Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Texas, the greatest state, and why.

It’s funny how folks assume ya gotta be rich to lease hunting land in Texas. It ain’t true. It can be tough for a city fella, having to drive 3 hours from one of the big cities to get to a lease he really likes, but there’s a lot of great reasons to lease. Like you can hunt all season and never have to be bothered with getting crowded out by people of another party. Or the liberal bag limits and long seasons. And if you live and/or work in a smaller city or town, it doesn’t take long to get to know folks who will let you hunt on their ranches without charge. Add to that the generally high level of good manners of rural Texans, their hospitality (can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked to dinner by landowners, or to stay in their bunkhouse (I’ve stayed in some that rival a Marriott for luxury), and so forth. Not to mention that the access to exotic species on large high fence operations is unparalleled anywhere else. Axis deer and aoudad are two such species that have become as “native” and wild as ring neck pheasants in Montana and South Dakota as a result, and the species list is growing.

States with a lot of public land are blessed, no question, but the public land access can be a mixed blessing. All in all, I can truly say that I have had some of the best hunting I could have ever wanted here in the Lone Star state.