I've been in east Texas many years ago. We have several members from the area, care to share thoughts on East Texas?

If'n ya wanna eat, you'll hafta catch yer own damned possum.

I’ve heard tell the folks in San Augustine county eat mudcats and drink warm beer.

I dunno?? Mebbe heresay? So don’t quote me on that.

So, what do you do with those trees?

Rural...lots of trees. You get the full range of seasons...summer and not summer. Good access to meth facilities. Not quite sure whether to whistle Dixie or sing the Eyes of Texas. Compromises by humming Dixie softly.

I've been there. I didn't lose anything. No reason to go back IMO

Pulp.

Turn them into dollars. Same as with cattle.

Sometimes.

That is a great post!

Every time I go over there I hear banjos playing. Don't ever get a lease over there because the thieves will still everything and the poachers will kill all your deer.

Yes... very astute observation. There are a million trees and forty trailers between May McConaughey and Mark Chestnut's houses.

Anything you can't do with plastic or metal.

Lots of territory to cover. Depends on where you're talking about. Lots of people think anything east of Dallas is "East Texas". Big difference between Paris and Hemphill. Big difference between Houston and Texarkana.

Ask me what I think of Iowa.

I live at the western edge of the piney woods. I hunted in Polk county by the Indian reservation for years on paper company land. Very interesting people live in those woods. Anything you leave of value at a deer camp will be stolen. It will take at least six people to have a full set of teeth between them. They are definitely a rough looking crowd!

Great bass and crappie fishing. Friendly people.

When I think of East Texas I think of my family, rural folks with old fashioned values who'd give you the shirt off their back. I think of catching my first bass in Toledo Bend Lake. Pine trees and red dirt. Saw my first horned toad, armadillo, roadrunner and tarantula in East Texas. I think of running out of drinking water on Lake o' the Pines and my Uncle, God rest his soul, dipping water directly out of the lake for us to drink.

Amen. Plenty of deers too.

I spend some time in Panola County. Great rifle range, people have always been good, even Wal Mart is decent in Carthage.

There is two deer seasons in E.Tx - salt and pepper.

I see a lot of jealousy here---

This^^^^.

I grew up on the coastal fringe of east Texas, but had lots of relatives on my father's side that still lived up in the Big Thicket. I loved to visit, and I learned to like armadillo stew, among other things.

Later, we lived in Jasper for a couple of years while I was supervising a project over near Toledo Bend Reservoir for the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, and I really got to know the folks who lived out in the Piney Woods. I would have been happy to stay longer, but the project ran out and I got a job teaching at Kansas State University. I went back regularly to visit until my favorite aunt, the last of my close relatives over there, passed away.

Don't miss the humidity and the ticks, but otherwise, I have mostly fond memories.

For me it's only a thirty mile trip to east Texas. Lots of nice folks there. I feel sorry for people who live where there are few/no trees.

Like no other place on earth. But after 20 years I still have to sometimes translate for my wife when she’s talking to my relatives

Huh?

What are people in E Texas jealous of?

As always, victimization clears the holster like lightning, whether there is reason for it or not.

Fancy trailers.

There is East Texas & there is Deep East Texas, vast difference.

For the Texicans on here, is McAllen considered E Texas?

No, it's part of Northern Mexico. It used to be in deep South Texas.

Nothing. Ne was talking about here on the fire. It's a frequent daily occurrence some are too dense to notice.

loved my trips to hemphill, tx; huntsville tx, and some towns i can't recall. but it was all good. slash pine mostly, because loblolly won't grown there?

Plenty of loblolly. It is what is usually planted by the timber companies.

what about longleaf pine? much of it being planted by private landowners?

just curious.

my mistake on the loblolly. maybe it's the slash pine that doesn't do well there?

It all does well. I’m pretty sure Longleaf, shortleaf, slash, and loblolly are all native.

Just curious, as I haven't spent much time in your state. But recently was a guest of that fine city for a good while. Wasn't sure where the dividing lines are.

I spent about a month in Brownsville in July on a project ... pure he!!. 99% humidity and 100 degrees. About 10% of the population isn't Mexican. Drug problems, illegal problems, no thanks. About all there was to do after work was walk the mall that had AC, I didn't leave my AC cooled office much .

I guess the mexican food was good, there was that.

Can't remember ever having swung a golf club in my life. But went with some buddies to the TopGolf in Pharr a couple times. That is fun. About the only nice thing I have to say.

I was in the Walmart in Carthage maybe 3 years ago (?) They didn't sell cold beer, had to buy it off the floor luke warm.....Have they finally got a beer cooler yet?
Hunted along the Sabine river and never saw a pig. Some big ass deer though. Had some damn good food somewhere along 59 heading up to hit 20 back to Dallas.
Boudin balls and fried catfish.

