Lets hear what counties you have seen the most hunting pressure in. The post about Eastland Co. had me thinking...that is probably the most pressured county I have hunted so far. Lots of nocturnal deer all through the season in Eastland.

Anything near Public Hunting Properties...

I'm thinking duval county since it's hunted 365 days a year and the average lease size I see down there is around 200 acres...

of course, most of the leases have NEVER been hunted, and they also have HUGE low fence neighbors, and most have also had 170's shot next door. Damn the luck those 170's are never shot on those duval lease ads. They must all have the luckiest neighbors in the world.

Around my place in Wise County is pretty bad. Ton's of 20 acre tracts with 4 hunters each.

No deer in West texas...

this happens in alot more places than duval county.

hell, this qualifies the eastern third of the state!

yeah I Know. I'm just down on duval county lately.

LOL

A good friend of mine has a ranch between benavides and san diego. I was out there with him a while back, and the signs of poaching are everywhere. rifle casings under blinds, cut fences, tires tracks where there shouldn't be any...

poaching is really a big problem all across the state. I bet it's the reason you are seeing so many high fences these days. lease prices are going up, cost of having a lease is going up, then some random A hole shoots deer off the highway.

not sure about the county...just know areas that don't see much pressure at all.

San Saba

Opening morning of gun season sounds like World War Three.

Lots of hunters crammed in to small tracts of land.

Bucks stay nocturnal quite a bit.

This may apply to my area of San Saba only, I'm not sure. Our place is pretty close to the San Saba river.

I think over all the Hill Country still just gets invaded, for the mass numbers.

My family has a place (300+ acres) in San Saba Co. that I haven't hunted in 10 years. Got tired of wasting my time. You pass on a young deer only to watch him jump a fence and get shot. I hunted it for years and the only thing I ever shot was our neighbors dogs and cats running amok all over our pasture.

Lots of areas in Llano and Mason Counties have a lot of the same problem.

From my experience, I think anywhere down 281 within 2.-3 hours of the metroplex is real bad.

My personal experience is Hamilton County. Opening morning I go to the blind extra early. You can hear trucks and 4wheelers and see headlights all over the place, some along my fence line. The first shot I usually hear is clearly too dark to be legal and the shots continue to around 9am. the same continues til about Thanksgiving when pressure lightens up. Im there year round...nothing compares to the pre-dawn noise of opening morning.

The reason I mention the 281 corridor is from traffic on Thanksgiving weekend. I have seen traffic backed up 3+ miles off the square in Hamilton in the northbound lane on sunday. Every other truck has hunting gear in it.

But thats just what I've seen.....

i remember driving up I-45 north of houston on the friday before opening weekend.....seemed ever truck was going hunting.

Throws me for a loop, there, opening morning, we always heard up to a half dozen shots, now, the only shots i hear are ones that come from my gun.

Hill country is overhunted, land is divided into smaller parces with more family hunting. Anything over 6 pointer gets shot during bow or youth season, leaving spikes and small bucks to do breeding and gun season. Some decent bucks on high fenced, managed areas.

Nac Co & San Augustine Co.... swarming with oil&gas folks and plenty of loud 'Booms' to make the deer skittish.

some areas, i would agree with that.

but alot of places are getting bought up by people that don't hunt, i can take you to many tracts in the hill country that are like that

As my real estate friend in the Hill County quotes from his customers wives "You mean they shoot deer here?!? We must buy up as must land as possible to save as many deer as possible."

Typically quote from the sheltered big city (yes I am from a big city too) client who comes to the Hill Country to buy a weekend getaway. Most are from Houston and probably originally from Cali.

I've heard more gun shots out in west texas from playing around with a 22 and shooting jackrabbits than I've heard in years of deer season

I think the hill country. It seems to draw people from all around the state. It also has experinced land fragmentation as bad as any where. Small tracts lots of people. What ranches are left are over hunted.

I love to see I-20 before gun season. Looks like everone from the metromess has a trailer with a avt/utv feeders, cooler ect.....Cracks me up. I talked to some Dallas hunters that lease a big ranch down the road from us and they said that last year they "got our limit" on the first weekend. After that its the local folks that do the hunting around us. But those guys sure like to shoot.

when showing a property, its a blessing to see animals on a place.

I had a bona fid 160 inch buck hit the road in front of me, and the two guys in the truck (both not really into hunting), said, aw, look at that, he's a nice one. never ever does that happen.

did i make a sale.....hell no.

i would say the hill country within 1 1/2 hours from san antonio, especially north of bandera and towards vanderpool, are more play places that may do a little hunting, but nothing extreeme, than working ranches that lease to hunters

This is why I hunt in Nolan county. No big bucks on our lease, but lots of nice ones. The ranch on the west fence is leased, the south fence has windmills (no hunting allowed), the north and east fence are not hunted at all.

I hate the 4 hour drive from DFW, but in the end, it's worth it.

I would say anywgere within a couple hours of a major city would be hunted hard.

Only people in Cali against hunting are the Cali Democrats, totally different breed (varmint) wish we could hunt those. Hell their even trying to ban fishing (all) in the coastal areas.