Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game with some buds

is it true in texas you have to pay for all the game you hunt? no public land,i thought you were the home of the free.just saying i would not want to live under a landowners finger.

[quote=bearslayer]is it true in texas you have to pay for all the game you hunt? -> No you can shoot one starling and one pidgeon for free .

no public land,->Incorrect -there's a spot of land in east texas but the locals tear the signs down as to where it is .


i thought you were the home of the free.-> It's a lot like free just very different .

just saying i would not want to live under a landowners finger.->Come on down you can hunt all you want -just don't get caught .

There are all kinds of "pay hunting" opportunities in Texas, but there are also 47 state Wildlife Management Areas, totaling over 710,000 acres and 675,000 acres of National Forest land. USFS land is divided into four National Forests (Angelina, Davy Crockett, Sabine, Sam Houston) in east Texas and the Caddo-Lyndon B. Johnson National Grasslands in northeast Texas. Most, if not all, of these offer some opportunities for public hunting.

There are myriad "pay hunting" opportunities that run the gamut from day hunts to multi-year hunting leases. Listing all the options would take more time than I care to spend on the subject. Suffice it to say that anyone who really wants to hunt can work something out somewhere. I know retirees on fixed income (like myself) who hunt deer, hogs and other critters, including exotic game, every year. It has been this way since shortly after the end of the second World War, so just about every native Texan has grown up with it and simply accepts it as the status quo and they learn to live and work with it if they like to hunt.

That said, the main reason that I left Texas was to work in western states that had more opportunities for hunting without paying. I spent one brief interlude in the mid-1980s working back in Texas, and I left again as soon as I had fulfilled my obligation to my employer. I have lived in New Mexico for the last 25 years. Public land, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, starts within walking distance of my front door and the nearest national forests (two of them) are less than 30 miles away. I have no plans to relocate.

I've hunted several times in TX. Yes, most of the land in TX is privately owned. There is some public land but not very much, a few hundred thousand acres. I live in Colorado where there are millions of acres of public land. Things are different In CO than in TX. Not necessarily better, just different.

KC

There are about 1 million acres of state and federal land open to hunting in Texas. There are also private lands open to the public for dove hunting(mostly) that you access with a $48 annual public hunting permit.

Here's a good thread on places to go:
http://texashuntingforum.com/forum/...UBLIC_HUNTING_OPPORTUNITIES_A#Post348583

I wish there was more public land but honestly I've been fortunate enough to get out a lot.

There is no public land in Idaho, so I would strongly suggest heading elsewhere.

There are public hunting opportunities for things like alligators and lots of feral hogs too. Actually if you can rough it you would never run out of public land to hunt on. Texas is a big state so you might drive a lot farther to hunt in state than you would in Wyoming or Idaho. I have found being on a good lease with friends is really nice, can't complain at all.

A stand up guy who was once my boss, once told me,"Nothing is ever perfect". A lease isn't free, but you don't have to worry about some person wandering up on you while you are hunting.

I have two leases, I must be rich!

Don't pay as much taxes as in BC for sure here. Health care is still better.
Lots of public for hunting and fishing.

And if you get tired of public land azzholes you can for a fee, lease someone else's property to hunt. Kind of set your own rules if you will.

Lets see, I can carry my pistol almost anywhere I want to at any time. I can carry my long guns same. I don't have to lock my guns up at home or at the mounties.

I can walk out my back door, piss, shoot game, fish you name it.

We had relatives in BC, actually still do, but have lost track of most of them now. Great place. They came to US for medical treatments. And stayed with us here in TX for months at a time, fishing hunting visiting.

Never heard em say a negative comment about living under a finger... they said it felt much more free here than at home.

I'd have traded them for the scenery any day though....

Sir,

I note your location to be B.C.

Wonder if they pay you to hunt there. Are you required to have a hunting license, if so, who pays for that. Who pays for your gas, food, lodging, ammo?
All that free?


GWB

I always heard that "there's no such thing as a free lunch" Someone always pays.

Yes.

Texas is the only state in the union where most of the land is private.

Nobody in any other states pays a lease to hunt, or pays a trespass fee of any sort.

Idiot.

Back in 2006 I did a public land hunt just outside Ouray Colorado.

I think we camped at Silver-jack Reservoir. Uncompahgre National Forest.

Did a guided hunt just outside Jardine Montana. Pretty much the same, just not as many people.

One thing I found remarkable about both places, how few species of game animals and how few of members of those species that I did see. Nothing like home.


On the Colorado DIY hunt, IIRC we camped at Silver-jack Reservoir. Uncompahgre National Forest. A week with six guys, only one of whom I knew. Talk about miserable. I could fill a book.