If you look at a map it will be quite obvious that's as far South as you can go in TX without being in MX. Might as well be MX though, as I hate the place. Toledo Bend Reservoir is as far East as you can go in TX, and I love that place.

I thought Texarkana was as far East as I could go!😀

Oh.

Yeah, LOTS of jealousy on this thread. Lol.

Not to far form McAllen is Falcon lake, my favorite place to visit in Texas. East Texas has some beautiful country and nice people but like anywhere else it has some bad apples also.

yes, Roscoe!

I always considered the Trinity river as the border of East Texas. Yes there is some backwoods folks that inhabit the area. And there is also a lot meth made in the pineywoods but there is also a lot of down home good country folks there too. A lot of city folks retiring and moving here and driving up land prices. I work for the REA and between the two lots,I’ll take the backwoods people all day,everyday compared to the city folks moving in.

Hutch

I ain’t jealous. I’ve visited tx and enjoyed it. Can’t see my ass living there (yet) what with 13 months of summer and stuff.

5 generations of East Texas mainly Lufkin area. It is different place. There are 10 per cent that knew in the womb they would never live there when grown and 90 per cent that would
never leave. I was of the 10 per cent that could not stay, however now living in Katy Texas and it is just as closely knit as any small town in East Texas but I am Texan forever.

There is nothing prettier than East Texas in the Spring and not worse than East Texas in August. But it was a great place to grow up in 50's and 60's just cannot go back.

So is Crockett East Texas? I've seen some huge gar rolling in the Trinity... Iove it out there. Heading to West Tx in February if things go right.

Amen.

Yea Crockett is on the western edge. And there is huge gar in the Trinity!

World record Gar was from the Trinity River for many years. Dunno if that one is current or not.

I like the piney woods but hate @#$%##@ TICKS!!!

Like somebody already said "East Texas" is a big place. My part of East Texas is between the Angolina and Sabine River. This was considered "no man's land" prior to the domestication of Mexico and the Louisiana Purchase. The people who landed here (settled would be an exaggeration) were either tough as hell, badasses or stupid.
I won't get into the weeds about that, but it was unusual for a male to die from natural causes.

Obviously, it's different now. The Government seized a lot of our land to make Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend lakes and people from all over the world started wanting a piece of the country's best bass lakes.

Now we just whistle Dixie and watch the world go to Hell.

The ticks ain’t near as bad now as they were when I was a kid.When the fire ants moved in,it cleaned a lot of them out. I wish something would clean out the chiggers!

I have family in Carthage and in Rosevine (near San Augustine). I always love going back to visit but them damn pine trees make me glad I'm in South Texas.

BP...

Gar generally do not prefer current.......

Like a few have said, you gotta specify.
There’s south east TX, north east TX, deep east TX and the rest of east TX.

What do you think of Iowa?

Ya'll neglecting to mention Nakedroaches, Tx. East Texas wouldn't be "East Texas" without Nakedroaches.

I couldn’t live anyplace that didn’t have pine trees!

In Big Jake, I believe it is, John Wayne has this hellish bar fight with this big old boy. In the middle of it, he stops and says to him, "Wait, have you ever been to Nacadoches?" The guy says "no" and John Wayne says something like, "pardon me" and just walks out.

I seem to recall a gar weight of 279 lbs from the Trinity that stood for many years, but I don't know if that was a state record or what.

When asked about the name, an old friend who lived up there would respond, "Nacogdoches is an old Indian word that means 'hard to spell'."

BACKWOODSMEN a book by Thad Sinton - a detailed social history of the stockmen, hunters, fishermen, trappers and
woodsmen of the Neches River in southeastern East Texas. Elements of the centuries-old stockmen\hunter lifestyle.
Interviews with the oldtimers. Tells the way it was (is) and why it was that way. Really good reading.

Spent a night or two in that Big Slough area of Neches river bottom. Awesome place. Crockett NF. When the sun goes down it gets DARK fast!!!

I went to shoeing school with little Stevie from nookatoechees. Any y'all know little stevie? LOL.

Googled that and got nothing. Got a link?

https://www.amazon.com/Backwoodsmen...nton&qid=1571950964&sr=8-1-fkmr0

Thanks Roger!

Thanks Roger +!.

Dittos rog.

The Land of Bears and Honey written by an sfa professor about the natural history of east Texas is good as well.

That’s been my experience as well. Love Caddo Lake !

https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/caddo-lake

I knew a girl in Nagodoches that looked like a young Halle Barry, there was a great steak joint downtown too.

