Looking for opinions. What are some of the best counties for whitetails in East TX? Any thoughts on the Sulphur River areas? My Pleasant/Sulphur Springs.

I live here. Big deer can be anywhere. The trick is to get away from people

Closer to the Red River the better. Killed some monsters in Red River County. Tons of farms up that way to keep them well fed

Our place is outside of sulphur springs. It's where I've hunted all my life. The numbers of deer are good and it can have good quality of managed correctly but a lot of places haven't been. It's taken 30 years of us buying more and more property plus educating my family will adjoining properties to finally see a major difference in deer quality. Or hunting is very good now but it wasn't too long ago that we had a ton of deer but the bucks had a major problem with genetics.. tons of spikes that were more than a year old, deer with a branched antler on one side and a spike on the other, etc. All in all, I live the place but we've put a lot of work into it

From east Texas and hunted it all my life. On a lease now where we routinely kill a 160+ or 2 every year, and most other "trophies" are 140+. We've done our fair share of MLD doe harvesting, and only shoot bucks that are 4.5 or older.

That said, we see tons of spikes, tons of trash bucks, several "one off's) etc. bottom line is, in east Texas they can all hide by the river, near a creek, in a pine thicket, and have plenty of food before you see their ****ty appearance.

Just have to control what you can control. Feed protein, harvest doe, set an age limit for harvest, etc. good luck.

Edit to add we harvested a 183" 5 years ago, and currently have a 175" giving our members nightmares...well, until he dropped antlers this year anyway...

Where do I sign up?

Whatever happened with Hageman reserve? Lots of acres and little pressure other than what EyeGuy can entice over the fence to his place. That place and Sulphur Bluff ranch were large land holdings managed for ag and wildlife

This came off our timber lease that's just north of Beaumont this year. Funny thing is I had him in my sights for 20 min last year but had already taken my legal buck.

Thanks for the feedback! What county are you out of?

Yep i've hunted around Lamar county. Tons of giants. Problem is I'm moving to Tyler area. I would like something closer.

I should probably clarify my post. I'm moving to the Tyler area. I'll be acquiring land eventually. Just looking for ideas on surrounding areas.

That's awesome! What county are you guys out of?

Have buddies that have places near Minneola. They kill a few good deer off there. Just get a place in the river bottoms.

I need to ask Dad what the deal is over there now, I know it got sold. That place has changed hands six times in my lifetime, I think. We used to have the run of the place.... Hunted his there and fished their lakes many times as a kid. The big lake... The fishing.... Was insane

calbrown08 said:

---

Thanks for the feedback! What county are you out of?

---

Anderson, about a mile from the neches river.