Anyone else here hunt land owned by UT?

Mostly in Crockett and Reagan county I think. Just wondering, we are east of Big Lake off of 67. Heard UT owns 2 1/2 million acres in Texas.

We are west of Big Lake and south of 67.

You said what. Two and a half million acres huh...... Well damn.. I wish they would quit calling me asking for donations then.

You on the O7?

Do they own the land or just have the mineral rights?

Adobe Ranch just east of 1676.

They own the surface rights also.

Planning to get off the Adobe anytime soon? lol. I lease from Randy and Armin.

yes south of barnhart...drilling just started..they lease the grazing and hunting rights to a cattle company and we lease from the cattle company.

I hunted a place along I-10 for a few years and it is owned by UT. We always laughed at their "management " suggestions after a bunch of students would come down for a couple of days during August and assess the deer population!

Not UT, but have access to a place owned by Rice..... Universities are gift deeded a ton of land, I like it that our local University will notify potential buyers to see if they can sell it.

Hunted some UT land north of Ozona years ago. The guys wife we leased from, her family had been leasing that 5000 acres since the late 1800's. He told us her descendants had first lease rights as long as they wanted it.

The University of Texas has got to be one of the wealthiest entities in the country with all their land and oil royalties.

I have always wondered what the do with all that money.


Tbar

Pay coaches ? lol

They need to invest more wisely in their coaches!

Land Grant Funding of Universities is common all over the USA. Cheap way of avoiding University Tax's for ALL the citizens of a State.

At one time the California Univerity System offered Free Tuition to every Resident who could qualify...that has since been eaten up with "Fee's" but it created the biggest most educated population of any State in the Nation and drove California's growth and economy for over 100 years.

California funds the University System out of a guaranteed percentage of the General Fund, and California's 20 campus State College System sucks wind when they have to fight for funding out of the Non Committed Funds left over after the 10 Guaranteed Funded Venues as described in the State Constitution are funded first...this leaves schools, and all other programs, like San Diego State with a student population of over 200,000+ students, Cal Poly & their premier engineering school, San Jose State's B School & Computer Science School that helped create Silicon Valley's and the nations HighTech Industry, and dozens of other Specialty State Universities like San Francisco State's premier Med School at risk for loss of funding every year.

As a 4th & 5th Generation Texan ( from 1872 in Young County & 1854 in Cooke County pioneers), at one time I seriously considered moving to California to take advantage of the Education programs for my kids...and I sent my youngest to San Jose State to see if he could cut it as a Student, where he Lettered as a walkon Freshman Athlete as I expected...but his weak Carrollton Public High School education put him at a severe disadvantage competing scholastically with Cali HS students who were raised in the stronger college prep programs ... and the DA turned down the special Letterman's Athlete Mentoring Program of 1 Mentor for every 3 jock's and travelled wherever with whatever team was involved (similar to Stanford's Mentor program as I understand it) at Cal Berkely that would have fed him the normal classroom course material in a regular Degree Plan around his team activities anywhere in the world & not allowed him to skate on required course work ... UCal Berkely's Letterman's Program has a 93% Graduation rate thru All Letterman Venues the last time I looked some years ago.

IMO Texas's Land Grant System is mo bettah only in one aspect ... it helps keep The Guv's & Lege's slimy hands out of the University's budgets and keep Texas Property Tax's as low as possible ... which is the same exact problem that the Cal State University System has...slimy hands diverting money to pet political people & their projects. EX: think about the $3 Billion that was given to the ??bogus non performing Cancer Research program by WHO?

While your picking on UT for their Land Grant program ...you might want to look at TAMU too...same song, next verse ...Just Sayin'.
Cheers
Ron

No kidding, they are persistent. My wife is an alum and member of Texas exes. They call asking for money every other day. They own the Santa rita #1 for cryin' out loud. They're filthy rich.

When I enrolled at UT, they gave me a $750 dollar scholarship to go towards tuition. I gave that back in a donation, after I graduated, to the engineering school and thats all they are getting from me.

This

x2

I'm curious what the conditions are like right now out there by Barnhart and Big Lake, and what shape the deer herd is in.. Off thread a bit I know...

Dry, dry, dry. Deer herd had rebounded a bit this past year, but we need some rain in the next month or so or things could be headed downhill again. Saw some decent deer last year, and probably saw more bucks than does. If does get a chance to raise their young numbers will bounce back fairly quickly. IF is the word.

I spent 4 years hunting co-eds on the 40 Acres, never felt like I bagged enough, but did feel like I got my monies worth...

ut and atm were born from this land now valued at over $8 billion. They are the only two schools allowed to participate. Wonder which school gets what hunting leases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_University_Fund#Assets

The notorious 07. Yes I was on it a few years ago. The lake once know as Big Lake was on my lease. By far the worst ever lease in my lifetime. The guy running it then was Roy Bobitt from Odessa Tx. Place sucked. Heavily over hunted. Didn't shoot a rabbit that yr. then again there weren't any. I always saw the add in the Odessa American looking for numerous hunters. Maybe it has rebounded??

We are west of Big Lake and south of 67. [/quote]

You on the O7?

The notorious 07. Yes I was on it a few years ago. The lake once know as Big Lake was on my lease. By far the worst ever lease in my lifetime. The guy running it then was Roy Bobitt from Odessa Tx. Place sucked. Heavily over hunted. Didn't shoot a rabbit that yr. then again there weren't any. I always saw the add in the Odessa American looking for numerous hunters. Maybe it has rebounded??

