Not all land leased in East Texas belongs to timber companies. But to be honest unless you live here and possibly from here you'll never lease it at any price.
The 2 million or so acres you can hunt for the $48 fee that includes the 4 national forest and the remainder in timber company owned land is just about as good as most leases in the region.
There are big deer in East Texas but you won't walk out and set on a sendaro and pick which 125"+ deer to shoot like you can do in South Texas.
Just in the little area that I have land in within about 5 minutes in any direction over 10 deer that scored out gross over 150" were taken last year.
What sets the lease price in East Texas for the most part isn't supply and demand but rather property tax. Leases from most major timber companies are set at the property tax rate to cover that.
There are still places you can knock on a door here and kill a monster buck, but you better know someone - better have a story about how your family is from here and how they got along with whoever is granting permissoin on that property. Seen it happen to many times. I can knock on the door of any property owner in the south half of the county here and talk about my grandfather and greatgrandfather and get access in a second. Go to the north end of the county and I might get shot just knocking on the door. Just the way it is...people here have a long memory.
It can be done on leases tho. I went to school with a guy who skipped class on a Wed. morning and killed a non typical booner off a $300 lease in Newton county.
I've never had any problem killing a deer over 125" each year in East Texas for the last 15 years. But it's not like hunting in other parts of the state. You have to know where you are going, know the deer...and be prepared to sit in a spot where you might can only see 25 yards - at most.
My favorite technique is to find a thicket or edge of a cutover that is a few years old that I know deer are holding up in adjacent to another area they are moving thru.
Get inside and get on the ground and take a pair of lopping shears and make a tunnel about 20 yards long about chest high before season starts. When the season starts sit on one end and be prepared to shoot in about 0.5 seconds when deer cut across it moving thru. It has been highly effective but people aren't really interested in hunting that way. They want to go into a fresh cutover and set along the edge where they can see 800 yards in every direction.
