Many of our fellow THF hunting brethren have either been displaced off longer term hunting leases or going to be soon, far more than I recall having seen in other past seasons. The vast many of these are resulting from long time landowners taking full advantage of high land acreage pricing, selling to either surrounding landowners or brand new landowners, interested in not leasing and hunting it themselves amongst family and friends or possibly worse, leasing it to their other existing leasees from other properties. That said, what are some practical things that can be done to help folks being greatly impacted by any of this?

Most practical;

Get used to driving to hunt other states to hunt public

Buy your own place.

Most hunters take care of a lease improving the land and animals. On some occasions the land owner realizes what he has and boots the lessor off and enjoys it himself for his family/friends or leases it to someone else for more money, sad but it happens.

I haven't been on a lease in years and don't miss the drama.

Trophy, you see this similar stuff play out in your neck of woods?

Be willing to pay.

I see both sides of the coin.

Most lease hunters don’t take as good of the property as they think they do. landowners get tired of the headaches or the eye sores and they sell.

But the opposite side is the owners typically invite guests they may not have the funds or opportunity to hunt otherwise.

So majority of the time the place is still getting hunted, just not by lease hunters. That void is filled by either invite hunters or outfitted hunts.

Whats changing is people are not getting to lease multi million dollar ranches for Pennies on the dollar anymore.

The good old days are gone. TT85 is right on a lot of it. My place is only a couple of miles from Bandera as the crow flys. Most of the places with over a few hundred acres have sold off and been divided into 10 acre plus parcels. Here you need over 5 acres to drill a well. Probably the only reason they are not selling 5 acre places. My place is HF. I used to see deer both WT and Axis next to me all the time. Now unless you get into the Bandera city limits you seldom see any. My Children or Grandchildren will be very well off if they decide to sell this place when I am gone. Same as what happened on the places that joined me.

Like a couple others, I think the best and most practical thing to do in order to guarantee access is to buy your own place. You may not get access to as many acres, but it's yours.

But a few other thoughts... quit leasing "within 2 hours of DFW" (see that all the time) or some other metromess. People commute to work from that far everyday.

Also, get out of the Hill Country.

Or, put that lease money toward outfitted hunts elsewhere, as has been already mentioned as well.

have been blessed to be on the same large LF lease in South Texas for 17 years - we just signed a new 5 year agreement -

From day one we have treated the property as if it were our own - we are very careful to do what is best for the property and what the LO ask of us.

I agree there are more and more properties getting split into small tracts but most of that is being done in areas near towns or cities.

The other option IMO is Mexico - there a tons of folks choosing to hunt there now days with no issues

And last of all as someone said above if you are looking for a lease be careful to limit yourself to a defined area that is "an hour from Houston" etc.

Lower comfort level and look at public. Whether that be Texas Public surrounding States public.

So, the takeaways so far are, look further out than 2-3 hours from metromess, treat property with utmost of respect and stewardship, be willing to pay and pay a lot more than previously and lastly, maybe become a landowner yourself to ensure having some dirt to hunt, did I miss any so far? What other ideas and thoughts are out there?

All of these responses are solid. I am grateful that the landowner I deal with is a friend. Mexico would not be an option for me though.

For a lot of Texans it’s faster time wise to hunt in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, etc. than it would be Mexico.

From Dallas it’s 7 hours just to get to the border crossing in Laredo.

I have an opportunity to get on a good lease in Mexico for pretty reasonable money. With the problems with Mexico it’s a no go for me as well. I don’t care about whitetail deer that much to deal with the risks and hassles

I hunted Mexico for a few years. Great place to hunt but in 2009 we had a minor incident happen and I will not be going back. It can be spooky over there.

Odds are, you'd be fine, I just can't risk it even for very slim odds.

My thoughts exactly. Life is too short to risk going there for deer or bass fishing.

What about just hunting public land? There is a reason its there. Its for people who want to hunt and do jot have access to private land.

In the west, public land is a lot more plentiful for sure, but it is almost a joke to some if you shoot something on provate land….almost as if it is too easy or something.

Buying land close to D/FW is spooky high priced. I get a lot of calls from telemarketers wanting to buy my POS 133 acres 70 miles from Fort Worth. It’s called recreational property and is selling for more than East or West Texas productive farm land. I’ve had it for over 40 years.

No way I could afford to buy it now.

Public land takes more effort than most are willing to put forth. Setting up tents, trailers, etc, long walks in and out, most just don’t want to do it. A lot of folks probably can’t do it.


The public land groups I’m a member of, it’s almost comical to read some of their responses regarding private land. 100% of them would hunt private land over public if given the option, don’t let them fool you.

I’m not that familiar with public land here in Texas, but there is a good amount of land within a reasonable driving distance from DFW and Houston.

More public hunting opportunities than I knew prior to reading an article about it. Wise and/or Montague County. Also Tarrant County.

Expect there’s a list somewhere.

Public land takes more effort than most are willing to put forth. Setting up tents, trailers, etc, long walks in and out, most just don’t want to do it. A lot of folks probably can’t do it.


The public land groups I’m a member of, it’s almost comical to read some of their responses regarding private land. 100% of them would hunt private land over public if given the option, don’t let them fool you.

I’m not that familiar with public land here in Texas, but there is a good amount of land within a reasonable driving distance from DFW and Houston.