Went to a big outdoor concert at Nacog. Don't remember any of the band's names.
It was catered by Big N i g g e r BBQ.

speaking of public events in east texas, me and some ft.hood buddies from west virginia, arkansas & minnesota attended a really big rodeo at huntsville prison.

the dudes that participated wore starched stiff uniforms, and looked really good.

riding bulls, horses, roping.

the drunks were everywhere. but the police only wanted folks to walk in the right direction toward the parking lots.

we stayed at a GaPac timber & sawmill camp not all that far away.

oh, they did parade out some really big blood hounds, managed by the Trusties.

but, no the trusties were not allowed to tote sawed-off double barrel 12's for the show.

we can count on Texas to do things right.

That prison rodeo used to be something to see. Anybody else remember the event when they would tie cash between a bulls horns and turn him out inthe arena with about 50 inmates? Who ever could get The money off got to keep it

i didn't see that one. but was there in the 71 show i think.

huge crowd, much cheering.

barely made it back to the logging camp.

Damn kaywoodie,you were in my backyard. Were you duck hunting in the big slough or what?

This is a really good one too. Lots of my family in it.
https://www.amazon.com/Gunsmoke-Redlands-Joseph-F-Combs/dp/B0006BVK2A

Well, it is an old indian word, but means..."its a long walk to El Paso".

East Texas?

The epicenter of redneck.

Also the epicenter of Northern Cardinal and Carolina Wren distribution.

Piney Woods, moonlight, and girls with soft Southern drawls.

An East Texas vignette: Late on a hot and humid night, an old run down bar, crooked front porch. Gravel parking lot out front, dimly lit by lights swarming with bugs, working pickup trucks, collection of Harleys lined up out front.

The screen door creaks and bangs shut, wood on wood. An attractive blonde, two too many shots, weaves over to her ol’ man’s Shovelhead; wide glide front end leaned over far on its long kickstand.

She throws a leg over and, standing on the pegs, leaned over forward to reach the bars with her long hair falling over the gas tank, she commenced to kick start that ol’shovel. Got it on maybe the fourth or fifth try.

Whoever she was, I’ve been in love ever since 🙂

Yep, I can stand the ticks in East Texas no problem, east of the Mississippi and north of the fire ant line seems like they’ve increased to the point of killing the joy of being in the woods until the weather cools off.

Chiggers? I thought everyone scratched their ankles bloody, that’s just normal.

Ya gotta drive 400 maybe 500 miles from McAllen up around the Coastal Bend at Corpus and then east to reach East Texas from there.

It ain’t merely distance, it’s climate. As you go east, Texas gets wetter, drier as you go West. East Texas gets twice the rainfall we do here in San Antonio and we’re only 200 miles out.

Piney woods, forests and red mud in East Texas. Trailer houses too, White and Black folks each in their own.

My oldest and closest friends are from there from back in my motorcycle days.

We collectively owe rural East Texans a huge debt of gratitude. It was them voting 80+% Cruz in this last election, more than any other demographic in Texas, that narrowly kept us from having a Senator O’Rourke (D. Texas) in Washington DC right now.

I think of Texas as being in "The West". Houston Texas is straight south of me in Iowa.

That puts it into perspective a little bit on how big an area TX covers My whitetail deer camp in the TX Panhandle is significantly further North than Albuqurque and Santa Fe, NM.

From Texarkana to Pensacola Florida is 10 hours.
From Texarkana to Sweetwater Texas is 12 hours.
You have to go a few more hours west of Sweetwater to get to the western edge of Texas. That's perspective.

Wow, that's a lot of steers and queers. I keed, I keed.

Too many trees in East Texas blocking the wind.

When it gets to 110 in the summer ya needs some wind.

One time I rode a motorcycle from College Station TX to Moscow ID. By the time I crossed out of Texas I was half way there.

From San Antonio to the State Line at Hatch NM takes a week on a bicycle 🙂

This time next Saturday, East Texas will be full of hunters, be a SOB in every tree.

They have both kinds of music in E. Texas. Country and western.

I live in Winnsboro, Franklin County in North East Texas. There's enough work in this area that it is pretty well populated. pretty much Tyler North to Mount Pleasant and West to Greenville is a huge suburban area with a lot of people. Too many people for me but now that my kids and grandkids live here I'll never get my wife to leave.

The fishing is pretty fair, Good deer hunting is very spotty. Too many people and the land is too fragmented not to mention some of these peckerwoods shoot anything thats brown.

and then there's eastern Oklahoma, same same but maybe a few less teeth....

Let California go -- East Texas can become the 50th instead.

Cant' say I know litte stevie. I know a few steve's. But none of them very little. LOL!

Ain't seen any young Halle Berry's around. Though Id like to. That steak joint is still there, and yes, it's good!

My in-laws used to live in Sulphur Springs. I was amazed at how few deer there were over there.

I’m gonna miss my east Texas deer lease this year. It will be the first time I haven’t made opening day in the piney woods in 17 years!!