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  • andre3k

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    I thought I'd throw this out and get some advice. I've been looking to purchase land in east Texas for the past few years. I finally have the funds to do it and I picked the area due it's proximity to Houston and land cost. I'm not purchasing primarily as an investment but as a recreational tract where I can hunt and have a place to take the wife and kids to get out of the city. The property I'm looking at is approximately 40 acres and located near the Jasper/Newton/Burkeville area. Current owners have travel trailers on it with blinds and feeders. My eventual goal is to just hunt / shoot on it for now, but I plan on clearing a few acres for a shop build and possible homesite later on. Here are my questions.

    1. How's deer / hog hunting in East Texas? I know the deer are a lot more skittish and tend to be nocturnal
    2. The land is currently hardwood / pine mixed and currently has a timber exemption. I want to clear some areas out, so how would I go about having some of the acreage harvested by a timber company?
    3. I know counties can restrict shooting on land less than 50acres. Since this is already setup for hunting does anyone know if Newton County has restrictions on me setting up a small range to sight in my weapons. I've tried looking online and can't get a straight answer.

    Is there anything else I need to know about purchasing land? I've bought and sold several homes but raw land is a bit different. Instead of purchasing a tractor I would like to buy a tracked skid steer do the majority of the land clearing myself for the underbrush and small trees.
    Military Camp
     

    1911'S 4 Me

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    I have 2 sisters that live in Burkeville ,actually about 15 miles from Burkeville near the dam. There are hunting camps and leases everywhere, so hunting must be good. I have seen coyotes eating dead deer on the side of the road, AND believe it or not a cupracobler.(sic) Ex nephew had a hunting lease just out of Burkeville going toward the lake. They shot deer and hogs.
     

    Vaquero

    Moving stuff to the gas prices thread.....
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    Dixie Land
    Lumber company comes and looks at your place and makes an offer. You accept and they go to work. There will be a logging road.

    Hogs will be there. I never saw a deer while I was in that area.

    You didn't ask, but I'm offering this.
    I've never been to an area more racist than Jasper. I worked restoring power after hurricane Rita. '05.
    And a lot of family trees don't fork.

    Good luck.
     

    gdr_11

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    Lumber company comes and looks at your place and makes an offer. You accept and they go to work. There will be a logging road.

    Hogs will be there. I never saw a deer while I was in that area.

    You didn't ask, but I'm offering this.
    I've never been to an area more racist than Jasper. I worked restoring power after hurricane Rita. '05.
    And a lot of family trees don't fork.

    Good luck.

    Almost spit my coffee all over the keyboard at that one
     

    andre3k

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    You didn't ask, but I'm offering this.
    I've never been to an area more racist than Jasper.

    Pretty everyone I talked to said the same thing. I used to have a lease in Newton back in the day right after the James Byrd incident and that whole area felt really segregated. I can't control what other people think or do so I'm not letting that deter me. Plus I can arm a small 3rd world country so I should be ok.



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    1911'S 4 Me

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    Getting away from Jasper to Burkeville ,Hemphill is all the difference in the world. Most of Burkeville's school is African American.
    Not absolutely positive but I think the sheriff just elected in Newton county is African America.
    The state rep is also black and republican doing good things.
     

    Axxe55

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    Lost in East Texas Elhart Texas
    Jasper Texas, is pretty damned racist, or at least it use to be. This happened in 1998 in Jasper. Made the national news.

    In June 1998, the murder of James Byrd Jr. catapulted Jasper into national news and led to the creation of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Three men—John William King, Lawrence Russell Brewer, and Shawn Berry—were tried and convicted of capital murder. King and Brewer received the death penalty, while Berry, who was the only suspect who cooperated during the investigation and implicated King and Brewer, was sentenced to life in prison. Brewer was executed on September 21, 2011. King was executed on April 24, 2019.

    Aside from that, East Texas is beautiful, full of deer and hogs. Great place if you keep away from the riff-raff and low-life scum.
     

    oldag

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    Jasper Texas, is pretty damned racist, or at least it use to be. This happened in 1998 in Jasper. Made the national news.

    In June 1998, the murder of James Byrd Jr. catapulted Jasper into national news and led to the creation of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Three men—John William King, Lawrence Russell Brewer, and Shawn Berry—were tried and convicted of capital murder. King and Brewer received the death penalty, while Berry, who was the only suspect who cooperated during the investigation and implicated King and Brewer, was sentenced to life in prison. Brewer was executed on September 21, 2011. King was executed on April 24, 2019.

