Oklahoma or Texas for Rios?

[AUTiger]

Was thinking I wanted to hit up one of these states next spring.  If you could pick one or the other which one and why?

[GobbleNut]

Depends on a lot of things.  If you are planning on hunting public land, I believe OK has a lot more options to choose from.  If you are going to hunt private property, then it is really more a matter of finding the right place that suits your expectations in terms of quality relative to cost. 

One consideration that I have found to be important to me personally is the fact that TX allows hunting over feeders.  A lot of properties actively feed birds to keep them on the property, and those birds get where their entire day's activities are based around those feeders.  I will not hunt over or around feeders, and as such, there have been times and places where my hunting tactics were basically neutralized by the birds being patterned to the feeders.

[AUTiger]

Are the numbers of birds similar in both places?  Southern Oklahoma vs El Dorado, TX?

[gobblerhunter]

A lot of birds in the Del Rio area.  Contact
my good friend, Clay Young with Mexico
Outfitters Unlimited. He had a great spring
turkey season. Check out his website.

[Sand Man]

I hunt both and both have huge populations of Rios.  Depending on where you are located I might would trade a hunt with you.  As long as I get back on my lease in TX, I can almost guarantee you a Rio.

[WW]

I just sent my deposit yesterday for a 3 bird Oklahoma Rio hunt. It can't get here quick enough!

[Roost 1]

I just sent my deposit yesterday for a 3 bird Oklahoma Rio hunt. It can't get here quick enough!

Who are you gonna hunt with? If you don't mind saying.

[LI Outdoorsman]

Having hunted both Ok and TX I can tell you that TX is more of a turkey shoot than a turkey hunt..

[Tomfoolery]

Something about texas hill country rios that just get my blood flowing. El dorado, tx area is full of birds. I hunt just south of that in Sonora. Love watching those mid day rios come running in through the rocks and cactus gobblin eleventy hundred times.

[eggshell]

"One consideration that I have found to be important to me personally is the fact that TX allows hunting over feeders.  A lot of properties actively feed birds to keep them on the property, and those birds get where their entire day's activities are based around those feeders.  I will not hunt over or around feeders, and as such, there have been times and places where my hunting tactics were basically neutralized by the birds being patterned to the feeders."

You got that right Gobblenut. I hunted southern Oklahoma and had a good hunt working birds. A lot of ranches still had feeders out, but hunting wasn't centered around them as much. Some quit filling the feeders after deer season. A couple years ago my daughter moved to Texas and I investigated turkey hunting spots and what I found was turkey feed lots. All the places I looked had feeders galore and the only thing that separated some from a butterball farm was a fence.....and a couple had that. I found very little public ground and what I did find looked more like a rattle snake farm than turkey country. I suppose there are some good ranches in Texas, but she was in pan handle and west Texas (Lubbock) area and I guess turkey hunting is pretty sparse there.

[Tail Feathers]

The Texas Hill Country is a special place.  The area around Mason is beautiful, especially in the spring.So many of the outfitters are deer outfitters and many haven't learned that turkey hunters don't want to hunt like their deer hunters.

Something about texas hill country rios that just get my blood flowing. El dorado, tx area is full of birds. I hunt just south of that in Sonora. Love watching those mid day rios come running in through the rocks and cactus gobblin eleventy hundred times.

[chcltlabz]

You can't really stereotype a whole state based on what a few outfitters do.  There are plenty of places to hunt Texas that don't feed turkeys, or feed anything for that matter. 

I've hunted public land in both, and private land twice in Texas.  One property had active feeders (which I didn't find out until I got there, and this was pre-internet information age) and the other two had none.  Killed birds in both on public land and they were both poor hunts.  Both overly pressured and poaching was high.  I wouldn't hunt those pieces of public again in either state, but other plots might be different.

On the private land, the fed area was a horrible hunt, possibly because everyone in the area was feeding the heck out of the birds, and this farm drew the short straw.  The no feeder hunts were terrific and I killed birds.

Its more about the individual spot than it is the state.

[GobbleNut]

It is reassuring to hear that there are places in Texas where turkeys can be hunted without having to deal with feeder-conditioned birds.  I have hunted several places in Texas, but I certainly haven't hunted everywhere in Texas.  In the places I have hunted, though, I have found two types of conditions. 

The first is that it seems all of the properties in the area were feeding birds to hold them on the properties.  The birds were flocked up and entirely conditioned to the feeders in their habits. 

The second type of condition was that the property I was hunting was not feeding birds, but other properties around it were.  In that situation, the only birds that were on the feeder-less property were either roosting there (because of limited roosting habitat) or pretty much traveling across the place to get to other feeders. 

In both cases, if there were properties feeding turkeys, the birds were totally conditioned to the feeders in most all of their habits.  They could be killed, for sure, but doing so without taking into consideration those feeder-oriented habits they developed and adopting a hunting strategy around those habits was pretty futile. 

Of course, in both states, you have to deal with people that don't hunt setting up feeders on their properties to hold birds on their places,...both to bird-watch, as well as in an effort to thwart turkey hunters.  I have had that problem in Oklahoma more so than Texas.  That is another problem all in itself,...and I am sure it applies to many other states besides TX and OK. 

[eggshell]

I am thankful for the most part that in my area of Ohio feeding has not taken hold. However, the one place I do have to deal with it is an adjoining property to my family's land. This is the place I killed my first gobbler over 40 years ago and always held a good flock of birds. A few years ago a group that is funded by a wealthy businessman purchased the adjoining 500+ acres and immediately went about turning it into west Texas east by bulldozing in clearings, putting up shooting boxes and feeders they keep running all year. They are almost exclusive deer hunters, but their feeders suck the birds off much of the surrounding properties. The one valley of ours that borders them used to be a turkey meca, but now your lucky if the birds roost on us. Even if they roost there they are on their way to the feeders as soon as they flly down. It is sickening to sit and listen to 10 gobblers crowded around a feeder and they will not venture far from it. They eat there, they poop there and they breed there.....I hate it with a passion. In recent years I rarely hunt that valley as I know what will happen.Since hunting near a baited site is illegal in Ohio I had to get a ruling from our local Game warden where I could even hunt. So by feeding they have actually made much of their neighbors land illegal to turkey hunt, most likely a few hundred acres. So almost a fourth of our own land has been ruled unhuntable for turkeys......like I said I absolutely despise feeding turkeys!!!!