Hey Guys-

Ill most likely be going out to Texas Tech next year for college and was wondering about duck and goose hunting around the LBK area.

Any info for a future Red Raider?

We did a lot of public land hunting when I was there.

Best bet is to drive around and find land owners who will let you hunt.

I know the guides have most of the land locked up, but I'm sure there is still some land up for grabs.

Be prepared to drive a lot and get up early. Most of the places we hunted were an hour and half to three hours from Lubbock.

Wreck'em

"most likely", so you're not committed yet? Awesome. You still have time to change. I know nothing about west texas hunting, but if you go north of Texas you can go to class in the morning , toss your stuff in the truck at noon, drive 30 minutes and shoot a limit of greenheads by 3, at least that was my experience.

I did a lot of waterfowl hunting when I was at Tech. You can find landowners that will give permission, but be prepared to put in A LOT of work to find spots. Most of the landowners who are willing to allow hunting on their land lease to guides because that is where the money is. I would come back to Lubbock with 6 weeks left of summer break and spend all day driving dirt roads. I would spend hours driving and get turned down countless times for every one yes I would get.

If you can find good places to hunt around Lubbock, get ready to experience the best waterfowl and dove hunting that Texas has to offer.

Good luck!

In my opinion it is not the outfitters leasing up land that is the problem. In my opinion it is social media that has ruined the hunting up there. When I started school at Texas Tech in 2008 you could get permission to hunt almost any pond you wanted for ducks. If a pond didn't have a thousand or more ducks on it we wouldn't even stop to look at it. Outfitters were already there, they just hunted the fields, so we never ran across them. Facebook existed back then, but about 20% of people had Iphones and I'm not even sure there was a facebook app then. If you wanted to upload a picture of a duck hunt you had to take one on a digital camera, upload it to your computer, then to your facebook... which no one ever did. Fast forward to the end of my college career in 2012. It was still fairly easy to get permission to hunt a pond, even with the terrible drought and shortage of water. I'd say our success rate for permission went from 90% in 2008 to 60% in 2012. Fast forward again to 2014/2015 when the oil and gas business slowed down and I went back to Lubbock to guide waterfowl hunts for the winter. Literally every pond I called someone was already hunting. I'd say my success rate was 5% calling on ponds, and that was with offering pretty good money to hunt them.

So to sum up my rant, starting in 2010 smart phones really started taking over. You could snap a picture of your duck hunt and upload it in 15 seconds to facebook, instagram, twitter, whatever it is you used. I am guilty of it myself. Once those pictures start circulating to your college friends they decide they want to go duck hunt, so they go get permission on 2 ponds. Then their friends see their pictures and want to duck hunt, so they go get permission to hunt a couple ponds. So on and so forth. Now instead of 50 college kids waterfowl hunting in that area like there probably was in 2008, you have 500 of them hunting and every one has their 1 pond. While it is still very good hunting the Lubbock area will never be the great waterfowling destination it once was.

Just my 2 cents

I agree, had LOTS of fantastic hunts while i went to school out there, but it got harder and harder to find places as the years went by.

Im not sure if anyone else had this issue but we found that we needed ginormous spreads to be highly successful. Even if we knew the hotspot, we needed an absurd amount of decoys to get birds to commit. Im comparing this to hunting near DFW or just west of DFW where only one or 2 dozen decoys would do the trick.

Why did you post those pictures...there goes another dozen ponds:)


Same thing with leases. Social media let everyone know how valuable their land could be. Everyone has gotten kind of greedy. It's tough to find a good lease now. They are packing in hunters. It's getting ridiculous

Thanks for all the input. I knew nothing about the hunting scene in Lubbock, so figured I'd ask.

One of the most interesting topics I have read in a long time. Thanks all.

I haven't hunted much near DFW or just west of DFW but if I had to guess you are mainly hunting stock tanks there that are no bigger than an acre. As opposed to the pandhandle where a 5 acre playa lake is average with a lot of them being 10-20 acres. Bigger bodies of water require more decoys to get the birds attention and entice them to land by the bank as opposed to the middle of the lake where they are safe. Also, most of the playa lakes in the pandhandle have 0 cover around them so you have to use a ton of decoys as cover (like in your picture). These two reasons among many others are why you need to run a big spread up there to be consistently successful.

