Yeah I’ve never tried it and the thought scares me a little! I’ve lucked into a few hunts and I pay for a weekend hunt annually. The paid hunt is hit or miss, which was fine when it was cheap but it’s creeping up there in price and I’m just trying to figure out options.If you're new to Texas and you had the impression you could hunt for free well Texas doesn't do much of that. It's high dollar or make friends who own land. The open public land is a hard game. Personally I don't even consider it.
Yeah, it's not like it used to be. It's all about $ now.If you're new to Texas and you had the impression you could hunt for free well Texas doesn't do much of that. It's high dollar or make friends who own land. The open public land is a hard game. Personally I don't even consider it.
And for the land owners who cry Piggy Piggy Piggy but won't open their gates can just just suck it up.Yeah, it's not like it used to be. It's all about $ now.
Biggest one is not letting “hunters “ on their property and hiring professional trappers or spending a couple of grand and buying their own high tech traps.And for the land owners who cry Piggy Piggy Piggy but won't open their gates can just just suck it up.
I get all the hassles and stupidity from some hunters / shooters but there are steps that can be taken to avoid the damages to an extent.
I hunt by invitation in Texas. Usually near end of regular season or spike and doe season to clean up lesser deer that paid hunters won’t shoot.I found a day lease some years ago that seemed like a pretty decent place. The owner had property that was in a canyon that was very difficult to get to. It bordered on a ranch with a high game fence. The owner had several deer blinds with nice feeders and had them loaded with corn. He told me that the deer were eating up all of his corn, so I should be able to shoot one pretty easily if I just hunted diligently. Well, I did that for the 3 days I paid for and I didn't see a single deer. (To be fair, the wind was blowing very hard the whole time and not much game was moving.) What I did see was more raccoons that I've ever seen in my life. They swarmed those feeders and ate every ounce of the corn, some of them hanging off the side and reaching in to turn the spinner. I shot one, scattering the others. Within 5 minutes, those little bandits were back climbing over that one's dead body to get back to eating corn. There were no pigs on the property and the deer never saw a grain of that corn.
The cabin on the place was an old pole barn converted to living space. It had electricity and propane for the stove. The propane system had a leak I could smell from quite a ways, so I avoided turning the tank on. There were several hundred mice inside the building and they ran around all night. There were also several small birds that got in some way. The owner claimed that Indians had used that area at one time and there was a part of the property that had produced a lot of arrowheads. He showed me an "oat patch" that he had sown and claimed that it really brought in the deer. There were at least 6 oat plants in the plot he had planted. I didn't say anything, figuring that he might be imagining the crop he described.
I did some searching around other advertised leases and, as someone else pointed out, there were some places that had 10 acres and supposedly could accommodate 12 hunters. One owner told me that his place was small, but the deer on the property next door would slip over onto his place and if you were just quick, you could shoot them before they got to the next property.
I was on a really good lease up until a couple of years ago. The guy who ran it died and the owner sold it off. The only places I've found that I could afford were overrun with wahoos that made the place too crazy to hunt. The one that I had for a year was timber property, so logging operations kept it torn up. One of the guys on the lease put GPS dog collars on his kids and let them ride all over the place on 4-wheelers. People ran pigs with dogs outside of deer season, so the deer all became nocturnal. I had great pictures on game cameras - at 3 a.m. Opening weekend the camping area on the place must have had 200 people in it. Wives, girlfriends (sometimes both), booze, kids, dogs, you name it. Opening day, they shot one deer - a pathetic doe that wouldn't dress out enough to make a sandwich. The guy who shot it swore that it was a buck that he saw and the little deer must have jumped up and took the bullet.
Not being able to find anything I can afford - either seasonal or day hunting - and getting old, I'm thinking seriously about selling off my hunting gear and giving it all up. Just another step in getting ready for the bone yard. Makes me incredibly sad.
I found a day lease some years ago that seemed like a pretty decent place. The owner had property that was in a canyon that was very difficult to get to. It bordered on a ranch with a high game fence. The owner had several deer blinds with nice feeders and had them loaded with corn. He told me that the deer were eating up all of his corn, so I should be able to shoot one pretty easily if I just hunted diligently. Well, I did that for the 3 days I paid for and I didn't see a single deer. (To be fair, the wind was blowing very hard the whole time and not much game was moving.) What I did see was more raccoons that I've ever seen in my life. They swarmed those feeders and ate every ounce of the corn, some of them hanging off the side and reaching in to turn the spinner. I shot one, scattering the others. Within 5 minutes, those little bandits were back climbing over that one's dead body to get back to eating corn. There were no pigs on the property and the deer never saw a grain of that corn.
The cabin on the place was an old pole barn converted to living space. It had electricity and propane for the stove. The propane system had a leak I could smell from quite a ways, so I avoided turning the tank on. There were several hundred mice inside the building and they ran around all night. There were also several small birds that got in some way. The owner claimed that Indians had used that area at one time and there was a part of the property that had produced a lot of arrowheads. He showed me an "oat patch" that he had sown and claimed that it really brought in the deer. There were at least 6 oat plants in the plot he had planted. I didn't say anything, figuring that he might be imagining the crop he described.
I did some searching around other advertised leases and, as someone else pointed out, there were some places that had 10 acres and supposedly could accommodate 12 hunters. One owner told me that his place was small, but the deer on the property next door would slip over onto his place and if you were just quick, you could shoot them before they got to the next property.
I was on a really good lease up until a couple of years ago. The guy who ran it died and the owner sold it off. The only places I've found that I could afford were overrun with wahoos that made the place too crazy to hunt. The one that I had for a year was timber property, so logging operations kept it torn up. One of the guys on the lease put GPS dog collars on his kids and let them ride all over the place on 4-wheelers. People ran pigs with dogs outside of deer season, so the deer all became nocturnal. I had great pictures on game cameras - at 3 a.m. Opening weekend the camping area on the place must have had 200 people in it. Wives, girlfriends (sometimes both), booze, kids, dogs, you name it. Opening day, they shot one deer - a pathetic doe that wouldn't dress out enough to make a sandwich. The guy who shot it swore that it was a buck that he saw and the little deer must have jumped up and took the bullet.
Not being able to find anything I can afford - either seasonal or day hunting - and getting old, I'm thinking seriously about selling off my hunting gear and giving it all up. Just another step in getting ready for the bone yard. Makes me incredibly sad.
The farther from large urban areas, the better.I tried public lands hunting in Georgia. When some yahoo shot my white pickup, two days before rifle season, while I was driving it on a recon, I decided public lands weren’t for me. I was hoping Texas would be different… I know, bit it never hurts to dream