I hunted the Adobe ranch back in 08 leased it from Tommy in town group of us(40) or so not many deer for a 20k acre ranch had some friends who have hunted in Texas before and couldn't understand why there werent many deer on it seems there were more bucks than does seems bout 75-80bucks were killed and around 40+ does not sure but they were from La and they leased it the next yr but i got out killed 125" 10pt and turkey that was it let some bucks go and does have mule deer and mountain lions on it which may be reason not many deer there...supposely hadnt been hunted in bout 20yrs after family that owned it passed away and willed it to UT..... any questions u can pm me
thanks
Jeff

any body hunt the owens ranch

Why do you ask this? I hunt on the Adobe as well. Were you on the lease with benbob east of biglake off of 67?

7Mag, I've been hunting the 07 ranch since 2009 and it has been a struggle getting it back in shape. The guy that leases the ranch for grazing and hunting rights let us take out the outfitter since we know him. We have been trying to manage it and let the deer repopulate. Of course the dry conditions have crippled that somewhat. A few really nice deer have been taken the last couple of years.

I was suprised at how many old deer feeder pens we have found... I can see why there was no deer out there if the outfitter had that many hunters.

I hunted the Elkins Ranch for a while. I begins at Barnhart and runs along 67 towards Big Lake. It's 20,000 acres. Part of it is highway frontage but there's a strip along the highway owned by some old woman. There is a 700 yard range on the lease and any time we sighted in our rifles during bow season, she called the GW.

Two Elkins brothers live on it (separate houses) and one of them used to be a JP or Judge or something. He told me that their family was going to lose the ranch for taxes back in the 30s (I think) so they deeded it to UT. Their contract says they can run cows on it as long as a family member lives on the property. He also said that UT sets the $$/acre lease price. Don't know that part as a fact though. Maybe he just wanted to blame the increases on somebody else.

You on the O7?

The notorious 07. Yes I was on it a few years ago. The lake once know as Big Lake was on my lease. By far the worst ever lease in my lifetime. The guy running it then was Roy Bobitt from Odessa Tx. Place sucked. Heavily over hunted. Didn't shoot a rabbit that yr. then again there weren't any. I always saw the add in the Odessa American looking for numerous hunters. Maybe it has rebounded??

I hunted the Adobe ranch back in 08 leased it from Tommy in town group of us(40) or so not many deer for a 20k acre ranch had some friends who have hunted in Texas before and couldn't understand why there werent many deer on it seems there were more bucks than does seems bout 75-80bucks were killed and around 40+ does not sure but they were from La and they leased it the next yr but i got out killed 125" 10pt and turkey that was it let some bucks go and does have mule deer and mountain lions on it which may be reason not many deer there...supposely hadnt been hunted in bout 20yrs after family that owned it passed away and willed it to UT..... any questions u can pm me
thanks
Jeff [/quote]

Hmm, I was on the o7 when the LA boys were on the Adobe across the fence. Those LA guys shot it up pretty bad. We took some good bucks off of the o7 and passed on many future studs, but once the LA boys moved in next door all of our prospect bucks took off the next year.

Not sure if the same guy is still running it. I know when I was hunting it, I went through Randy Piel of the Trans Pecos Hunt Club and his brother Armen. Good guys.

I believe this is the largest buck we took off of the O7. Member of my hunting party, Roy Barner, takes the credit for this one.

147 and change

Pretty sure my hunting party is the one that had it before you. We used it as a corporate ranch to entertain clients and take clients hunting. We had something like 30 stands/feeders on it, majority of them were never hunted. So yea, I'm betting your finding ALLOT of old feeder pens.

CSDarden what year was that one taken? Was it pretty shot out when yall were there? We dont see a whole lot of deer at the feeders. Seems like the doe's tend to stay away from feeders more than the bucks.


Here is a pic of a nice one we have on camera.
http://i1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc428/brandon507/untitled.jpg

tu land

Not sure why my phone does quotes like that.

Anyways, I think the last year we had the o7 was 2007, and Roy's buck was taken the year prior.

In 2006, we had so many GREAT bucks that we let walk... we knew 2007 was going to be a knockout year. Then the drought hit hard and the Louisiana boys hit harder. Sounded like WW3 over there.

Trapper still living on the o7? Out in front of hunter's house, that circle, there was a trailer house on the right hand side (if your looking off the porch) where ROOSTER, the trapper lived. He always seemed to know where the bruisers were any given weekend.

He also caught yotes and sold their urine.... wonder how profitable that it?

This is the best buck I saw my last year on the o7... and I shoulda popped him, but wasnt after a buck.
This was my favorite set on the ranch. This area is off the main road heading towards camp off the left hand side. A road will cut back behind you to your left. Had feeder down there and blind up on that hill there that faces the road.

Yes, my hunting group leased the whole thing as a corporate lease.

Same blind? Really? They didn't go get the dang blinds? Been wondering where they all went. I know they got the feeders, still have all 35-40 of them. But I got home from college and our collection of blinds (40-50 probably) had dwindled to 3... makes sense now. SMH.

We tend to leave allot of stuff when we switch places.

I think NighBird and/or family has taken two nice 10's from a blind I left in Howard County 2 years ago. No telling how many we left on 07. I know we left allot on Brown, Turk, and Poulter as well.

Yes im sure it was the same one. I can see the insulation where its weathered in your photo. Its not there anymore though. Burned down to the stand frame after the fire. BTW it was the same pen too! I appreciate yall leaving it though so i didnt have to build it!