    Aside from that, East Texas is beautiful, full of deer and hogs. Great place if you keep away from the riff-raff and low-life scum.
    In 1998. If my math is right, that was 23 years ago.
     

    skfullgun

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    In the woods...
    I did pretty much the same thing, landwise, a few years back. I'm closer to Lufkin - deep in the woods surrounded by timber company land.
    Deer and hog are plentiful. They are difficult to see in the dense foilage. Squirrels and rabbits abound. So do meth-heads. It isn't uncommon to see a grandiose ranch House on one side of the FM road and a broken down trailer house with several junk cars in the front yard on the other.
    I've walked trespassers off my property on two occasions. One was a surveyor who claimed to be lost. Another was a hunter looking for a deaf dog (so he said). In four years, those were my only incidences. My dog alerted me to both trespassers before I saw them. You will need a good dog.
    Hiring someone to clear small lots of timber for profit is going to be difficult, if not impossible. My attempts to do so have only resulted in offers to cut 1/2 the timber off of 30 plus acres for about $800 an acre profit. I've had neighbors who have gone that route, and it basically looks like a nuclear bomb went off on their property. It's not worth it to me.
    People here are standoffish, but very friendly once you get to know them.
    I'm from the Houston area originally, and I find racial relations to be much better here in the Lufkin area of East Texas. I treat people with respect and I'm treated respectfully wherever I go.
    Overall, I love my life in the woods. I can go weeks without seeing a soul if I don't go to town.
    For me, going to town has been the biggest adjustment. I keep a whiteboard on the refrigerator to make a list for my weekly trips to town. It's a 60 mile rountrip to Lowe's and major grocery stores and its really frustrating when you get home and realize you forgot an important item on your list.
    I've rambled enough and answered questions you didn't even ask. If there's anything else I can help you with let me know.
     

    skfullgun

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    In the woods...
    You mentioned "raw" land. I chose my property because it already had electrical service, water provided by a SUD (I'm the last on the line), and a septic system.
    In my search for my own property, I encountered many parcels that did not have electric service or water. At one property, I was going to have to pay to have about eight telephone poles set and service strung about 1/2 mile. The quote to get electrical service to the property was $80k.
    A well was going to be $5-6k. Septic was estimated at bout $4k.
    These are things you need to consider if you eventually plan to build.
     

    andre3k

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    You mentioned "raw" land. I chose my property because it already had electrical service, water provided by a SUD (I'm the last on the line), and a septic system.
    In my search for my own property, I encountered many parcels that did not have electric service or water. At one property, I was going to have to pay to have about eight telephone poles set and service strung about 1/2 mile. The quote to get electrical service to the property was $80k.
    A well was going to be $5-6k. Septic was estimated at bout $4k.
    These are things you need to consider if you eventually plan to build.
    The property I'm interested in isn't exactly raw land, which is why I made an offer on it. A few acres have been cleared out and shooting lanes are maintained for feeders and stands. Thankfully they have electric run to the campsite, so that will make it easy to park my travel trailer there. Still no water or septic at this point. But water is available at the road. The road in needs a lot of work, which is why I want to purchase the skid steer. I want to do the majority of the work myself which will be a significant investment in equipment.

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    toddnjoyce

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    Setting all else aside, let’s just talk about the shooting part. It start’s with the Local Government Code Chapter 229 which regulates what a municipality can regulate re: discharge of a weapon within the municipality or the ETJ.

    This is where the 10/50 acre restrictions stem from. If the plot isn’t subject to those jurisdictions and conditions in which they apply, then County Ordinances are the next place to check and Newton County isn’t very helpful there as far as online resources after a quick search. Then, any deed restrictions and/or CC&Rs are controlling. Let’s not forget if/when you’re hunting, TPWD does have regulations related to discharge of a firearm relative to residences.

    If the deed isn’t platted in a subdivision, then no other entity has the ability to regulate.
     

