Leasing isn't all bad. It just depends on what you lease. The only downside is it isn't free. Some groups put a lot of hunters on smaller acreages to reduce the individual cost. That gets to be an experience closer to hunting an OTC unit in western states - lots of people, lesser trophy quality, etc. But if budget allows, you can lease large ranches with fewer hunters, allowing an experience more like a limited entry draw on public land - . And you don't have to spend money for years, waiting to accumulate preference points. The license (with tags included) is cheap, and you can buy another one OTC every year.
You don't have to use blinds or feeders if you don't want to. It's an option, but it's not a necessity. Rattling and spot and stalk hunting with a rifle is a LOT of fun. It's what I do most of the time. You can set up bow stands on trails, pinch points, near a food plot or water hole, etc. and never mess with a feeder, if you have an objection to feeders. But using feeders really isn't any different than hunting around food plots, ag fields, apple trees, oak trees, water holes, etc... It's as much about supplementing nutrition as it is about attracting deer to a certain spot.
Hunting larger private ranches, to me, is the best of both worlds. Large acreage gives you room to roam. And private land means no sea of orange to compete against. While high fences are not uncommon, the vast majority of land in Texas is low fence.
You have lots of different ecosystems in Texas. There is whitetail hunting in most of them. Mule deer and aoudad can be found in the Panhandle and in the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas. Pronghorn can be found in those same regions, along with free range elk in the Davis Mountains. Even desert bighorn, if you can afford a landowner tag or draw one of the 2 tags available every year (as I was blessed to do a few years ago). Hogs are everywhere. Turkey are everywhere. Pheasant in the Panhandle. Quail are in lots of areas across the state. Ducks, geese, cranes in many areas of the state. And then there are the exotics other than aoudad. They started decades ago on high fenced ranches in the Hill Country, and those are common all over the state now. But every year there are fires and/or floods that take out some fences here and there. There are more and more free-ranging exotics every year. In some parts of the state, they are as numerous as the native whitetail. Nilgai in deep South Texas....axis all over the Hill Country along with blackbuck, fallow, elk....you name it.
You can hunt them on public land as well as private (either package hunts or annual lease). It's like hunting Africa in many ways. It's definitely different than National Forests in the west, but Texas is an AWESOME place to hunt. Most of it isn't free. Neither is hunting national forest in the west though. You spend more on applications, tags, and gear to hunt there, while access to hunting ground is free. In Texas, you spend more on access, but tags are cheap - and not ever required for exotics. The cost isn't really that much different either way, you're just paying for different things in different states. I typically give away a few deer every year to friends that like the meat but don't hunt, and my freezer is always packed full of venison that I had an absolute ball hunting with my son, dad, and other friends. Hunting is AWESOME no matter where you get to do it. I'll be hunting axis this summer in the Hill Country, and then chasing elk in September in Colorado, and then back home to hunt whitetail (and more axis) in Texas in the fall. I'm pretty sure it's all gonna be fun.
