WTH happened to all the Public Hunting

I haven't hunted public hunting land for 10 years or better but I'm bored cause of the rain and started googling. Googled public hunting texas and denton, wise has nothing except grasslands and the lake. Wth happened? There use to be tons of dove fields. Even the ones in Krum are gone. Sad..

APH still has a lot of dove fields open... most my area is mostly just some cattle pastures though

From what iv seen it would be hard for me to stay with the public program also... the way some ruin it for all is just hard to take.... every place I have been to had trash scattered all over the place... ruts were trucks shouldn't have been.. just complete lack of respect for the property... not just one place every single one... I don't blame them one bit for taking a lot of it away

Draw hunts have been decimated in the past 10 years

That has always been my beef with places like ray bob that makes you use hunter access points. Most are end of road and great hidden places for the local kids to party and make for great illegal trash dump spots. Flats are a danger from the dumped construction materials. The trash, dumped dead dogs and other domestic animals, beer cans, all kinds of other trash, and rutted 4-wheeled for fun road ends make it look like hunters are tesponsible because we are the ones parked there during daylight hours. If we park someplace safer, we get a ticket for not parking at an access point.

I suspected early on the dove field program would be "dynamic" since TPWD is dealing with Farmer Jones to lease those properties,as opposed to a larger entity such as the Corp of Engineers,natural gas company,etc.

Exactly. Along with coming back to your truck with busted windows, everything stolen, trashed or just completely gone. No thanks.

Sad as it is ..not all hunters are so respectful is what I mean... left over shell boxes, cans, plastic bags, hulls...etc

All great points. I sure wish there was something that could be done about this. And I know there are trashy hunters out there, but I also know that I'm not the only hunter that goes on a hunt with at least a Walmart bag to collect what others have left ie shot shells, drink bottles etc.

I've hunted public lands for about 5 years now, and I love dove hunting, but I agree, all the good spots are disappearing. I moved to the Houston area from Ft Worth, and haven't even looked here yet, except for the Sam Houston Nat'l Forest. But all the places I used to hunt between Ft Worth and Waco are pretty well gone, or so overrun with hunters that the birds don't have a chance.
The last time I went dove hunting, I heard tons of shots on the other end of the hunting area. Just out of curiosity, I walked over there and saw two sets of dads and sons blasting away at tin cans and other trash. I was happy because they were spending time with their kids, but sad that they didn't teach the kids about cleaning up. After they left, I went over there and filled up a Wal-Mart bag with brass they left behind. There were almost 100 rounds. There were also boxes, soft drink cans, and water bottles. I cleaned them all up and was heading out when I ran into a Game Warden. He looked at the bag of brass and thought they were all mine. I explained that I was shooting a 16 gauge shotgun and all the brass was 20 gauge. I explained why I picked them all up and he said that the trash people leave behind was the number one complaint of landowners that lease their property to the state for the Public Hunting program.