    Texasjack

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    1. Hogs are everywhere; they will eat anything.
    2. Meth-heads are everywhere; they will steal anything.
    3. A LOT of people hunt with dogs, so deer and hogs tend to move at night.
    4. A LOT of people seem to think that if their dogs lead them somewhere, it's ok to trespass and hunt there. We were on a large lease, and caught people from different leases that didn't even border on ours going through with dogs and 4-wheelers.
    5. Did I mention that the meth-heads will steal anything?
    6. Loggers destroy more than they do anything useful. We used to hunt a property owned by a bank, and they had loggers on one part of the property. The loggers showed up one day and forgot the key to their lock. So did they cut a link or cut the lock? No. They rammed their truck into the gate until they destroyed it. We caught them carrying off a blind. The dropped a tree on an outhouse, just for grins. One threatened me with a chainsaw - until he noticed I was wearing a 45. Then it was all "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" - just like criminals do on those reality cop shows. My guess is that he had responded to LEOs enough to be a pro. The owner of the logging company accused us of stealing their tires. What tires were missing? None. He just wanted us to be scared of him and stay out of his way.
    7. Be sure to visit your prospective property after a very big rain. A lot of places are available because nobody can live there when it floods.
    8. I saw a write-up on Jasper. That incident was a long time ago, the people involved were punished (I think one got the death penalty.) Back in the 80's I used to go to a compressor station the company owned in Jasper, and everybody I ran into was pretty nice. I've been in the area from time to time over the years and never observed anything that would make me feel like there was a problem. Except of course for loggers and meth-heads, which I think I covered sufficiently.
    9. Before I forget, a lot of "hunters" in East Texas hunt according to their freezers. That is to say if the freezer gets empty, they go hunting. The state calls that poaching, and they try to enforce the law, but if they put all the poachers in East Texas in jail, the area would be 90% unpopulated, except for meth-heads.
     

    cygunner

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    1. Hogs are everywhere; they will eat anything.
    2. Meth-heads are everywhere; they will steal anything.
    3. A LOT of people hunt with dogs, so deer and hogs tend to move at night.
    4. A LOT of people seem to think that if their dogs lead them somewhere, it's ok to trespass and hunt there. We were on a large lease, and caught people from different leases that didn't even border on ours going through with dogs and 4-wheelers.
    5. Did I mention that the meth-heads will steal anything?
    6. Loggers destroy more than they do anything useful. We used to hunt a property owned by a bank, and they had loggers on one part of the property. The loggers showed up one day and forgot the key to their lock. So did they cut a link or cut the lock? No. They rammed their truck into the gate until they destroyed it. We caught them carrying off a blind. The dropped a tree on an outhouse, just for grins. One threatened me with a chainsaw - until he noticed I was wearing a 45. Then it was all "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" - just like criminals do on those reality cop shows. My guess is that he had responded to LEOs enough to be a pro. The owner of the logging company accused us of stealing their tires. What tires were missing? None. He just wanted us to be scared of him and stay out of his way.
    7. Be sure to visit your prospective property after a very big rain. A lot of places are available because nobody can live there when it floods.
    8. I saw a write-up on Jasper. That incident was a long time ago, the people involved were punished (I think one got the death penalty.) Back in the 80's I used to go to a compressor station the company owned in Jasper, and everybody I ran into was pretty nice. I've been in the area from time to time over the years and never observed anything that would make me feel like there was a problem. Except of course for loggers and meth-heads, which I think I covered sufficiently.
    9. Before I forget, a lot of "hunters" in East Texas hunt according to their freezers. That is to say if the freezer gets empty, they go hunting. The state calls that poaching, and they try to enforce the law, but if they put all the poachers in East Texas in jail, the area would be 90% unpopulated, except for meth-heads.
    True this. We lived in Hardin County for a few years. Most lawless place I ever saw especially when it came to deer hunting. Weren't too many hogs at that time. Then they all went around with a rifle in a rack in their pickup. Guess the heads probably put an end to that practice.
    Be sure to eat at the Pickett House in Woodville.
     

    baboon

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    Out here by the lake!
    My retirement dream was a place to shoot and hunt. Life has a way of crapping all over dreams!

    I planned on working until I was 63-65. At 59 1/2 I up and quit, because my body had enough. It took 2 years to get disability, even longer for Medicare. I just got my Medicare, and need to figure out new doctors since moving.

    Instead of getting acreage that I couldn’t handle I settled on getting the wife closer to her parents. There won’t be any shooting & hunting here. I do have Lake Limestone across the street. Somehow I figured fishing is more of what my old fat gimpy ass is more suited for.

    The last two times out with guns I just wasn’t that interested. The first trip I brought out my G3K and did like 2 mag dumps. Second trip was more about letting a buddy shoot a couple of pistols.
     
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