txhunter58

You and I are both right Bigbulls. If we didn' t have the private land, there would probably not be any need for baiting. However, since 95% of the hunting land IS private and baiting is used as a tool to kill enough deer, mainly does. The size of Texas is not really the issue, because the majority of deer are in certain areas. For example, the area I live in has 1 deer per 5-10 acres.

I have a question for you. Let' s say you just inherited a 1000 acre ranch in the Texas Hill country with a deer per 5 acres. Are you going to advertize: " Come one and all. Anyone with a deer license is welcome to come on to my land to hunt deer!"

When you inherit it, there is 1 buck per 2 does and 20% of the herd are mature bucks (4 yrs. +, 8 point +, etc.). If you allow access to the " public" , after 2 years there would be a deer per 50 acres and 90% of the bucks will be yearling spikes. Sound like a good plan?

Well, my family does own that 1000 acres with the better described deer population, and I don' t think I will be opening it to the public anytime soon. That said, I had 3 paid leasors and took 10 other nonpaying people who all got at least one deer, 2 swap hunters that took a blackbuck antelope each and 2 other swap hunters that got their limit of turkeys. That included 5 kids under 18, 2 of which was their first deer. The tone of you post seems to see us private landowners that won' t let just anyone hunt as bad. I don' t think I did too bad last year, and there are plenty more just like me.

Somebody mentioned swap hunts. They are great. If you have knowledge for elk hunting on public lands, I am sure you could swap even with someone for a whitetail, exotic, hog, turkey........ hunt at no cost to you.