I have access to 100 acers east of Tyler, never hunted that area before. How's that hunting, don't really care about giant bucks, just being 13" inside or bigger, that and does for the freezer.

Impossible to say unless we know more about the property. Is it mostly wooded, mostly open pasture, mixture of both? Water source on the the land? Cattle on the land? Anyone live on the property?

East Texas 'can' be good but it has the second least deer density of any areas in Texas.

Depends a lot on neighbors too

No doubt.

When dealing with small properties.....'hunting pressure' on surrounding pieces of land is a definite factor.

Excellent point.

Property is south of Rusk, from what I see on Google satellite, wooded, no residents on the land, looks like a creek goes through some of it, no cows on the land, and from the looks of it, no near neighbors. Could be a hidden gem if I'm lucky. I will be putting a couple of feeders on the place with stand overlooking hem. I plan to low fence one, and leave the other open.

"and leave the other open"

An open invite for trespasser's.

Hand corn and hang trail cams to identify good trails and funnels before committing to a blind and feeder so you know it’s worth the time and money putting out a set. Deer in East Texas will not just show up anywhere you put a blind and feeder. You need to scout now before they change to spring/summer patterns.

^^^

Good advice all.

I would add when 'scouting' that this is the perfect time of year to find and make note of rub lines (still very visible), locate bedding areas (if any) and observe any well established trails. Some of these things can give you an idea how often (or not) the deer are using the property and possibly alert you to good ambush spots for next season.

It’s etex, they are watching him long before he’s watching them.

Go out there now if your allowed with hand corn and cameras. Pattern the deer for winter.

Anywhere close to River Bottom? Most of that area is pretty decent hunting. Dont pull trigger to quick on bucks. Never no what might show up in that country.

I quit deer hunting and took up duck hunting during my 5 years in east Texas. I didn’t care for it and always felt boxed in by the the trees. East Tx is hard on a west Tx man, but the fishing is outstanding. I traveled all the time and the only place in East Tx I consistently saw good deer was south of Tyler around Rusk.

Walk the creek find crossing look for oaks on the creek mainly white oaks always a good starting point.

I always had better luck with a green field vs corn for hunting in East Texas. If you have permission and the tools...I would find a location for a food plot (lots of info on easy to hard food plots on the forum). Rye grass always worked for me for the VERY simple food plots version....but talk to the local feed store if there is another similar product that works better in the area.

I would also use a mineral block or mineral supplements to set a game camera on over the winter vs. corn as well.

Now is the time to check it out. Pleasant weather, the brush is down, and you can see where the deer are moving. Nothing wrong with bringing your rifle, you may see a hog or coyote. Have you ever tried to scout out a new area in the Summer? There is nothing like putting some boots on the ground.

Thank you all for the advice. I will be going out with the land owner soon, and will be taking my rifle with me. The place is south of Rusk off 69, and i saw a lot of deer when i used to travel that road for work.

I have 68 acres North of Tyler with a creek as a boundary that has 460 acres of jungle on the other side of the creek. My neighbor on my side of the creek has 240 acres. He only shoots hogs, he's never deer hunted on his place. In the last 17 years that I've own the land, I've been clearing timber, creating pastures and dug a pond. My neighbor has done the same, but on a bigger scale. His pastures are really nice, while mine are still struggling.

When Covid hit, and we where under lockdown, a buddy asked about shooting a few hogs on my place. I've been trying to get their numbers under control, but really never put any serious time into it. My best year I think I shot a dozen, maybe. My friend put out a feeder, set up some game cameras and started coming out at night to hunt with thermals. He shot 107 hogs last year with 14 in one night being his best.

By the time deer season opened, I saw more deer on my game cameras then I have at any other time on my land. There was at least 5 legal bucks in the group, and more bucks then does. It's hard to tell for sure, but I'm thinking that there are around 10 bucks that are not legal, but some of the small 8 points kind of look alike to me in the pictures, so I'm not positive. Last year there where 2 legal bucks in the pictures and maybe 4 others that where too small, a long with maybe 4 to 6 does all season. Getting rid of so many hogs has been huge in my deer numbers. I'm hopeful that he continues to put pressure on them so the deer stick around.

I know two different groups of guys that have had the lease on the land across the creek from me, and they have not done very well at all. It's too thick to see very far, and the roads that they hunt off of only gives them a small window to shoot through when they do see something. One group had the lease for several years on only shot one buck and a couple of hogs in that time. The guys that hunt it now have not seen any deer at all, or so that's what one of them told me.

I have one friend that is on a lease on the Sabine River, which is further north of me, and he couldn't hunt this year due to health reasons, but last year he shot a buck that scored 164, which was his best every. He always gets a nice buck off of that lease, but usually they are 130 to 140 class 8 points. Another friend about a mile from me, farther East show a very nice, clean 10 point that scored 155 a few years ago on their family cattle farm. I think the potential for decent bucks exists, but for some reason, they rarely live long enough to get big. It could be poaching, but where I'm at, there really isn't anybody doing that. I have cameras out year round, my neighbor is crazy about patrolling his place, and we've never seen a trespasser.

