Deer and Turkey Hunting Rules in Brown County

Thirteen inches is the number that matters most on a Brown County deer lease. The county carries an antler restriction, so you can fill up to five deer tags a season, but no more than two of those can be bucks, and only one of those two bucks may have an inside spread of 13 inches or wider. A buck is legal if it has at least one unbranched antler, or if it clears that 13-inch spread. The point is to let young bucks with their first set of forks walk, while still leaving room for the old spike and the wide-racked mature buck.

Turkeys here run on the North Zone calendar, which gives you both a fall and a spring season at the gobblers. Counting every subspecies together, four birds is all you can take in a year. Whatever you tag, the harvest goes on the record the same day. Log it in the Texas Hunt and Fish app or online before you head home, since that reporting is mandatory, not a courtesy.

Everybody needs a Texas hunting license to take game here, and there's no age or residency that gets you out of it. Dates and bag limits shift from one season to the next, so the Outdoor Annual entry for Brown County is the page to pull up when you're planning the year.