I haven’t been able to get a meat hunt in this season due to some Army obligations, and this coming weekend will be the first (and probably last) chance I’ll have for rifle on public land.

If you had only one weekend for a hunt, where would you go for public land? I’m up in Dallas and would like to stay within a somewhat reasonable drive, but I know that might not be possible.

What areas would you recomend? What areas would you stay away from?

Any help is appreciated!

With a tight window like that, might be worth a paid meat hunt to better the odds. Going blindly into a public area would be tough. What about the deal at fort hood? I’m not sure the ins and outs but worth looking into. You could also see what standby areas are open this weekend for the state public hunts. There were 5 standby stops for choke canyon yesterday.

Ill agree with Stevarino, I'd find a meat hunt, could you be successful walking into public land and getting a deer sure. But the successful people put in the leg work all year long with scouting and time in the field. Time is what you don't have.

check out the national forests in east texas like davy crocket NF Sam Houston NF Angelina NF etc etc. Plenty of places to go find deer and hogs especially if you buy an APH.

Talk to Tom Erny from Tyler about the new Neches property that covers parts of 3 counties south of Jacksonville and east of Palestine. I'm no help as every time I've tried to go past the "Turn Here" signage on Hwy 79 on the dirt road the metal gate is closed & locked, and no cars are parked around the HQ building. After looking at what I could see the first time I went down the turnoff I bought a SS & composite stocked 270...and thought about buying a canoe or jon boat to hunt out of too. Place is somekind of wild and wooly habitat, so it's gotta hold some critters to hunt for sure. If you are old enough, I'm 78 nowdays .... the place will remind you of the '50's era spooky movie "Creature from the Black Lagoon" ....
Ron

Who's making plans already for where to hunt in TPW's this coming Fall?

I've got another health issue now that I'm getting close to winning the fight with Shingles, only this one is with some torn meniscus's left over in my left knee that's raising lots of problems from an old car wreck, where I got hit on my right front wheel hard enough to break all the frame welds from the front bumper back, to the passenger front door & crushed the 4x4 drive unit in a 6 month old Z71.

Took Huffhines Repair Shop in Lewisville almost 6+ months to bend the frame back straight and weld it tight, good enough you could turn loose of the steering wheel and it would track straight up to 60'ish on good roads. Already have had the knee D&C'd back then once long time ago, losing most of the ruptured cartilage, with a Dallas Cowboys Dr in Plano, but slipped on some rain slicked pine cones and fallen pine tree limbs recently, taking bad fall on the knee joint on an asphalt street.... and here we go again. Getting 1st XRays later today.

So how much walking or climbing up hill is necessary at ......your favorite flat ground State Park???
Ron

I plan on trying to visit several SP's this year to take a look see and talk to the SP folks for insight . I'll put in for the old favorites for sure but will miss Fairfield SP in the line up now that it's been sold and supposed to gonna become a High $ private neighbor hood, according to the Palestine news paper. Need to put some M&S tires on the truck to get around anywhere I can. Gonna try and take advantage of anywhere places that offer almost a free Hunt, and buy a jon boat to use in the Neches WMA.
Ron

Any suggestions on what SP's to look at within 100 miles of Palestine TX ? Atlanta SP was buried with standby folks last fall from what I was told by a guy I talked to at the Tyler Academy store.

Nothing new it looks like in talking to a guy at TPW HQ who was trying to explain the pending Fairfield change of ownership couple weeks ago, might even try for a tag at Gus Engeling if I do mount the Mud & Snow tires.

Anybody still hunt the parks up around Bonham or "syrup city" ? Never scored a WT but found a place for hogs north of Wolf City....PTL the Z71 came thru bumper deep stuff in a driving rain storm before we hit pavement at the sign in board . Used to fish Davy Crockett hard back in my early years ...just a long hike from Palestine nowdays.
Ron

Any further updates on the status of Fairfield SP? Local newspaper had a regional outdoors writer couple weeks ago who said everything was back to TPW taking over again last I heard....sounds like somebody got a bad case of cold feet and wanted out of the Sell Everything to make easy peasy $$'s ,,,,,hmmm mebbe it was not so easy a deal after all. Ron

Any further updates on the status of Fairfield SP? Local newspaper had a regional outdoors writer couple weeks ago who said everything was back to TPW taking over again last I heard....sounds like somebody got a bad case of cold feet and wanted out of the Sell Everything to make easy peasy $$'s ,,,,,hmmm mebbe it was not so easy a deal after all. Ron

Hey Ron,

This is the latest that I found on the ongoing saga of Fairfield SP.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/13/texas-fairfield-lake-state-park/

Any of the Public Parks around Austin and any other Central Texas towns with big Public Parks...but you need to "hunt" with a camera....BTDT
Ron