Whatever, but this opening line: "My experience is if you aren't there to watch it on a regular basis somebody is going to screw it up, steal anything worth stealing and/or dream up some way to grab it.", followed by 3 bad mistakes he made to back up that sentence looks to me and Oldtimr that he's telling the OP not to even think of buying land if he isn't going to live on it. His mistakes are definitely things that should be looked at when buying any property though, so I guess I can partially agree with you. I'm surprised you weren't aware of that Texas habitat, as there is just about every type of vegetation you can dream of, including what Flags mentioned over on the east side of the state as you get closer and closer to Arkansas. That part of Texas is actually referred to as the "Piney Woods"! Then there is the "Hill Country" north and northwest of San Antonio and what is referred to as the "Brush Country" south of SA just to name a couple other areas. The Hill country is absolutely gorgeous and probably my favorite part of the state as far as scenery.

I am a firm believer in it's much easier to learn from the mistakes of others than to make your own. Different people have different experiences and different areas of knowledge. What may seem elementary or simple to one person is unknown subject matter for the next.

It can sometimes be difficult to predict where a town or population area is going to expand but well worth the extra effort to figure it out. A large hunting parcel next to landlocked BLM/Forest, etc. land is a pretty good setup and likely to avoid public encroachment.

Mudder's experiences sound like he learned the hard way on some of his stuff but that is often the best teacher. Like most of us older guys, I'm sure he would like to pass his "knowledge," even if it was learned the hard way. ;)

I drove past Texas once but have never been there so am happy to find out they have trees. It sounds like a good place.

Agreed on the distance thing. Our family hunting camp is about 2.5 hours from home. It's a perfecy distance for a weekend trip. And if needs be isn't too bad for just a day trip if we need to for something. Far enough away that it feels like we're going away, but close enough to get there regularly. In good weather we're there 2 weekends a month typically at least. Unless you have money to buy acreage, find land close to public land that you can hunt on. We have a little over 20 acres that our camp sits on, but have access to lots of land all around the area.
-Jake

This is the area in East TX that I now call home. This place is just down the road from Athens, TX.


Kind of discredits the thought that it is all flat and dusty and fenced off doesn't it?

Beautiful country there flags.
-Jake

My quest for hunting land began during the kids Easter break 1990. A great time of the year to see places in Michigan normally choked with people in July. We camped on the Shore of lake Superior west of Brimley and were the only people there. We stopped at a little café for lunch and I was looking at the rack of tourist information and ran across a flyer for 10 Acres on lake Superior. I took the flyer back to the table and started talking to the wife about how it would be a great place to retire.
She said if we were going to be on a lake it would half to be one we could swim in starting in late May. After 8 months we found a perfect spot on Big Bay De Noc, 1/2 mile of frontage and 37 acres backed up to about 6000 acres of Federal land near Rapid River Michigan closed the deal Nov 3d 1991..
It is 6 1/2 hours from home, can swim in the bay as it is shallow for a long ways out during Memorial week end. Boat launch for my 19 footer is a paved affair just a mile and a half down the road. By Nov 1992 I had bought a small travel trailer to use there. I would take it up for Memorial week end and bring it home after the Nov fire arm deer season ended . No one ever bothered it or the shed I built there later In 1994 I was doing some work on the travel trailer on the tail gate of my truck and this old guy came up and said excuse me, scared the crap out of me as I never see any one while there. He asked permission to hunt a spot and after that he watched over our place for us. In 2000 red squirrels got in the trailer and made a mess out of it so we built a pole barn with a loft we use as a cabin now.

How we did it

Sat down with wife and came up with a list of what each of us wanted. Near by hospitals, shopping and things to do other than hunt and fish.

Chose the area to begin out search and made contact with all the bigger realtors in the area. Some were helpful giving us a call when a property got listed and even placed directions & details of/to the property in their mail box for us to pick up after business hours on Saturday afternoon. Some wouldn't call us only mail things to us (no e mal or internet back then many times the property would already have offers by the time we were able to make the trip.

Be open to driving the roads in the area to find realtor signs from down state listing property. We found one I likes that way but they refused to have is surveyed Yet they had built the cabin 15 feet across the property lines 5 years before. They were sure where that line was how ever.

We found our property driving a back road and seeing a 4'x8' sign for sale by owner.
Took two weeks to make contact.

This is a early morning Picture from my favorite deer blind Nov 2003



:D Al

really nice land you have there