Wife and I are mulling over potentially buying a small place in one of these 3 areas for a get away spot for now and retirement spot down the road.

Do any of y'all have much insight into the public land opportunities for deer/waterfowl in these states? Looks like all 3 have rather short rifle seasons so I'd better get used to archery/black powder if I want extended opportunities for deer.

Mom still owns land in Southeast MO that she leases out to a rice farmer so have that option for some private land duck hunting.

Just curious what the public hunting options are in these States. Sounds like Oklahoma is pretty limited for public opportunities?

I live in NW Arkansas, and apply every year (modern firearm and muzzleloader) for deer hunts at my 3 closest public land areas. I've drawn 3 out of 4 years, and was successful one of those times. Other public land areas might be managed differently than the ones I hunt, but my experience is any license holder can archery hunt throughout the entire deer season without being drawn on a public land area. However, when a draw hunt (rifle or muzzy) is happening on the public land area, only the draw hunters are permitted to be out there. Like you suggested though, the draw hunts are pretty short (~5 days).

Player To Be Named Later said:

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Sounds like Oklahoma is pretty limited for public opportunities?

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What makes you think this? Oklahoma has a ton of public land.

Was reading up on it last night and came across an article that said something about Oklahoma having only 2% of its land being public. Maybe I should go back and check the date on the article, could have been an old one.

You think OK compares ok to AR and MO in that regard? We drive through Antlers/Claton/McAlester yesterday and that area is beautiful. Plus Oklahoma has the benefit of being close enough to us for now to be a very easy weekend trip from Denton County until we retire full time.

Arkansas has some significant sized National forests that don't require a draw. They do have limited rifle season though as far as number of days. I went to a spot about 45 minutes West of my house in Little Rock that I scouted on OnX maps and had a legal buck down at 8:00 the only day I went out there. No limited draw. There are WMAs that you can put in for that have draws all over the state but I think the odds are pretty decent. I never did it when I lived there. Good public land state without much population.

Ouachita and Ozark National forests are quite large with a lot of access and opportunities. You could probably even get a place that backs up to the forest or is an inholding. I was surprised how reasonable land costs were there compared to Texas rural land.

ThatOneGuy said:

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Arkansas has some significant sized National forests that don't require a draw. They do have limited rifle season though as far as number of days. I went to a spot about 45 minutes West of my house in Little Rock that I scouted on OnX maps and had a legal buck down at 8:00 the only day I went out there. No limited draw. There are WMAs that you can put in for that have draws all over the state but I think the odds are pretty decent. I never did it when I lived there. Good public land state without much population.

Ouachita and Ozark National forests are quite large with a lot of access and opportunities. You could probably even get a place that backs up to the forest or is an inholding. I was surprised how reasonable land costs were there compared to Texas rural land.

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That's a very large part of why we are looking at these 3 States instead of Texas. Add in the fact that when retired, I would pay more in property taxes in Texas than I would in income taxes in any of the 3.

We Texans like to brag about "no income tax" but when you actually sit down and crunch the numbers, we end up paying more in taxes than a lot of states with a state income tax.

Plus eastern Oklahoma, northern Arkansas, and southern Missouri are beautiful.

I haven't looked into AR or MO but just the Ouachita NF and adjacent Weyerhauser WMA lease in OK are enormous and close to DFW.

I live on Lake Truman. There are eleventybillion public acres around it loaded with deer, turkey, ducks. If you buy enough acres your tags are free sans duck. We allow crossbow so your deer/turkey runs sept15 to jan15. Turkey shotgun is three weeks in spring and the month of October in fall...we shoot a lot of fall turkey and yes they do come to calls. My town has 900 people and considering recent events we have never been happier to live here on our small farm.

My dad grew up in St. Joseph and mom in Centralia. Mom's land is over in Poplar Bluff so the duck hunting there I would imagine is pretty solid.

Have a half brother and sister that will likely retire to MO so moving to that state definitely has its advantages.

The primary advantage to Oklahoma is we could be 2.5hrs or so away from our property right now and more easily enjoy it between now and retirement. I guess that's the biggest decision to make. Have land that can also use more frequently or have a place we'd be a little happier with post retirement.

And yeah, we are on just over an acre in the unincorporated county right now, but we can't wait to get even slightly more away from the background noise than we are currently.