No right or wrong answers here. Like so many things in life, people develop a taste for something and will endure hardships if necessary for the chance to enjoy it.

The east Texas hunting isn’t for me. Hunted there with the future father in law for a week in December while I had COVID. Hunted 8 sits on his deer lease and never saw a deer. Went to the core land on Wright Pattman and saw a glimpse of three does, maybe a second of deer action all together. Drove the 7 hours back home to Guadalupe county, hunted the next evening and saw more bucks in a 2 sit then I saw deer total in east Texas. I was bored to death in east Texas, staring out a window or maybe two where you can see maybe 60 yards. Staring and staring into nothing and seeing nothing.

Not to say I didn’t enjoy sitting in the blind and bull s****** with him and the peace and quiet, but strictly from a deer hunting/watching it wasn’t worth a fart in my opinion.

TEXAS It’s all beautiful !

Same exact situation for me. East Texas for the holidays hunting with fil at his lease, aka crappy hunting club. They see so few deer in a season that they'll shoot any deer. Any deer. It’s terrible hunting.

For the win!

I couldn't do it

I don't mind seeing low numbers while sitting in the stand but I'm not hunting a place where I don't see at least a handful of deer each hunt.

I’m smack in the middle of deep east TX. I see deer practically every hunt and we could take several nice bucks off of our place every year if we wanted to. But we don’t. Which is a big reason why we have them. East TX has lower population densities, more cover, and good bucks don’t come to corn as easily. In short, there’s more work involved in establishing a good herd and killing good bucks than in areas with a lot more deer. For the most part, it’s not really suited for traditional leasing situations where a bunch guys throw up corn feeders and expect to start blasting deer.

If hunting close quarters were my only option, I'd do it, but I'd much rather hunt open, semi open country where you can see and hunt spot and stalk and move around. Sitting in a tree with a 100 yd view, swatting mosquitos doesn't exactly turn my crank.

We leased two places in east Texas back in the day. One was a real good place just outside Riverside. Lots of hardwoods. Some pine of course but the place had never been clear cut or had timber harvested, lots of diversity, lots of water both creeks and lakes, lots of edge habitat. Lots of deer on that farm and seeing 6-10 deer per sit was not uncommon. This was also before AR’s and doe harvest so bucks were on thr scarcer side but we did see and take some nice bucks.

The other place was more old growth like forest. Very dense. Very few deer. You would normally see 1-2 deer per sit.....sometimes. Sometimes you would go several hunts with nothing.

I thought that was normal. A good east Texas ranch is going to have great hunting bit those are the exception not thr rule it seems

Once you start hunting mule deer it changes your whole perspective on deer hunting.

I think that the thing we all agree on is that deer hunting is great, and that whether you are in the Piney woods, a hard wood bottom, or on a mesa looking out over miles of land, is that in all these places, we see great beauty and a placed to find peace in a really crazy world.

Amen brother.

Same boat here. My girlfriend told me she saw more deer in the first sit with me on my mom and dads place with me than she had her whole life hunting with her dad. Not saying at all he’s a bad hunter, he’s very knowledgable and I’ve learned a lot from him, the deer number just aren’t there in east Texas

Always loved how the deer seemed to appear out of nowhere when you hunt West Texas.

Love hunting west Texas

I love when that happens anywhere. I am always amazed when they just appear.

I grew up hunting East Texas and Dad hunted East Texas all his life as well. Most years we could count how many deer we saw all year long on both hands and if you were lucky the deer numbers exceeded the poacher numbers in that area. One day Dad looked at me and said "you know we spend all this money on nice guns, scopes, ATV's, camo, stands, etc, but we always get on the cheapest lease we can find. Why dont we get on a real deer lease next year that actually has some deer on it". At that point we left East Texas and headed west and never looked back.

I love the big trees of East Texas but I aint paying to hunt trees, I am paying to hunt deer and the deer are not under those trees.

You're absolutely right, there are few deer and even fewer big bucks in East Texas. Please keep spreading that to everyone who might think otherwise.

Yes because it’s a myth and all of us with east Texas experience besides you are mistaken.

Wife and were talking about how thick the tree's were in east TX all the way to Destin, she said they were beautiful, I said I can't see anything for all the damn tree's.

Makes you feel claustrophobic

Many years ago I was working for a company called Permian Research, we did polymer research and developed a rotary extruder. We had a company from Japan send some folks down and the first thing the boss man of that bunch did was walk out on our back dock. I asked him what he found to be so interesting out there and he said he's never been able to see so far in his life.

I was on a lease north of Sanderson for four years. I put up with a lot of BS, but the scenery was worth it. The first year it rained more than normal in May and June. We were all gung-ho, so I went out there in July to scout and do some work. All the different cacti were in full bloom. Incredible.

Don't have to spread it, that's pretty much a fact. The Edwards Plateau area has the highest densities and consistently produces bigger bucks with the exception of South Texas. Whitetail Deer Mule Deer (Not on the big ranch but in the northern part of the county) a 186 typical was hit less than 2 miles from my house, Turkeys, Javalina's, Aoudad, Antelope, Coyotes, Bob Cat's, Dove (3 species), Ducks (Pretty much all species), Sandhill Crane, Canadian Geese, Snow Geese, Quail (2 species), Wilson Snipe, Squirrels, Rabbit's (2 species) and a many more other critters. All but Antelope can be seen on the big ranch depending on the time of year, but we do have them in the northern part of the county. I'll take West Texas over East Texas any day. Now if it comes to fishing I'd pretty much pick East Texas but just about anything you can catch there we have in our ponds on the ranch.