After my not so wonderful experience with my dove lease this year, I have been considering just flat out buying some land as an investment and to hunt on. I have been doing some searches in the general area between Junction, Kerrville, and Fredericksburg and it looks like I couple probably afford something between 50-70 acres on a budget of $125K max. Generally speaking, would this be enough land to make a decent deer hunting area? Is this even a good idea?

We have been nothing but pissed at the guys that bought 45 acres next to our 1800 acres in Junction. It is so nice having them adopting the 'if it's brown, it's down' management practice.

However, nothing says you cannot go after your own slice of heaven. Just get with you neigbors, get to know them and understand what each are doing. I say if you can afford it and are responsible, go for it. In our case, a bunch of clowns invested in some land next to us and mooch off our hard work.

[This message has been edited by Hoyt Ag (edited 10/6/2010 9:29p).]

You can go a little further west to the Ozona area and get land for $850-$950 an acre.

Any more land for sale adjacent to your place Hoyt?

Actually, that's one of my reasons for asking the question. I don't want to have pissed off neighbors. If I were to do this I'd plan on clearing some space, bring in a tractor and plant food plots, etc. My goal would definitely not be to just put a feeder up and try to lure some big antlers across fence lines for a bunch of friends to shoot.

If you're next to a really good operation, all you need is about 30 acres, a couple shooting lanes, and you can charge $100/day for day hunts.



How much land seems to be function of the kind of hunting, the deer population, the terrain, and what you are comfortable with. I have a friend who hunts on his 20 acres right outside of College Station. You might be able to hear the rifle shot from west campus. But he has a feeder, and only one shooting lane (he also lives there btw).

Not what I would want, but it's what he does.

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My goal would definitely not be to just put a feeder up and try to lure some big antlers across fence lines for a bunch of friends to shoot.

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our neighbors did this in coleman. needless to say we cleared the fench line 100 feet and take dog poo and human hair to the fench line about once a week

but let's face it. You would put up a feeder on your property, and you would want the best buck that hung out on your property. I don't know how anyone could blame you for that, if the number of deer taken is reasonable (low).

I've hunted 50 acres in Fredericksburg my entire life. Only bad thing is every surrounding land owner has 30 - 50 acre tracts as well so developing a managment plan is out of the question. Most of the neighbors are older and carry the depression mentality and shoot deer for meat and not antlers. Even my 95 year old grandma to this day still says.."you can't eat the horns!"

But it is the hill country and i see more deer there than my 2000 acre lease in S. Tx. Small acreage in any of those areas you mentioned shold be fine.

Edit: I forgot...you are not getting any where near 50-70 acres in fredericksburg for $125K. Uvalde might be a better option for you and it is beautiful country. Or if you want to stay in gillespie county try looking around Harper and (at your own risk) Doss!

[This message has been edited by AgLandMan (edited 10/7/2010 9:21a).]

[This message has been edited by AgLandMan (edited 10/7/2010 9:26a).]

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Most of the neighbors are older and carry the depression mentality and shoot deer for meat and not antlers.

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...but that doesn't stop the s.o.b.s from shooting bucks does it? If that was their true reasoning they'd shoot a ton of does. They taste better.

hurleyag, you wouldn't be friends with a local guy with the initials JB would you? We used to hunt with some folks out there who would do the exact same thing when the neighbors would plant a blind right on the fence line.

He also would dump a s-load of corn and sit there and honk his horn until the cattle came and found him. He caught the occasional middle finger out the window of the blind.

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...but that doesn't stop the s.o.b.s from shooting bucks does it? If that was their true reasoning they'd shoot a ton of does. They taste better

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watch it..you are talking about my 95 yr old grandma and she's 6'2" 250!

No really Sean...Buck or doe it doesn't matter to them. They shoot the first thing that walks out. it doesn't bother me because I just use that place to fill doe tags. When I'm up there and in the stand i can hear 5 different feeders going off on the surrounding properties and can see plenty of deer at two of the feeders. It's distubing how many deer are in the hill country. It would take a ton of management and a ton of culling to ever be successful at growing big bucks.

To the OP...my parents are from Fburg and my dad's best friend is still a big time land broker for Fredericksburg Realty. Let me know and I can put you in touch with him if you are not currently working with a broker.

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My goal would definitely not be to just put a feeder up and try to lure some big antlers across fence lines for a bunch of friends to shoot.

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Well crap. I was kind of pulling for this option.