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.
Sample listings
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.
6 of 6 properties. Orange marks a 9 or a 10.
$6.86M
Callan County, Texas
Species: Whitetail · Turkey · Upland birds
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.
$2.45M
Harrow County, Arkansas
Species: Waterfowl · Whitetail
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.
$9.2M
Tolan County, Oklahoma
Species: Elk · Whitetail · Turkey · Upland birds
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.
$3.54M
Kittering County, Kansas
Species: Whitetail · Turkey · Upland birds
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.
$780,000
Ridgely County, Missouri
Species: Whitetail · Turkey
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.
$2.15M
Newcomb County, Arkansas
Species: Elk · Whitetail · Turkey
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Broker in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Lic. #000000 (sample). Figures are sample values.
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.
Harvest logs, trail camera cards, food plot seed tags, flood dates, lease history. Shoeboxes are fine. We have scanned plenty.
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.
Boundaries, stands, plots, water, roads, soils and the timber cruise on one set of maps, the thing serious buyers ask for first.
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.
Six recent sales, all to hunters. The high-fence ranch took longest, which is normal: fewer buyers, bigger cheque.
| Property | State | Acres | Days listed | Of asking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whitetail timber | Missouri | 318 | 41 | 98% |
| Duck ground, 3 units | Arkansas | 540 | 22 | 101% |
| High-fence ranch | Texas | 2,240 | 118 | 96% |
| CRP and creek bottom | Kansas | 760 | 63 | 97% |
| Elk and timber | Oklahoma | 1,420 | 87 | 95% |
| Green-tree reservoir | Arkansas | 295 | 16 | 100% |
Sample closings for this concept.
Ask what your place would scoreCole 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.
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.
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.
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) 014-2011118 Depot Street, Ashgrove. Calls returned the same day, except opening weekend.