DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

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grydsrt
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DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby grydsrt » Wed Jan 10, 2018 7:08 am

https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/nonpwdpubs/water_issues/rivers/navigation/kennedy/kennedy_faq.phtml

Using the above link as your starting point and realizing you easily could get shot in the process would anyone consider driving to Texas for a DIY Public River Destination Hunt?

You could find public access via kayaker sites.

Scout from those sites in the off-season.

And pack out your gutpiles.

This is because we Texans:
Have OTC out of state licenses,
Warmer weather than Wisconsin,
Whitetail, Axis, hogs, Rio Grande turkey, in large quantities all along our public navigable waterways,
Are lazy and do not use beast tactics because we hunt over feeders,
Place our feeders and box blinds away from the river so they don’t get washed away in floods,
Typically drive a vehicle to our box blinds,

Or does “the real possibility of violence” (above link) work to deter this type of DIY Public River Destination Hunt?

Disclaimer - Just as soon as I have my own multi-million dollar hunting spread backed up to the river down here in Texas I will delete this post and disavow all knowledge thereof. Might be as soon as next week even.


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PK_
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby PK_ » Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:21 am

Sticky situation.
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grydsrt
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby grydsrt » Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:30 am

PK_ wrote:Sticky situation.


Gives a whole new meaning to “shoot and scoot.” However:

You are allowed to use suppressors to hunt whitetail and other game here,

You are not required to wear orange during gun season,

Axis, hogs, and anything else non-native that walks by can be hunted day and night year round.

Texas fly fishing blogs have a lot of good intel to front load your out of state scouting.
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checkerfred
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby checkerfred » Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:59 am

grydsrt wrote:
PK_ wrote:Sticky situation.


Gives a whole new meaning to “shoot and scoot.” However:

You are allowed to use suppressors to hunt whitetail and other game here,

You are not required to wear orange during gun season,

Axis, hogs, and anything else non-native that walks by can be hunted day and night year round.

Texas fly fishing blogs have a lot of good intel to front load your out of state scouting.


Not required to wear orange? Seriously? That’s a HUGE mistake on the state’s end
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby grydsrt » Wed Jan 10, 2018 10:16 am

checkerfred wrote:
grydsrt wrote:
PK_ wrote:Sticky situation.


Gives a whole new meaning to “shoot and scoot.” However:

You are allowed to use suppressors to hunt whitetail and other game here,

You are not required to wear orange during gun season,

Axis, hogs, and anything else non-native that walks by can be hunted day and night year round.

Texas fly fishing blogs have a lot of good intel to front load your out of state scouting.


Not required to wear orange? Seriously? That’s a HUGE mistake on the state’s end


checkerfred, used to be you were required to wear blaze orange, however once they figured out there was no public they did away with it. I mean, weren’t nobody shooting each other on private. Texas has no public land or hunting.

In fact, coming back after leaving when I was nine I get the distinct impression my Texan relatives believe that if you did not spend *at least* $3k on that particular day you are poaching?

I believe this because in the past seven my Texan relatives have adamantly refused to accompany me on any type of free/military base/public hunting. As in not even once.

Offer up a $10k New Mexico elk hunt and they fall all over themselves to go. They won’t even shoot what they say are booners on their legal-to-hunt with a bow back pasture.
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby grydsrt » Wed Jan 10, 2018 10:50 am

Here is what some of the public riverbed looks like down here.

Image

Here is what it looks like this time of year with 100+ Axis yarded up on the public riverbed:

Image

Image
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby grydsrt » Wed Jan 10, 2018 11:26 am

Let me point out I had the opportunity to speak with the GW re this specific location and his advice after I told him I was hunting it was simply, “pack out the gutpile.”

The adjoining landowner for their part put in high fence all along the high ground further inland and did not leave themselves a gate. Therefore there is no means of vehicle access.

I went so far as to write the landowners agent at the address I found in arcgis asking to be allowed to hunt from the waters edge to the high fence and received no reply.

I cannot hunt there any longer because of the distance involved following our recent move and because I am out 18mo olds stay at home parent. I barely have time to hunt at all these days.
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby grydsrt » Wed Jan 10, 2018 11:29 am

Read the initial link and you will see the adjoining landowner, not the LEO, is the enemy in this type of DIY hunt.

“Shoot n’ scoot.”
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checkerfred
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby checkerfred » Wed Jan 10, 2018 2:26 pm

grydsrt wrote:Read the initial link and you will see the adjoining landowner, not the LEO, is the enemy in this type of DIY hunt.