I agree - public hunting is tough - I tried it years ago on several occasions - nothing like stalking an animal while looking through your binoculars and some guy walks up on you or a 4 wheeler blows through - no thank you

I thought this post was about options for hunters displaced off leases…public land is a good option.

I realize it is the wild west and hard to kill an animal on public in texas, but it is an option.

I don't know how things go on in other areas of the country, but in the west, guys pack in and go hunt. Old School; canvas tents, 4 wheelers and even horses to get up into the Forests and BLM lands to go after game. They stay for a week or a little longer. Sometimes they kill sometimes they don't. Private lands do exist but the average hunter hunts public in western states.

Most Texas Deer hunters are not going to do that in a National Forest in East Texas. Some do, I'm sure, but most are not, especially if they are used to staying in a cabin or RV trailer.

I've heard stories from midwestern friends that "deer camp" is a thing but most are shanty's with many built on Public Forest land on 99 year leases that are grandfathered in...can't build a new one but can maintain and occupy the existing ones.

I'm not sure what the lease situation is like East of the Mississippi. My son lives in Arkansas and public hunting is very viable there with several national forests within 2 hours drive of his door along with several WMA's. Tough hunting but lots of room to roam.


IMO, aside from the National Forests, which are federal, the state parks and natural areas are very mismanaged from a hunting perspective. The public hunting opportunities are mismanaged and could be improved upon greatly.


another thing to consider is the population increase. In 1990 there were 17 million people in the state, now there are 30 million. The number of licensed hunters has increased to around 1.17mm hunters of which its estimated 750k are deer hunters. There are more deer hunters than ever before competing for less available land than ever before. Texas is blowing up in population and its not gonna get better.

If you wanna stay on a place, or be invited back...

don't offer suggestions to the landowner as to what he ought to do.

teach your kid a modicum of respect for adults.

occasionally shut the hell up and listen.

I miss my public land hunting I did on the Pease River. Only time I felt like I was a victim of the man was when the law was changed to shotgun only, no slugs. Those hunts were the most rewarding I did. Even when I had a great lease I always saved a weekend for my river hunt. Game Warden for that area was a real advocate for the river hunters, he had almost zero problems from us. A big loss for public land hunting in my part of the world.

No way I would go to Mexico,heard that the bass lakes south of Arizona have warning people to stay home,the cartels are getting bad.

If you are a participating landowner(live on the place, run cows oin it, visit it to fish the ponds, etc) I could never consider leasing it to the average texas deer hunter nowadays for the obvious associated reasons. Unfortunately for the sport as a whole, buying your own is becoming the only option more and more, which is probably not the best thing for hunting but that is where we are headed. The amount of o n g checks that have hit landowners pockets over the last 12-15 years didn’t he,p the lease availability situation. But , if I was getting those kinds of checks, I would think about dealing with deer lease era,a for an extra 20k.

Que mas??

Well there's always the poaching option...
Might be cheaper?

Not much for breaking laws CGB but is an option, just not very practical, lol....

Shooting a white tail deer on someone else’s property without consent is a felony. It’s a good way to get rid of poachers for a bit and make sure they can’t ever hunt with a firearm for the rest of their life.

I own my own 133 acre place. Even with exemptions, its more expensive than a lease. Taxes and general out of pocket stuff.

Yeah, I was kidding. Just doesn't seem to be a good answer. It's getting worse too.

I own 67 acres. My taxes were $148 last year. What else are you having to pay? I can understand improvements cost but most of those just increase the value.

I’ve added some stuff in the last 45 years that drive the “value” up. Wish my taxes were that low.

One 3 acre stock tank, 1/4 acre tank, couple of smaller water holes, cut a one mile road from front to back, cut trails throughout, white trash trailer house, water well, shipping container for tools, junk stuff and 4 wheeler storage, large construction office trailer for more junk storage, 4 bay tractor shades, shooting range, huge BBQ pit, 2 pieces(about 6 or 7 acres) land cleared for wheat patches. About 2 acres of blackberries.

Home away from home and only a little over 50 miles from Fort Worth. Wife thinks the whole place looks l8ke a rats nest. It suits me.

It’s been discussed before. It’s hunting the same old place, yes. But the improvements and management can’t be taken away, the kids can’t sell it, you can’t get out bid, etc. I gave up on lease or even good ole boy lemme hunt deals, here today gone tomorrow. If you could afford a few hundred plus acres(depending on what area of the state) I’d say go for it. If small places would be only option I’d keep leasing. Owning isn’t more expensive than a lease. If it is, you should be able to see it again one day. Your lease won’t go up 8-15% annually in value(depending on part of state) either.

We lost our long term lease when the owner died. The place was sold in a few months. Back when you could scratch out a living on a farm/ranch and not have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so every year the owners would allow thier place to be leased to supliment some income. Now that they can't afford to farm/ranch the only option is to sell the place and relocate to a smaller place. We just happened to get lucky that we have 100 acres of family land in East Texas that has seen the deer size grow alot over they years. When we went back to hunting it a couple years ago and realizing that the quality of deer was far different from 15 years ago we are happy just to settle in to hunting it. When asking about the deer size in East Texas changing a guy at the processor said (most people in East texas quit shooting 6 points). I guess it helped.

Deer hunters changed, east texas included to some degree. It is still bad areas, but not like it used to be. Mor3 out there horn hunting than what used to

That's good to hear about east Texas. Old ways die hard.