Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Best State to own property in for hunting camp or living

Did anyone mention Texas yet?

That's one of the things that sucks about Oklahoma. Our modern gun season is just 9 to 14 consecutive days long. It's marvelous if you're a bow hunter, though, because the archery season basically runs from October through January. Modern gun season is just too short for my liking.

I don't have to worry about whether or not I'll draw a deer tag for the area I want to hunt, though. So that's a plus. And I can shoot more than one, which is another plus, since I like to eat venison and so does everyone else in my household.

Deer seasons in California were much longer -about five weeks long for the zone my hunting camp out there is in. There were plenty of pigs to shoot at if I was willing to drive up the coast a bit. There are huntable populations of quail in every one of California's counties except the City and County of San Francisco and the only reason you can't hunt quail in that one is because it's entirely urban and not because it doesn't have quail -I used to see them in parks there when I was a kid.

Anyhow, the big bummer about deer hunting here in Oklahoma is how short the modern gun season is -9 to 14 days for the general season, then another 7 days or so for what's called the "holiday antlerless" hunt.

The other bummer is that Oklahoma is a lot like "Baja Oklahoma" (some people call it "Texas") in that most of the land in this state is owned by somebody and that somebody isn't you or anyone else you know. What public land there is seems mostly concentrated in the eastern thrid of the state that I live in. The biggest tracts of public hunting land are on the eastern side -places like the Ouchita National Forest, and the Honobia and Three Rivers Wildlife Management Areas. Those latter two are actually owned by private companies but open to the public through a lease arrangement with our Wildlife Department.
They charge a $40.00 annual access fee for using those two WMA's.

The modern gun season is short out here but deer are pretty plentiful. Since 2007, I've whacked 17 of them with vehicles.

If I ever do buy land out here, instead of putting in a food plot, I've going to run a strip of two-lane blacktop across it. They seem mysteriously attracted to it here -finding a two-lane more attractive than any salt lick or food plot .

The plus side is that undeveloped land out there -especially land that's all stunted hardwood trees- is cheap compared to rural land in other states.

9 days isn't enough to kill one deer? Then you have 9 days to kill an elk. 30 days to kill a bear etc etc.

Uh, no, in fact, it sometimes isn't. I've lived in Oklahoma now for 8 years and in that time, I've been screwed out of participating in the modern gun season twice because of work commitments. I'm not the only one in my home town that has had this happen, either.

In the town of 16,000 that I live in, the health care sector is the biggest employer. Our hospitals and clinics are perpetually under-staffed, so getting time off during the deer season isn't always easy when managers have to factor in weather related absences in their staffing. A lot of health care jobs that wouldn't have one on the hook to be on call on weekends in Tulsa or Oklahoma City do here in Tahlequah. So if you're on call on opening weekend, can't get time off during the weekdays of the season, and get called in even though not on call for some kind of all-hands-on deck emergency, then your nine-day deer season just became too friggin' short for you to participate in.

It's not just a job that can screw one out of participating in a short deer season. Here in Oklahoma, the weather can, too. I have a four-wheel drive truck but it's pretty useless when there are two inches of ice covering every road in town. I can't even drive out of my own residential neighborhood, let alone drive out of town to go deer hunting.

Now, if I could shoot a gun or bow inside of Tahlequah City Limits, a nine-day deer season would be more than long enough. I could shoot one in my back yard from my back porch. At least once a week, I wake up in the morning to see deer bedded down in my back yard. It'd be great if I could shoot them in the city parks, because I often see deer in the city parks in the gray light when I'm out running or cycling. They walk right down the middle of my residential street at night. The problem is that I have to leave town before I can legally shot one.

But, for a lot of Oklahomans, deer hunting is waking up a little earlier than normal on opening day, walking out on their back deck with a cup o' Joe and a loaded rifle, and sniping a deer or two or three from their back 40 acre pasture before the sun has risen on the first day of the modern gun season.

Since I am not one of those Oklahomans, a three week long modern gun season would be better for me than a 9 to 14 day long one.

I would say the Hill Country region of Texas. You get deer, hogs and a variety of free range exotics roaming around like Axis, Blackbuck, Aoudad, etc… Hogs & Exotics can be shot year round. I know someone with a lease there and you never know what will walk out.

Hill Country WT's can be pretty small. We have guys from TX driving hours to hunt our Delta Hardwood WT's because they like racks with mass.

DF

I understand your situation, but that wasn't what I had in mind when I made my post.

I had in mind that if you could hunt the whole 9 days it should be enough.

Hobbits really enjoy the trophy bucks offered there.

I've lived and/or hunted extensively in PA, NY, OH, TN, and CO. I've hunted more than a few times in WY, ID, AL, and FL. Each has its benefits/detractions. If you're looking for deer only, with an opportunity at pigs and turkeys, with good fishing as a bonus, I'd look middle/west Tennessee. TN has a 3 buck limit, almost unlimited does in west TN, a long season, and decent antler quality. If you need more, AL and MS are close enough for day trips. You could hunt deer 100+ days a year. If you can hunt, you'll have the opportunity to kill more deer than you, your family, and neighbors can eat in a year. Southern IL/western KY isn't far away for big bucks.

If you want elk, W TN puts you about 1.5 days from elk. Eastern bear hunting is a bit hit/miss with no clear spot/stalk opportunities. That can be cured with the same 1.5 day drive - or head to Canada for a bit of bait barrel watching.

All told, if E TN had more deer, I'd advise here because of the peripheral outdoor opportunities - hiking in Smoky's, Cumberlands, Cherokee NF, world class trout fishing, pretty decent bass fishing, plus a few unusual things thrown in - stripers in several places, native brookies (at least for the south), sandhill crane hunts. You can also see elk on a regular basis an hour north of Knoxville.

But the deer hunting sucks at least compared to what I'm used to in W PA. Despite all the moaning and groaning, W PA has alot of deer. I manage to see 30-50 in a week with a good number of legal and not so legal bucks.

I hate most everything about Virginia except the hunting.

No license required for landowners, small properties can still produce ample quality deer, some counties have 8 month deer seasons, tags are cheap, very liberal limits, enough public land and so on...

Double digit years are common if you put the time in.

lots of reasonably priced property in PA within short distances of 100's of thousands of acres of public ground. deer, turkey, bear, small game (some) and good fishing. the nice thing about PA is that it is not "diverse" as a lot of other areas. and other than the huge voting block in Pgh, philly and other scum areas, it is very conservative. taxes are on the high side but you can't have everything. the nice thing about most of PA public ground is that there is land for every ability. if you want to hike all day and not see another person, you can do it. if you want to walk 200 yards off the road and shoot a buck, you can do it.