If you put corn out, be sure to keep the hogs away. Once they find the corn, they will take over and drive the deer away. I tried fencing and they outsmarted me, so it was a battle that I would be winning, until the day I saw the hogs inside the fence. Eventually I put a single hot wire around my food plat, that was a foot off of the ground. The deer walk right over it, but the hogs hit it and go the other direction. the first couple of months I would have to fix the wire because they would hit it and tear it apart trying to get away, but now they don't even test it. I watch their tracks and in the last couple of years, I haven't even seen a hog track close to the wire. That helped a lot, and it's a big reason how my wife shot her first buck on our land.

Darn nice buck and beautiful Wife, Eddie.

Thank you. I was sitting next to her in the blind when he showed up and that's something that I'll never forget. It was more exciting for me to see her get that buck, then anything I've ever taken.

I want to put out two feeders on the property with low fence, so that the deer would be able to get inside, and hogs on the outside. Are there turkeys there in that area? This will be the first time that I have been on a property by myself, and I am looking forward to it greatly. Would a mineral block be of any use?

my place is 100 acres in Appleby, right down the road from you. corn doesn't do a whole lot in that neck of the woods, so you're going to have to supplement with food plots and keep the hogs away if you want to see good deer numbers.

I had 5 very nice bucks on cams and 10+ does back in August and Sept. last year, but once the hogs moved in they nearly all moved out.

What type of food plots grow best there? Turnips, beet's, pea's of some sort?

Oats and peas work well. Forget mineral blocks, beets, turnips, etc....

If you have other natural flora and mast....this will be enough.

Both are cheap enough to purchase and a tiller will get them in the ground well enough. Thank you for the advice, looking forward to this season and getting back into the woods. I'm not a trophy hunter by no means, so for me, any legal mature buck will be great to me, and some does I've seen, were much harder to take than the bucks.

From what I understand, there are a few types of soils in the area. My food plot is in red clay. I did a soil report and it came back that I was half a ton per acre low in lime, and a ton low for potassium. It took a few years of adding the correct balance of fertilizer in the Spring to get decent NPK numbers in the Fall. It takes about six months for the fertilizer to do anything, so you have to do it in the Spring for a Fall food plot.

I've tried a variety of different seeds and never found one to be better then another. Now I just buy whatever they have at Atwoods and plant it right after the heat of summer breaks in mid September when I see that a storm is coming. I'll mow the food plot short and start disking in the beginning of September and then wait for the right forecast.

The deer wonder through the food plot, but don't really put any pressure on it.

What works the best and from following their tracks is Black Magic. I first poured it out in a sort of low spot in front of my game camera. It smells like sweet coolaid, but also just a little rancid. The deer love it!!!! I put it out every 3 months and it's been the one thing that keeps bringing them in. Now that area is probably 10 feet in diameter and well over a foot deep. Having water in it just makes it more appealing to the deer. Hogs don't care for it, so that's a bonus. Price changes all the time, so when I see it for sale at $7, I buy several. I currently have 2 sacks on my shelf, so I don't need anymore, but I might buy a couple from Amazon because the price is at $7 right now. It will go up to $14 and back down during the year. I have no idea why, but it happens over and over again. Walmart and Atwoods also has it from time to time, but never consistently. Don't waste your time on anything else, Black Magic is the one that works!! https://www.amazon.com/Evolved-Habitat-Deer-Black-Magic/dp/B000HHM7SY/ref=sr_1_7?crid=1KNYS59LRI81L&dchild=1&keywords=black+magic+deer+attractant&qid=1611335348&sprefix=black+magic+deer%2Caps%2C241&sr=8-7

I've had a couple different broadcast feeders in my food plot and they worked OK. There are times in the year that the deer don't eat the corn. And when they do eat it, they just eat a little and move on. I went through a lot of corn that way. For weeks or even months, they would eat all of it, but then it would just start piling up until a big storm washed it away. I switched to a Redneck feeder and now a 40 pound sack of corn lasts me well over a week. It holds something like 60-70 pounds, so you can't fill it up with two sacks, but once it's full, I just top it off with a full sack once a week and I'm good. There is almost zero waste and the deer just eat what they want, and then move on. https://www.amazon.com/REDNEK-Redneck-Outdoors-T-post-Gravity/dp/B00DPT3YAG/ref=sr_1_2?crid=XPS5GMO66S3W&dchild=1&keywords=redneck+deer+feeder&qid=1611339489&sprefix=redneck+deer+fe%2Caps%2C796&sr=8-2

My friend that hunts hogs at night has put out 3 different broadcast feeders on my land. The deer will stop by there on the way to my food plot, but they never stick around. My food plot has a hot wire around it, so the hogs never mess with the deer when they are inside the hot wire. The hogs will show up at the feeders and that's when my buddy shoots them with his thermal at night. He killed over 100 hogs, missed plenty of them, along with coyotes, and there isn't any sign that the deer cared about all that shooting during the night. We had hoped that the would start coming out during the day more because of all the shooting at night. He is hunting from my deer blind with the deer off to one side, but he is shooting in two other directions, away from the food plot.

Here is the one day that a legal buck showed up during daylight hours all season long. Ignore the time, the picture was taken early in the morning. Of course, I wasn't hunting that day!!! You can see the area full of water that they deer have eaten down to get to the Black Magic, and you can see the Redneck Feeder. My electric wire is on the white plastic posts. It's about a foot off of the ground so it's easy for the deer to step over, but right at nose level for the hogs!!!