Lubbock is great hunting but finding land to hunt on will be hard. Come to Arkansas! There's a ton of public land and we still manage to make it to class after the hunt.. sometimes

If you do come up here to go to Tech you can PM me and I'll take you out. I have taken out lots of Tech kids. My son and I go goose and crane hunting a lot. Some duck hunting. Because of my business I know LOTS of farmers in the area that will let me hunt when they want let others. As far as it getting harder for people getting permission to hunt on land, I can tell you exactly why. It's because of the number of people that go out and don't respect the land or the landowner. The farmers are tired of cleaning up the mess some hunters make. The biggest problem is from several outfitters that don't clean up. Farmers talk! One bad experience and 10 farmers hear about it then decide not to let anyone hunt they don't know personally. Don't get me wrong, there are several outfitters up here that are great guys and respect the farmers. They don't have trouble getting land to hunt.

Bingo!!! That, and some shady outfitters have pulled some real stunts... Approach a farmer as, "Hey, I'm so-and-so, just a poor college kid looking for a place for my buddies and I to hunt." Bleeding heart farmer says sure. "Poor college kid" and his "friends" turn out to be "outfitter" and "paying clients." That's a real good way to burn bridges and ruin a farmer/landowner's view of hunters.

Also, basic manners and politeness are disappearing in today's world, and the rural farmers/landowners can't stand it!

Some hints: Be respectful, use your manners, bring along a little gift basket, etc. to show your appreciation, look them in the eye, and leave your dang cell phone in the truck... You'll be fine without it for a few minutes.

If you're lucky enough to get permission: Respect the land, pick up your trash (hulls included) and any other trash you see, don't leave ruts - walk if you have to, don't bring people along that the landowner was unaware of, etc.

After the hunt: Stop back by, show appreciation again, thank them for the opportunity, offer them some CLEANED birds, let them know you are done for the day, thank them again.

If you follow this regiment EVERY time, you will have a hole locked in for as long as you want (assuming you don't go bragging or posting your success for the world to see.) It is very easy to recognize certain areas through photos for those who frequent the area. I promise, some dirty dog is just waiting to move in on your honey hole...

Good luck, and Wreck 'em, Tech!!!

It takes a ton of decoys to get birds to commit out there.

This has all been really good info on hunting up there. I'm down in Houston and hunt the coast. Always plenty of ducks down here but I'm planning to take a week in late December or January to try and hunt public land free lance in the Lubbock area. Hoping to put a few mallards on the table. Great tip on using a large spread! How do you guys go about hauling all that gear to your hunt location? Wagon? Sled? Was thinking of bringing an ice chest full of fresh shrimp up with me in case I see any possible private opportunities. My experience when asking to hunt someone's property has been that it never hurts to come bearing gifts. Really looking forward to enjoying the excitement of hunting the playas. Any additional pointers you guys have are much appreciated.

I think john paul drove the nail. that has been the case in more than just Lubbock. made one trip up there in 08(my last year of high school) because the hpmm unit opened that one weekend earlier like it always does. no problem finding places to hunt and lots of ducks. but like he said, its becoming a thing of the past. wait until there is a bigger population of people out there. decent hunting around Houston is all but gone, and any stock tank within 2 hrs of dallas leases for at least 2k. good duck hunting will be comparable to the quail hunting situation a lot faster than you think.

It used to be great as others have stated. I never pack more than two dozen or so decoys as I usually hunt by myself. If they're interested they'll come if not I pack up and try another spot if I'm lucky to have one. Even when I'd hunt with friends large spreads never worked for us. Scouting was the key for us. Another thing I feel has ruined it is all the windmills. The birds just don't seem to fly the same and landowners don't want you hunting near them. It's definitely not like it used to be in some places. I still keep in touch with some landowners that no longer allow hunters. They're good people and they generally have a lead or two for a new place. Good luck.

I have lived and hunted around Lubbock all my life. I'm an old fart by the way. Hunting up here is like lots of places. SCOUT SCOUT SCOUT! If your not where they want to be you will not have a lot of success. I will put in probably 80-150 miles checking out fields to see where I want to hunt that weekend. I do have an advantage over most people because of my work I know lots of farmers personally and have access to probably 4-5k acres I can hunt. As far as spread size. When it comes to goose hunting you will need a large spread. These little lesser geese up here are VERY group oriented. I have 45 dozen full body and silo's. For duck hunting on water, 2 dozen have been all I needed to limit. Any more than that is a waste.(IMO) We went Teal hunting 2 times this year. Sad it wasn't more. We limited both days in about 10 min. with about 15 decoys.
I maybe opening a can of worms but any of you Tech kids that need a place to go this winter, Pm me and I will take you out some. I am not an outfitter. My son, his wife, and I just love to shoot birds.

Im not at Tech yet, but hopefully will be next year.