Hunting in the piney woods of East Texas

Question. For those who hunt deer in the thick woods, particularly on public land, would you recommend staying on open areas such as pipelines, or going in among the trees...where visibility is limited, or even sitting still by a secluded pond? Not trying to ask for anyone's secret spot or whatever, just would like to hear what method for the terrain has been successful for you.

I grew up in those woods and I never saw a deer cross a RoW. They were always in the woods.

In my experience, on public lands they seem to stay pretty deep in the woods. I missed a tremendous buck on a ROW near Chester, Tx. back in '76 on a timber company lease. I've never hunted E. Texas since then so I don't really know how it is nowadays but I doubt if things have changed much. Poachers and thieves drove me out of the piney woods

Walk in further than anyone else is willing to go.

Find fresh tracks at a pinch point or creek crossing and hunt with the wind in your favor and the sun at your back.

Trails parallel to creek bottoms, saddles, and oaks dropping acorns. Deer in that area know that if they stick their head out of the trees, someone's going to shoot at them.

To add on to what others are saying.... tree climbing stands work best, in my opinion, in dense brush. They allow you to get up above it and actually see anything moving. Plus you can also see the terrain and possible trails a lot more.

Public land means lots of competition. For a deer to live to the ripe old age of 3 or more, it's learned not to be where all the people are.

I stay in the woods. It will open up somewhere and maybe just a little bit only in one spot but that’s where I would go.

My son and I hunt our ET piney woods property every year. I have hunted the property for 35 years. We have stands on ROWs and in the woods. We have food plots and feeders in ROWs and feeders in the woods. Both produce decent bucks every year. We recently clear-cut about 150 acres of the tract so we put a couple stands there as well, I'm excited to hunt them as we've seen a lot of deer in the clear-cuts so far. We see more bucks in the ROWs only because you can see further. We get about the same number of bucks on camera in ROWs as in the woods. We see more bucks on the cameras mid-day in the woods than we do in the ROWs.

I suggest you take advantage of both locations depending on the conditions. Always hunt the wind and be prepared (practice) for a fast long shot in the ROWs. I enjoy LR shooting and practice diligently and know my trajectories so I like to hunt the ROWs and clear-cuts. Public land may be different as I suspect must hunters will take the easy route and stay on the ROWs.