey · Upland birds

  • 410 ac CRP and 22 ac of food plots
  • Spur Creek runs 1.8 miles through it
  • Machine shed and two box blinds
Cole's note: Nonresident deer tags in Kansas are a draw, so out-of-state buyers should know that before offer day. For a resident, this is the one.
A box stand on the white oak ridge at Blackjack Hollow
Free range

Blackjack Hollow

$780,000

Ridgely County, Missouri

Acres
240
Per acre
$3,250
Score
34/50
Game
Water
Timber
Access
Improvements

Species: Whitetail · Turkey

  • Two ridges of white oak and hickory
  • Spring-fed branch on the east line
  • 1,300 ft of county road frontage
Cole's note: Small, but those oak ridges pull deer off three neighbours every October. Buy it for the acorns, not the cabin. There is no cabin.
A bull elk in the hardwoods above Tall Pine Fork
Free range

Tall Pine Fork

$2.15M

Newcomb County, Arkansas

Acres
860
Per acre
$2,500
Score
34/50
Game
Water
Timber
Access
Improvements

Species: Elk · Whitetail · Turkey

  • Standing timber cruised at $410,000 in 2025
  • Borders 6,000 ac of state forest
  • Three bulls on camera last September
Cole's note: The timber cruise alone covers a fifth of the price. Access is the honest weak spot: a deeded easement that needs low range after a wet week.

What it takes to earn a 10

Scores are Cole's opinion, written down so you can argue with it. A seller never sees their number before it is published, and it does not go up because they asked.

A deer stand in the hardwoods
  1. 1 Game

    Harvest records, trail camera history and what Cole saw from the stand himself. A 10 means years of written records, a managed herd, and bucks aged before they are taken.

  2. 2 Water

    Live creeks, ponds, wells and the ability to flood. On duck ground a 10 means you flood every unit on your own schedule, without waiting on rain.

  3. 3 Timber

    Cover for game and value for you, scored together. A 10 has a recent cruise showing merchantable volume and bedding cover you do not have to plant.

  4. 4 Access

    Deeded, all weather, and quiet. A 10 has a county road on one line and interior roads that reach every stand without walking past the bedding.

  5. 5 Improvements

    Lodge, barns, blinds, feeders and fence. A low number is not bad news. Plenty of buyers want bare ground at a lower price per acre and their own plans for it.

High fence or free range. We sell both and will not tell you one is better.

High fence

  • You set the harvest plan and the herd answers to it, not to the neighbours.
  • An 8 ft game fence costs $25,000 or more a mile to build today, so a sound one is real value in the price.
  • Some states license or restrict high-fence operations. We pull the permits and records before you tour.
  • Fewer buyers when you sell, so buy one you plan to keep for a while.

Free range

  • Lower price per acre for the same ground, often by a third or more.
  • Your deer are also your neighbours’ deer. We tell you who hunts next door and how.
  • Fair chase, which matters to a lot of buyers and to some record books.
  • A bigger pool of buyers when it is your turn to sell.

Wolf Bend in Texas is the only high-fence ranch on the list right now. Red Mesa is the opposite: 3,400 acres with not a single game fence on it.

Cole Mercer in the field in November

Eleven seasons counting deer for the state, then he started selling the ground

Cole Mercer ran deer herd surveys as a state wildlife biologist from 1998 to 2008. That is why an Iron Fence listing talks about age structure, buck to doe ratios and browse lines before it mentions the kitchen.

He opened the office on Depot Street in Ashgrove in 2009 with one listing, a 160 acre hollow his uncle hunted. He still spends most of November in a stand, usually on something he is about to list, and he answers his own phone.

Acres sold
61,000
States licensed
5
Days in a stand last season
38

Broker in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Lic. #000000 (sample). Figures are sample values.

Your harvest log is worth more than your cabin

Hunting land buyers pay for what walks across it. A seller with ten years of records and camera history is holding the best sales material there is, and most brokers never ask to see it.

  1. 1 Send us the records

    Harvest logs, trail camera cards, food plot seed tags, flood dates, lease history. Shoeboxes are fine. We have scanned plenty.

  2. 2 Cole hunts it

    He sits your best stand or blind during the season, or glasses it in the off season, and scores it the same way as every listing above.

  3. 3 The map packet

    Boundaries, stands, plots, water, roads, soils and the timber cruise on one set of maps, the thing serious buyers ask for first.

  4. 4 Sold to hunters

    Straight to 3,800 buyers on our list, then to outdoor publications and this site. Most of our land sells before a portal ever sees it.

Closed in the last two seasons

Six recent sales, all to hunters. The high-fence ranch took longest, which is normal: fewer buyers, bigger cheque.

A tractor working a food plot below the hills
Recent closings
PropertyStateAcresDays listedOf asking
Whitetail timberMissouri3184198%
Duck ground, 3 unitsArkansas54022101%
High-fence ranchTexas2,24011896%
CRP and creek bottomKansas7606397%
Elk and timberOklahoma1,4208795%
Green-tree reservoirArkansas29516100%

Sample closings for this concept.

Ask what your place would score

He told them the weak spot first. They bought anyway.

Cole told us the Kansas place scored a 5 on timber and that we would feel it on a windy day. He was right. We bought it anyway for the creek, and two food plots later it is everything he said.
Grant H., bought 760 acres in Kansas. Sample review.
Every other broker asked about the lodge. Cole asked for fourteen years of harvest records and put them on page one of the listing. We had two offers in three weeks.
Ruth and Dale P., sold a high-fence ranch in Texas. Sample review.
He had the seller flood the north unit in January so we could hunt it before we signed. Limited out by nine. Nobody else would have set that up.
Marcus L., bought duck ground in Arkansas. Sample review.

Tell Cole what you hunt and how much ground you need

Buying or selling, it goes straight to him. About a third of what we sell goes to someone on this list before it is ever posted here.

(555) 014-2011

118 Depot Street, Ashgrove. Calls returned the same day, except opening weekend.

IRON FENCELAND CO.

Hunting and recreational land across the Ozarks, the Delta and the southern Plains since 2009.

Office

118 Depot Street, Ashgrove

(555) 014-2011

Broker: Cole Mercer

Licensing

Real estate broker lic. #000000 (sample)

Listings, scores, closings and reviews are sample values

Iron Fence Land Co. is a concept brand created by MigrateLab for illustration.

Call Cole (555) 014-2011