“Shoot n’ scoot.”


Yeah I read that. It just blows my mind that there’s no public land. I guess I’m fortunate in where I live that we have lots of public land and it’s cheap to hunt here. There’s a decent deer population but hunting in the south ain’t easy.
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby grydsrt » Wed Jan 10, 2018 3:14 pm

checkerfred wrote:
grydsrt wrote:Read the initial link and you will see the adjoining landowner, not the LEO, is the enemy in this type of DIY hunt.

“Shoot n’ scoot.”


Yeah I read that. It just blows my mind that there’s no public land. I guess I’m fortunate in where I live that we have lots of public land and it’s cheap to hunt here. There’s a decent deer population but hunting in the south ain’t easy.


Did you see in the article that completely dry arroyos can be and are public access so long as they were deemed public waterways when deeded under a Spanish or Mexican land grant?

Can you imagine being 20 miles past the fence in the middle of someone’s ranch and trying to convince the adjacent landowner that it is actually public property and you are not trespassing? “The possibility of violence is real.” I have sort of looked to see where the old Spanish and Mexican land grants are, but got no further than looking.

Having received the majority of my education besides law school in Tennessee and Alabama it is in my nature to want to venture off the beaten path and see what lies over the next hill. I feel for the native Texan who’s vision ends at the fence line.

Being out in the woods hunting and shooting was a big part of my life growing up. What a shame the same experience is unobtainable here in the Lone Star State.
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby sgspencer » Wed Jan 10, 2018 3:38 pm

Actually there is lots of public land in Texas depending on where you are. Here in the eastern pineywoods we have almost 700,000 acres of national forest.
Go west or south Texas, nada.
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby grydsrt » Wed Jan 10, 2018 3:47 pm

sgspencer wrote:Actually there is lots of public land in Texas depending on where you are. Here in the eastern pineywoods we have almost 700,000 acres of national forest.
Go west or south Texas, nada.


Ah ha, fellow Texan. sgspencer, what is your opinion of walking up/hunting on a dry piece of property that was marked as a public waterway on a Spanish or Mexico land grant?
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby SmallJawNH » Wed Jan 10, 2018 3:53 pm

sgspencer wrote:Actually there is lots of public land in Texas depending on where you are. Here in the eastern pineywoods we have almost 700,000 acres of national forest.
Go west or south Texas, nada.


I'm finding east is where it's at. Visited one area last Saturday and jumped a buck. Definitely not as public as New Hampshire but I didn't get shot at.
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby Boogieman1 » Wed Jan 10, 2018 11:52 pm

I've had more probs with landowners while fishing public waters than I ever had hunting. Some idiots feel they own the lake. I've got into actual fisticuffs on more than one occasion. I like to fish out of a inner tube in the spring, and guess it just psses some people off. There's one slew in particular that has a boat dock in the back, and this old man cusses me up and down every time I'm in there. So I make a point to fish it everyday just to spite him. Once he came out with a shotgun, starts blasting all around me at the water. A neighbor called the authorities. Game warden showed up asked what the heck was going on. The old man said nothing just duck hunting. He was issued tickets, for no hunting license, hunting to close to housing, not using waterfowl ammo, to many shells in gun and hunting ducks out of season. Justice served lol
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Jonny
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Re: DIY Public River Destination Hunts - Texas

Unread postby Jonny » Thu Jan 11, 2018 1:19 am

Boogieman1 wrote:I've had more probs with landowners while fishing public waters than I ever had hunting. Some idiots feel they own the lake. I've got into actual fisticuffs on more than one occasion. I like to fish out of a inner tube in the spring, and guess it just psses some people off. There's one slew in particular that has a boat dock in the back, and this old man cusses me up and down every time I'm in there. So I make a point to fish it everyday just to spite him. Once he came out with a shotgun, starts blasting all around me at the water. A neighbor called the authorities. Game warden showed up asked what the heck was going on. The old man said nothing just duck hunting. He was issued tickets, for no hunting license, hunting to close to housing, not using waterfowl ammo, to many shells in gun and hunting ducks out of season. Justice served lol


I have all my problems fishing as well. Have had farmers walk the bank above me to make sure I don't take a step out of the river. But I do make sure to keep every legal fish I catch in front of him :D they sure do get mad when I keep "their" walleyes.
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