Hunting in Reagan County is mostly on private land

The deer, quail, dove, and feral hogs out here all live behind somebody's fence. Reagan County has no Wildlife Management Areas, no walk-in tract you can drive up to with a permit and start hunting. To get on the ground at all, you arrange it with the rancher who owns it, usually by paying for a lease or working out a season agreement with the landowner directly.

That catches a lot of newcomers off guard, because Texas does sell an Annual Public Hunting Permit, about $48, that opens more than a million acres statewide. None of that acreage sits in Reagan County. So the permit's a fine thing to own if you're willing to drive, but it won't put you on a single section of land between Big Lake and the county line. Your real options here are the leases. TPWD keeps a list of licensed hunting lease brokers, which is the fastest way to find a ranch that's taking hunters and to learn what a season runs.

Whatever you line up, you still need a current Texas hunting license in your pocket, and the state's seasons and bag limits apply on private dirt exactly the way they would on public land. A whitetail buck or a limit of bobwhite doesn't care whose fence it's behind. The TPWD Outdoor Annual spells out the dates and counts before you head out.