Anyone want to help me look for a hunting/recreational/investment property?

[Greybeard]

These properties are on the eastern side of the WMA, the mule deer hunting is better on the west side.

You are correct, however I've seen a lot of mulies in the fields on private land east of the WMA near the road leading up to it, and mulies around the office which is also on the east side. The biggest whitetails are taken on the east side as well.

 

[npaden]

I seem to be good at finding places that people with way more money than me want. The 388 acres that hadn't been listed yet finally was officially for sale at $2,000 per acre and I was going to go look at it Thursday and the realtor just told me today that someone just offered way over asking price and the sellers had already accepted it.

Right now I'm leaning toward the 320 acre place that is an hour and 50 minute drive which is a little further than I would like but it seems to be the best whitetail place at least right now.

https://www.land.com/property/320-acres-in-cottle-county-texas/23418654/

It has a little CRP income which would more than offset any holding costs and is pretty much ready to go other than I might need to get some of the electric lines moved around a bit if I want to park my trailer up there.

The 213 acre place might be a little better overall property with a better pond and both mule deer and whitetail, but don't seem to quite have the trophy quality at least on the pictures they have listed. It is right at an hour and 30 minutes. It is quite a bit more per acre also.

https://www.land.com/property/213-acres-in-motley-county-texas/23404931/

The cheapest place per acre is the 381.5 acre place that is down south.

https://www.land.com/property/381.5-acres-in-scurry-county-texas/22521278/

It looks like it has plenty of whitetails, just not sure on the trophy quality. It has a pump jack and some storage tanks that are an eyesore but probably wouldn't affect the hunting any. It MIGHT have aoudad, but it would be very occasional if it did. No trail camera pictures of anything.

My sale got pushed back to October 31st so still looking. Thinking about making a low offer on the 320 acre place up in Cottle County and seeing if they will take it.

 

[npaden]

Well I think I'm done looking. We made an offer on the 320 acre place in Cottle County and after a little bit of back and forth came to a price that was a little more than I wanted to pay and a little less than they wanted so probably a fair deal all around. Realtor even took a 1% reduction in their commission to make it happen.

It's going to end up costing me $6,000ish to move from my 160 acre place in Fisher County to a 320 acre place in Cottle County with the high price I got for selling my existing place to the data center folks. I sold for $3,700 an acre and am buying for $1,875 an acre. The Cottle County place is getting about $3,000 a year in CRP and I was only getting $600 a year in CRP in Fisher County so I think that will more than cover the extra price over the 7 years left on the CRP contract so I can legitimately say that it was pretty much a straight across swap from a money perspective. Kind of nice getting to double the size of the property and have a step up in the quality of deer for essentially no money out of my pocket.

I think no doubt the quality of the whitetail deer in Cottle County is better than the ones in Fisher County although I've shot a 3 good bucks in the last 3 years in Fisher County. The neighbor in Cottle County shot a 183" whitetail last year so there is for sure potential. There are mule deer around in Cottle County as well (actually saw a doe and 2 fawns looking at it) so there is a chance that could happen vs. I've never had a mule deer on camera in 19 years in Fisher County.

The topography isn't as nice as what we had in Fisher county with a creek bed and some hills but it has 2 wells and rolls at least a little bit and has a ton of edge which seems to really work for whitetails. The 28,0000 acre Matador WMA is 1 mile west and it is kitty corner to a 50,000 acre ranch.

Only real negative is that it is 20 minutes further drive but my son said that would be worth it for a chance at better deer.

Close on the sale is set for 10/31/2025 and close on the purchase is set for 11/13/2025 so will be able to hunt the new place this year. Some decent bucks on camera at the new place so will be interesting to see how it hunts.

Pretty excited. Still never found the perfect place but I think this one is no doubt a really good whitetail hunting spot.

 

[npaden]

Sorry for not updating this earlier. We did end up closing on the new place on November 7th.

Got cameras set up that day but haven’t gotten anything too exciting on camera. Other than the bird taking a bath or almost drowning that I posted about -

Do I spend 4 hours to try to save this bird?

So evidently this bird got itself into a little bit of trouble. Would be a 4 hour round trip to go try to save it. Will it get out on its own or will it be dead before I can get there in 2 hours?

www.hunttalk.com

Seems like all the bucks from earlier in the season have been broken pretty badly. Not sure if that is something unusual that just happened this year or if that is a normal thing up there. Looking like archery season is gong to be the way to go maybe before they get broken.


Was amazed at the number of does coming into the feeder. I counted 12 in one picture. I’ve never had a place where I had to shoot does but it is very evident that I was going to need to here.



Thankfully I was able to hook up a friend and his son to go up there and shoot a couple does. They were actually up there shooting does while we were down at the old place getting the windmill.

This was his sons first ever deer and he was stoked.



Dad shot one that afternoon.



You can see the blind on the left side of that picture.

I still think we need to shoot 2 or 3 more does just to try to get things a little more balanced out. Think I have someone lined up to take a couple more.

This is from after the 2 does above were shot.



Have gotten some pictures of turkeys but seems like they just move through every week or two.



Kind of fun making the plans for what we need to do this spring and summer to get the new place headed in the right direction for next hunting season.

Think I’m going to put in some buried water tanks, maybe a food plot and some other stuff. With 2 wells on the place I have some options that I didn’t on the old place from that perspective. Some kind of orchard would be a big draw down the road if I can keep the deer from destroying the trees starting out. The deer density there seems very high for this area.

I may add some more in a bit but this post is getting pretty long already.

 

[npaden]

Kind of surprised there don’t seem to be near as many pigs up there as my old place. At my old place I had to put hog panels around feeders or water tanks or the pigs would over run them and chase the deer off.

I’m only getting a picture maybe every other day of a pig and then it is usually a single pig and usually at night. The deer are so thick they have every kernel of corn the feeder throws eaten within 20 or 30 minutes and I’ve never seen a pig in there at the times the feeder goes off.

I have seen the turkeys coming in there and competing with the deer for corn a few times.

Of course I’m about to be all set up for pigs with a .300 blackout with a suppressor and a thermal and not looking like I will have too many to practice on. Maybe have to take up predator hunting.

 

[kiwi hunter]

Pleased for ya. Yep stay on top of those damned pigs.
Happy new yr.