Far West Texas Hunting?

D

deadcoyote

New member
My family (wife and I) are considering a move to West texas, right by the New Mexico border. I know this seems like a pretty silly question, but one of the main reasons i'd like to move besides an elevated standard of living for my son is how ridiculous the shooting/hunting scene has become regulated in California (born and raised). I am simply curious if there's a lot of public access land to hunt in the Andrews/Odessa area. Thanks in advance, Brian
 
If you ask me that sounds like two good reasons. If you don't have any major ties to California why not move on if it's what you and your family like. Plus you get out before California falls into the Pacific.:)
 
99% of Texas hunting is lease hunting. Buy 300 acres and have your own place or pay high dollars for a lease.
 
Born and raised in West Texas and now live in South Texas. You can prety much forget about public land hunting. Be ready to shell out $1,500 or more for a lease. Texas is getting run over by hogs pretty much throughout the state, so you mght have a pretty good chance of finding some ranchers that will let you shoot hogs all day long for free or pretty cheap. As far as deer and everything else, it's gonna cost you.
 
I understand moving to a new job and better way of life. If you have to move to TX you might want to consider hunting out of State. NM, AZ, and CO has a lot of public land opportunities, however paying for a lease in TX might be the cheaper option. By the time you pay for all the Non Resident licenses you might be money ahead to get in on a hunting lease.

Before TX became a State they had to sell most of the prime land to citizens to pay off expenses from their war with Mexico. That is why the low percentage of public land in TX IIRC about 3%. The amount of public land in TX is probably close to the same amount as CO has but there are more people in TX trying to hunt it than CO.
 
The amount of public land in TX is probably close to the same amount as CO has...
Click to expand...
Not even close! BLM has 8.4M acres in CO and USFS has 14.3M acres. Granted not all of that is huntable, but much of it is. A public hunting permit in TX allows access to 1.2M acres, most of which is in east TX.

http://www.blm.gov/co/st/en/BLM_Information/faqs/access.html
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/hunt/public/

I got spoiled in CO my few years there with land access. Now I compare everywhere else I live to that and it never even begins to compare. The Florida panhandle is pretty good with all the federal and state land, but not the same still.
 
Guess I was wrong, just rememberd reading somewhere that TX was about 3% public lands. Since Texas is over twice the size of CO that would put quite a bit out there for possible use. Anway I know anyone who wants to go to TX to hunt is better off buying a lease.
 
The job I found is just over the border in NM, the other fella's at this company all highly recommended Andrews TX, stated they didn't care for NM.
 
I spent a lot of time working in that area while living in Midland. Andrews is a nice town for sure. A lot better than Hobbs or Eunice or Jal. However, if hunting is a priority, then I would check out Carlsbad, NM. It's' a great place and plenty of hunting and you wouldn't have to pay non-resident license fees. Only downside to being a NM resident is you have a State income tax. There is absolutely no public lands to hunt in West TX. If you buy a lease, you can go in with several other hunters to make it affordable. That works fine for dove and quail hunting. For deer hunting, it's still way expensive to get a lease that's any good at all.
 
Good hunting on leases can be found at reasonable prices, but it takes a lot of legwork and a lot of looking for hunter groups who need "just one more fella" to fill out a lease.

In Odessa, there's a good gunstore at Dixie and University. Friendly. A bit less friendly (although not at all hostile) at the gunstore on E. 8th St, downtown. Some of the hock shops on the Andrews highway double as gunshops, as well. And, as usual, check out the feed'n'seed stores.

I'm less acquainted with Midland. Barnes & Noble is about all the shopping I do there.

Get the Parks & Wildlife guide. It lists public areas. Drawings for deer; it's commonly self-registration for quail.

The cost problem here in Texas is demand-driven. Easy to see why; just look at our population growth, these last thirty or so years. Lotsa hunters left the rust belt and moved to the sun belt. Texas became the Big Buckle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top