Greetings!

The wife and I just relocated to Spring Branch from Central Oregon. I did a lot of bowhunting, and hunting in general up there. The deer and elk hunting isn't that good, so I did a lot of scouting an a lot of time in the woods with a buck tagged every three or four years. What I have noticed down here is there are animals EVERYWHERE. The bucks in my neighborhood are absolute studs, and are basically pets with no worries.

While I'm really looking forward to getting out, I'm kinda at a loss as to the best way to FIND a place to hunt. Finding a place to hunt in Oregon was relatively straight forward with so much public land. The better you scouted in pre season the better you would do, but still the animals were scarce and pressure was high in most areas.

I wanted to get some feedback on how to best find places to hunt. Besides the obvious pay to play ranches, is there a good way to find a reputable lease? -I've heard some horror stories.. Is it acceptable, effective to Scout on OnX then knock on doors during the spring and just ask? Are the drawn hunt and postcard hunts decent?

I'm mainly interested in feral pigs as they are really tasty.. Does that help?

Any advice would be appreciated . If folks are in Spring Branch, I'd love to meet up and have a beer swap some stories.

I'm also big into:
PCP air rifles & pest control (rats both land and sky versions)
upland,
I do a ton of fly fishing and am loving the Guad and Canyon Lake.
FPV drone flying, and drones in general.
I'm also starting on the the Night Vision money pit with a small AGM thermal monocular and ATN 4k pro that I used with my air rifles for rats and pigeons at night in dairy and barn shoots. Currently thinking about a PVS14 or PVS7.. but I also want another suppressor...

I'm either in Crystal City or in Bulverde, so welcome!

We hunted on leases for years and years but its hit or miss.
I still see them on facebook but you have to be able to jump on them.
Or its through a friend of a friend.

Theres also the draw hunts on the TPWD website.

Id send a hand written letter before I knock on doors.

Shoot me a message! Im not up here a lot but might be more in the near future!

So, Texas hunting is very different than hunting in the far west for a number of reasons, the chief most being there is very little public land in Texas. I lived in Nevada for perhaps 15 years, so I’m very familiar with the experience you describe in Oregon. Your options here essentially boil down to hunting the public draws, leasing, and game ranches. There are pros and cons to each of these, so it’s important to figure out what you really want out of your hunt.

Leasing options are fairly simple in that you try to find the best lease you can reasonably afford. It should go without saying that good and cheap are rarely combined in the same sentence unless you have a personal connection. I’ll also observe there are far more mediocre and poor leases than good ones, and most of us travel through something of an odyssey to acquire something that we like. On the other hand, there’s considerable freedom on a good lease, and you are hunting from scratch, meaning you have access to land, but everything else is up to you.

Public draws are better than they sound, but Texas is a really big place and you need to make sure you can actually get to your draw location. My biggest beef with the draw system is that most hunts are scheduled during the week so as not to conflict with normal weekend park activities by the general public, thus requiring the use of more PTO days, a deal breaker for me most of the time. The glamour hunts are long odds, but doe and hog hunts are relatively easy draws if you’re willing to drive a bit. Public hunts are quite structured, and you will follow the direction of park rangers, wear orange, go where you are told, etc. They want you to succeed, but they want you to succeed their way.

Hunting ranches vary from mild to wild, and from fishing in the aquarium to very challenging indeed. I’ll only say this: perform your due diligence and make sure you are being offered the kind of hunt that you really want, as the experience is entirely dependent on the operator. You can hunt on 150 acres or 15,000 acres, so ask questions about things that are important to you.

Anyway, welcome aboard. I hope you find your happy place here in Texas. I’ve been here 18 years, and couldn’t be happier, unless I were a little closer to the ocean.

Good luck sir, be prepared to pay a lot.

ta HF.
Thars several different sections on this forum.

Can find places ta hunt in outfitter/leasing section.
Also public hunting section.
For hog hunts, public hunting was were i hunted.
A do it yourself hunt.


has over 1,000,00 acres. @ least whin i lived thar.
One i hunted was OSBWMA was wet in areas, depending on flooding.
End of archery deer/hog ends roughly Dec. Had gun draw hunts.
Jan-end March was hog only any legal means. Was best. Cooler Temps.

Hunted some that were 25,0000acres, & thars bigger areas.
Each have thar own rules. Types of hunts.
So check them out for the hog hunts.
Deer hunts, had leases, but were under 250.00 year round.
Put out stand, feeder, food plots. & wait.
Deer learn ta patter, bucks over ones. Skirt around food plots.
Doe's tis what draws the bucks.
Chain on/self climbing stands & natural setting what i prefured.

Best wish's

You might consider joining Austin Woods and Waters. You will meet other hunters and fishermen. They have several opportunities to do both.

Several listings can found thru local chambers of commerce, local newspapers,and social media. Prices will vary depending on several factors - size, location, and number of hunters.

You can also use any number of lease brokers - Scott Thrash runs DEERTEXAS.COM covering several of the more popular areas, however brokers charge a fee for their services.

The drought that lasted almost two years has changed hunting lands drastically in some areas of the state, so keep that in mind as you search. Leases are daily, seasonal or annual, some will have all facility services, some will have none.

I would suggest you decide on a particular area of the state you want to hunt and begin your search from there. New listings will begin to show starting next month and gradually pick up thru the spring as more and more hunters change leases or stop hunting all together!

Best wishes and good luck.

Get out on the ACOE ground for everything but deer and exotics. Plenty of pigs and small game, and waterfowl on corps ground.

I am not gonna say you can’t be a successful deer hunter on public ground in Texas, but where you can hunt deer the pressure is high. It is nothing like Oregon, for sure. There are a lot of overpopulated corps grounds where you can’t hunt the deer. Even though they are getting problematic. That might have changed, i moved to Missouri 4 years ago.

But if you get a lease and put out a feeder you will get pigs for sure, and there is some very good deer hunting. Have an open mind about baiting. When there is at least one feeder on every property it barely levels the playing field. And overall the critters benefit from it.

Welcome. I've hunted Texas all my life, this was my 50th season. I've always lease hunted and some public. I did well on public, but that is no longer an option due to a law passed this year that relates to hunting river beds. The best way to find a lease; make it your mission. You're new so you're going to be meeting a lot of people. Make sure you mention if to everyone you meet. Within the first few minutes of meeting someone that person knows that I hunt and I'm not even looking. Go to a rifle range, gun counter, pawn shop, feed store, lumber yard, civic organization meeting, etc and talk it up. Meet people in person on this forum and let them know you're looking. I have met 100 or more people on this forum in person through the classified section buying and selling and also by participating in a few rifle shooting matches.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Looking forward to getting out.