If looking for a variety of duck hunting options you definitely don’t have to leave the Lone Star State.
Story and Photography by Robert Sloan

Texas is among the greatest and most versatile duck hunting states in the nation. The reason why is simple – we’ve got blue chip waterfowling waters scattered from one corner of state to the other, and many are open to the public free of charge, or for the cost of a $48 annual hunting permit.

For example we can hunt gadwall, teal, pintails and mallards in the marsh units of the J.D. Murphree Wildlife Management Area on the Texas/Louisiana border. From there you can head south to East Matagorda Bay, Rockport and the Laguna Madre and shoot redheads, pintails, scaup and widgeon till you get dizzy. From the coast you can head inland to one of our many lakes and rivers that attract a variety of ducks like mallards, wood ducks, pintails, gadwall, canvasbacks, teal and widgeon. We can actually hunt all the way up to the panhandle regions of Texas and shoot big time numbers of mallards and pintails over grain fields and small lakes. Simply put, if you’re looking for a variety of duck hunting options you definitely don’t have to leave the Lone Star state.

I spent my first 20 years hunting on freshwater lakes. One of the best was down around Angleton that covered about 500 acres. But the mega-sized lakes also kept us busy shooting ducks throughout the season. Some of those include Lake Conroe, Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend, Richland-Chambers, Choke Canyon and even Lake Texoma on the Texas/Oklahoma border.
There are a number of rivers in Texas that are duck hunting hotspots. Some of those include the Colorado, Guadalupe, Devils, Sabine and Neches.

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