Hunters can find plenty of premier public places

With 95 percent or so of Texas land privately owned, it follows that an equal percentage of the state's premier wingshooting opportunities sit behind locked and jealously guarded gates where access is deigned only through personal connections or the exchange of often considerable quantities of money.

It's not unusual for a well-heeled quail hunter (and there is almost no other kind these days) to shell out $10,000 or more to lease, just for quail hunting during the four-month season, a single section - 640 acres - of potentially productive bobwhite habitat in South Texas or the Rolling Plains.

Even dove hunting, that most proletarian of Texas wingshooting experiences, is not immune. Access to private land in some of the state's top dove areas can be frustratingly difficult to nail down and soberingly expensive ($100 or more per day) when you do.

But Texas is a big place, and that small percentage of public land still adds up to millions of acres, some of which holds outstanding wingshooting opportunities.

Across the state, federal wildlife refuges, national forests and grasslands, state wildlife management areas and parks - along with tens of thousands of acres of private lands leased by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department as part of its Public Hunting Program - make available, at little or no cost for access, what can be world-class wingshooting for every game bird found in the state.

A $48 Annual Public Hunting Permit gives wingshooters access to the almost 1 million acres in the TPWD-run public hunting program. Daily fees for access to public hunting areas on federal refuges on the Texas coast are $10 per day on some areas, and no fee is charged on others.

Granted, hunting these public areas often requires considerably more effort than hunting on private lands, and some of the most popular and easy-to-reach tracts can be a bit crowded. But hunters who put in the time to scout and plan can enjoy excellent hunting for waterfowl, doves, quail and some of the state's lesser known game birds such as woodcock, snipe, and even chachalaca.

Here's a sampling of some of Texas' top public-land wingshooting options:

DOVES

The Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area complex, a collection of nine tracts in Cameron and Hidalgo counties in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, is in the traditional heart of white-winged dove country and produces very good gunning. Some of the units also allow hunting for chachalaca, a tropical game bird found nowhere else in the United States outside the Lower Rio Grande Valley. A day afield there is like hunting in another country.

The Kleberg County Complex, a three-unit collection of private tracts leased as part of TPWD's public dove hunting program, offers excellent dove hunting, and the units are far enough from major population centers that they aren't usually crowded. The tracts, clustered near Loyola Beach south of Kingsville, sit almost within sight of Baffin Bay, making the location perfect for an early-autumn combination dove hunt/bay fishing trip.

WATERFOWL

McFaddin and Anahuac National Wildlife Refuges in Jefferson and Chambers counties, respectively, offer tens of thousands of acres of outstanding public waterfowl hunting, most of it well-managed, productive coastal marsh. Every day of waterfowl seasons, at least one of the refuges' several public hunting areas is open for use.

Two state wildlife management areas along the coast - Justin Hurst WMA near Freeport and Mad Island WMA a bit farther south near Bay City - are among the most productive in the state. The 7,200-acre Mad Island WMA is open to public hunting each Saturday and Sunday during duck season. The 15,600-acre Hurst WMA is open each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

QUAIL

Three state wildlife management areas - one on the Panhandle, one in the Trans-Pecos and another in South Texas - hold arguably the best public quail hunting in Texas.

The 28,000-acre Matador WMA in Cottle County and the 115,000-acre Black Gap WMA in the Trans-Pecos are open during much of the quail season to those holding a $48 Annual Public Hunting Permit. Both can provide outstanding hunting and are large and remote enough that crowding is never a problem.

The Chaparral WMA, 15,200 acres in LaSalle and Dimmitt counties, holds some fine South Texas Brush County quail habitat. In years when rain comes at the right time and in the right amounts, quail populations on the "Chap" can explode and yield world-class hunting for bobwhites. This year looks good.

Public quail hunting on the Chaparral WMA will be allowed Oct. 25-26 and Jan. 2-4.

TURKEY

High-quality public spring turkey hunting opportunities in Texas are as rare as a gobbler sporting five beards. But they are out there. Access to two of the best areas - Kerr WMA in Kerr County and Gene Howe WMA in Hemphill County - is limited and available only through TPWD's public hunt drawings program.

The Kerr WMA, 6,500 acres on the North Fork of the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country, and Gene Howe WMA, 5,400 acres on the Canadian River in the Panhandle, have healthy populations of Rio Grande turkey, and hunters who have drawn a permit to hunt them have had a success rate of about 40 percent. That's an outstanding success rate for public land.

Application deadline for the drawing of permits for the spring 2015 turkey hunts on the Kerr and Howe WMAs and other TPWD properties is Jan. 12. Successful applicants are assessed an $80 fee for the 21/2 -day hunts.

WOODCOCK

East Texas' tangled, soggy forestland may well winter more woodcock than any place outside Louisiana, and the smallish circle of Texas wingshooters who pursue these singular game birds have an abundance of public areas in which to seek them. The scattered units of the Sabine National Forest and Davy Crockett National Forest hold excellent woodcock habitat - a mix of thick brambles, briars and brush over a leaf-littered, damp forest floor, usually near a creek or other waterway and adjacent to open and equally soggy land where the long-billed, forest dwelling shorebirds can probe for earthworms, their primary food.

The Sabine and Davy Crockett forests are peppered with patches of prime woodcock habitat, almost invariably consisting of a mix of recently harvested pine forest adjacent to a corridor of hardwoods and brambles lining a waterway. Scouting is a key to locating pockets of prime woodcock habitat, and these East Texas forests hold tens of thousands of acres of potential. Access to most of that potential comes at no charge. A couple of areas are part of the state's public hunting program, and hunters must hold a $48 Annual Public Hunting Permit.

MORE INFORMATION

For maps, regulations and more insight on public hunting opportunities, visit these websites:

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department: tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/hunt/public/

Federal wildlife refuges in Texas: fws.gov/refuges/profiles/ByState.cfm?state=TX

National forests and grasslands in Texas: www.fs.usda.gov/texas/