TXCAV said:
Texas is among the worst states for public hunting. For as big as we are, and as many hunters as we have, the public hunting opportunities are poor. Access to the majority of the public lands is terrible. Most are so overgrown you can't walk in to them, yet we aren't allowed to clear anything. Food and water on those same areas are questionable at best. They boast they have over a million acres of public hunting lands available but how much of that is actually usable?
Texas is about 97-98% privately owned, which is far superior than having most of your "state" owned by the feds.
And the definition of "usable" is subjective. Fact of the matter is that most people want an easy-peasy drive up to the blind, shoot a deer and go home hunt when public land hunting is anything but that.
I'll apply the same logic to leases as well. No doubt that lease fees have gone up a stupid amount, but there is a very large contingent of people that claim they don't care about horns that won't even look to hunt in an area not called south Texas at the same time. Because they want the horns, they just love to talk about how they are meat hunters and only hunt for the experience, etc.