Hello everyone. I'm a new poster here. I live in Austin, Tx.

My father just purchased 30 acres in New Boston, which is about 30 miles from Texarkana. I have not visited it yet. My understanding is that the majority of it is heavily wooded and untouched.

We are interested in offering it up in a variety of ways. My thoughts are

-Un restricted camping spots for people who want to practice bushcrafting skills.
-Potential for RV spots (probably with power but not water/sewer hook up)
-Hunting.


I rolled through some of the threads here and saw a wide variety of options, opinions and pricing as to what makes a 'good' deer lease. Features, variety of game, availability and amenities all seem to come into play.


I think that my three ideas could all blend together. That if you wanted to bring your RV up and use it as a base camp for your hunt, you could. If you want to sleep in a tent and hunt, you could. We could put together a field house to offer up.

I have a friend with about 30 acres near junction and I've been out hunting with him before. So, I know that 30 acres is only going to support 2 or 3 blinds, which means 4-6 hunters tops. (probably parent and child).


I guess what I'm looking for is feedback on the overall idea and some sort of ball parking on a typical pricing. I saw other threads that mentioned somewhere about $2500 per year, per hunter? And others in the $6k range, but for much bigger ranches. However, those are typically quite far away from major cities.

So, what sort of features/amenities do you look for in a lease, and what do you think a reasonable price is for those amenities?

30 acres. Depends on the surroundings. Any water??
I would say 1500. 2 blinds.

I know a guy who has a lease not to hunt but because it’s cheaper to store his RV and trailer.

Welcome. I think your expectations are a little high. 30 acres in east Texas isn't the same as 30 acres in Junction. Might support 1 gun with child hunting under his or her supervision.2 deer maximum per year, depending on density. And neighbors, how much land is around your property that is sanctuary? How much hunting goes on around your place? You need to answer questions like this before doing anything else IMO. I would expect you could get $1200- $1500 max. Depending on deer density, hogs, and other game.

1 family or 2 persons max.

Way too many hunters. As others have said, 1 max.

4-6 hunters @ $2500 each.

Bowie county is an Antler restrictions county.
Antlerless deer may be taken by hunting license tag during archery, muzzleloader, youth-only seasons and during general season from Nov 2 ~ Nov 17.

Bowie county whitetail population is not at all similar to the Hill country or S / W Tx population.
Deer densities vary with environment within the county from 24 to 30 maybe 32 deer per section.
Just like every county there are small pockets within a county where the population is substantially less or slightly more.

Typical hunting leases in the area range from $8 to as much as $30 per acre.
30 ac x 8 = $240
30 ac x 30 = $900

A family friend owns a small place in Bowie county, they take 2 - 3 deer maximum per year from 158 acres. / 1 deer per 52 acres.

The recreation / camping thing might be a better route.

$1500, per year/season?

thank you!

Can you list some of the property features ?
Wooded, ag or fields, ponds, river, creek ?

thank you

Austin to New Boston is about 350 miles, quite a drive for the OP to look at a place that might support taking 1 deer per year.

Yup, about 5.5 hours. I'll be going out for a long weekend in Jan to check the place out and will have more information then. I know I need to set up some cameras and get a feeling for what is out there, game wise. There are rumors of a wet weather creek but we haven't identified it for sure yet. More information will be posted as I get it, right now I'm just trying to figure out what is important to people and an idea of what questions to be asking

I work in New Boston and hunt about 45 minutes south of it on 100 acres. 30 acres will be hard to lease out for hunting, but it can be done. However, not nearly with the prices that you are thinking about.
Unless it is just covered up with deer, ducks, hogs, you would be lucky to get $10 an acre. However, not to say that you can't get more. But just don't get your hopes up.
Personally, I would shoot for $500 per year per hunter with a maximum of 2 hunters having excess year round.........and that price is truly truly pushing it in East Texas.
If there is any questions that I can answer for you, shoot me a PM.
Good Luck and welcome to the forum.

Thank you! We will be chatting as I know more!