Around the third day we were there, a bud and I rode our atv's several miles up and around a couple mountains to get to a place called "Cabbage Patch". Hiked in about a half mile to get to a clearing that was probably 150 yds wide by 300 yds. long. We get there about 2 PM IIRC. I stationed myself in the middle of one of short sides of the rectangle and my bud positions himself adjacent me about half way down on the long side. We sit there for a couple hours and it is just getting prime time when here comes three guys. Well were wearing blaze orange so there is no problem seeing us. These guys tramp in at prime time and set up on the two un-oocupied sides of this rectangle. So now there are five guys sitting on a 150 yd. by 300 yd. rectangle. I couldn't believe it. Total bull-spit. I yell out. Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing, move on, we got this. The guy replies. Hey man, it's public land. When he said that I got my stool and walked out to the center of the clearing sat my stool down and did a rain dance. These guys start yelling at me and I retort, Hey you said it was public land. I sat there till they got up and left.

I pay $1,800 per year to hunt a 1,700 acre pasture out of a +/- 65,000 acre low fenced/no fenced ranch. I also pay for an annual hunting permit, trappers license and upland bird stamp. That would be about $150 in license fees.
I can go any time I want and stay as long as I want. I am 20 miles from the nearest town and 6 miles from the nearest paved road. Most times I can be there a week and never see another soul other than my buds. Many times I'll go three or four days and never hear a shot. I have a generator, 28 foot RV, and an ATV that stays there. I bring in everything I need and don't have to worry about going to town for anything.

I have been on this property since 2004 and have seen the ranch manager 2 times. We abide by the rules and regulations set by TPWD, but other than that we are on our own. I kill dove, quail, turkey, exotic deer and sheep, white-tail deer, hogs,coons, coyotes, bobcat, cacomistle. I've had elk wander through as well as cougar.

Perhaps its just my ignorance but I'm as happy with my situation as is a pig in slop!

just sayin!



GWB

cacomistle: is this another name for miner's cat?

yup!







GWB

We just call 'em ringtails...

we do too,


and when they're in the walls of your trailer fighting and scratchin' and you are trying to sleep, we call them a lot of names!

but to "furriners, Cacomistle sounds more exotic!

ya!


GWB

You have priorities in the right order,GeeDub.

Elks,

One will never hear me "down" how another man hunts. From my experience, he does so according to local custom. Many folk have a hunting heritage that stretches back many moons.

We had a place where I practically grew up. It was only 145 acres, but it was surrounded by 4,500 acres of land that was owned by two old spinsters that lived in Arkansas and leased it for cattle grazing and timber. Our place had a mile of creek frontage and my dad had a 4 acre tank dug. So I grew up running the creeks and woods of east Texas. I'd leave out in the morning with a sandwich, tater chips, a short "brush" rod with a Zebco 202 reel and a model 63 Winchester. Sometimes I'd not come back till dark.
I'd catch bass, crappie, goggle-eye perch, bream, gaspergoo, gar, blue, yellow and mud catfish. Shoot turtles, snakes and bullfrogs. In the winter I'd shoot wood ducks on the creek. Our pond was clear, clean and fed by a 4" well. Shoot duck and geese off it. In the spring robins would come in by the thousands and I'd kill them by the hundreds with my model 63 Win. Hunted rabbit, squirrel, fox, deer, hogs, woodcock and killed truckloads of armadillos. After hunting there for 46 years I knew the area like the back of my hand.

I've been leasing in the Texas hill country since 1999 and have been on four different ranches. I'm usually afield 60 to 90 days a year. Consequently over a period of time I get to know where the turkey will be roosting and which part of the lease they will be traveling. I know where quail are likely to be. We have no live water on my current lease, rather there are 4 gravity flow cisterns that have water troughs for the cattle that the landowner brings in each year. Critters need water and dove and Turkey usually visit morning and evening. I know where the fox, bobcat, coyote and Aoudad are likely to be. I keep a GPS with about 20 different landmarks, and gear to stay out overnight should I get caught short.

I do purchase an annual hunting permit that allows me to hunt different areas of the state, but other than dove hunting, I've no need to do public land

The thing about the 4 hunts I've done out of state, 3 of which were on public land that each had in common, I was a newbie/furriner. This was not my "country" and as such, I did not know the lay of the land. I'd be willing to bet if I lived in a western state such as Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Oregon, the Dakotas, I'd be a public land hunter and have the knowledge and where-withal to do so effectively.


ya!



GWB

Excellent post,GeeDub!

GW: I think everybody has one of these "one time this happened to me" stories. "One time" stories don't really tell the whole tale though.

I think if you back up to the "hiked in about a half mile and set up on a clearing" you'll have your answer. That's not very far to go to get away from other hunters on public land, in CO or any other state. In fact, it's a recipe to run into just what you ran into. Especially with all the non-residents who come here to hunt our elk and mule deer.



Exactly.