Now looking at a place in Coryell County west of Gatesville.... basically between gatesville and Evant

Hows the deer hunting? Any exotics ever roam through this area?

I hunted near Pidcoke for several years. I saw limited exotics on cam but I know that they were escapees from the HF ranch next door. We were really close to Ft Hood. Had hogs from time to time. That area is very high pressured. Seems as if anyone who has more than 3 acres has a deer stand on it. Hunting sucked at times. It was good at times. I wouldnt pay $ to hunt there again unless it was a very large tract of land. The area does have potential as long as people quit shooting every deer that walks.

we are in the pearl/izoro area...good deer numbers and some pretty nice bucks in our area..there Is a small heard of blackbuck that roam a little..

My cousin has property between Gatesville and Jonesboro on the Leon River. There are some decent deer and more hogs than any place should have. Some excellent dove hunting though.

Sounding good so far...

Anyone else?

I drive through the area often. Lots of deer around Evant/Hamilton. Every place is different. You need to get out there and scout. I know this, because it's easy to get to from DFW, Austin, Waco. If you don't take it someone else will.

Solid advice!

I hunt on the north side of hwy84 about halfway between Gatesville and Evant. No exotics ever seen, few turkey but not huntable numbers, deer are decent but the real issue is everyone kills them as they come of age. The antler rules helped that but now they die as soon as they reach the new minimum level. Hogs were in the area until last year and for some reason they seemed to vanish around August after being in the area for a number of years. It seems the farther west you get the more the numbers of deer improve, San Saba has lots of deer in comparison.

Hope things work out for you.

Some friends of mine have been hunting them in that area relentlessly with dogs for the last couple of years. Didn't kill all that many, maybe a hundred, but it succeeded in pushing the majority out. They'll be back too soon.

To the OP, no mentionable number of free range exotics...yet. I saw an Axis doe north of Gatesville the other day, and I've seen a few other random escapees over the years.

here are a few pics from our area...

Stay away from Beehouse near Evant; lots of poaching, fence crossing, dishonest owners, etc. Learned the hard way.

Don't fall for the owner saying the property is MLD. I hunted a MLD property NE of Evant and if that is how MLD properties are supposed to be, Ill never hunt a mld property again. There is a reason properties are open in that area. I could never prove poaching, but something sure happened to the deer. And trail cameras messed with. I was hunting a 8,000 acre ranch so its not like I was just hunting 200 acres and ran everything off.
But if its in the right place it could be great hunting.

My uncle has a small place west of Evant, in extreme NE Lampasas county. It's probably pretty similar to most of Coryell county. In 3 years, they've taken two nice bucks off a small 100 acre place that has 1/3 of its fence high fenced and another 1/3 FM road frontage. The better of the two bucks was probably pushing 130", at least 120", and was only 4.5 years old. Another year or two and he would have been a heckuva hill country buck. They see lots of deer, have no hogs but have a healthy turkey population. I'd say for the hill country the area they are in is better than average.