Every September 1st, Montague County’s population expands. The dove season opener draws hunters from the DFW metroplex and the surrounding region to MoCo fields, stock tanks, and sunflower patches — the same pull that extends through deer season in November, hog operations year-round, and spring turkey calling in March and April. The hunting lease economy is one of the county’s reliable modern income streams, connecting a large private rural land base to a regional market of outdoor recreationists who will drive two hours from Fort Worth to find what urban Texas no longer has: room to hunt.
White-Tailed Deer — The Primary Lease Driver
White-tailed deer are the foundation of MoCo’s hunting economy. The Cross Timbers is excellent whitetail habitat — broken cover, mast crops (acorns, pecans), browse, and creek water all within a compressed landscape that holds deer year-round. Population densities in well-managed Cross Timbers habitat typically run 30 to 60 deer per square mile.
The north Texas whitetail rut peaks in mid-November. Bow season typically opens in late September or early October; general rifle season runs from early November through early January under the standard north-zone TPWD structure. The bow-to-rifle transition concentrates hunting traffic on MoCo leases through three solid months of the year.
Lease pricing varies considerably with property quality, access, and management level:
- Day hunts: $200–$500
- Weekend packages: $500–$1,500
- Full-season leases: $2,000–$10,000+ per gun
- Premium managed ranches: Higher
Many MoCo leases include managed-deer programs — feeders, food plots, water development, and stand infrastructure — with trophy-management protocols that specify antler minimums and encourage culling of older, smaller bucks. The shift from meat-hunting to managed-trophy hunting has been pronounced over the last 30 years, and MoCo has tracked that trend alongside the broader Texas market.
Families with multi-generational lease arrangements are common. Some MoCo ranches have been leased to the same hunting group for 20 or 30 years — an arrangement that creates stability for both landowner and lessee and a distinct form of place attachment that connects urban Texans to specific MoCo ground.
Dove Hunting — The September Opener
The September 1 dove opener is the most socially significant event in the Texas hunting calendar, and MoCo participates fully. Mourning dove and white-winged dove (whose range has expanded dramatically northward over the past 30 years) are both present in MoCo; the county’s stock tanks, sunflower fields, and grain-stubble corridors provide the food and water concentration that makes for productive dove fields.
Dove lease pricing for the opening weekend runs roughly $150 to $500. The economics are different from deer — shorter season, lower per-gun revenue, higher turnover — but dove hunting’s cultural value is outsized relative to its direct lease income. The September opener is a gathering: family and friends, cookouts and camp, a ritual that marks the end of summer in rural Texas. Landowners who host dove hunts often maintain those relationships across multiple seasons.
Feral Hog Hunting — Year-Round, No Bag Limit
Feral hogs are a year-round hunting opportunity and a year-round management obligation. Texas allows no-closed-season, no-bag-limit hog hunting; a hunting license is required for non-landowners. The hog’s destruction of pastures, hay fields, pecan groves, and fencing makes landowners receptive to hunters who will help reduce local populations.
The economics of hog hunting are distinct from deer. Many hog-hunting opportunities in MoCo are free or low-cost — landowners want the animals removed more than they want lease income from them. Thermal night-vision guided hunts are an increasingly commercial product in north Texas; outfitters offer packages ranging from dusk-to-midnight shooting sessions to multi-day operations with lodging.
Helicopter operations are available for larger landholdings with adequate open country. The cost — typically $250 to $500 per hour for a equipped helicopter and crew — puts this option out of reach for most properties, but it remains the most effective tool for rapid large-area impact. For a detailed account of feral hog biology, damage, and control methods, see Feral Hogs in Montague County.
Turkey and Quail
Spring turkey season runs roughly late March through late April in Texas; only toms (male birds) may be taken. Turkey calling — using box calls, slate calls, and locator calls to position a tom in range — is a skills-intensive hunt that draws a dedicated following. MoCo’s Rio Grande turkey population gives the county a legitimate spring hunting offer, though fewer leases market turkey specifically than deer or dove.
Bobwhite quail hunting in MoCo has contracted significantly from its mid-20th-century peak. The long-term decline of northern bobwhite populations across the Southern Plains — driven by habitat fragmentation, predator pressure, and succession from old-field to dense brush — has reduced the commercial viability of MoCo quail hunting. Some managed properties with intentional quail habitat work still offer hunts; these are higher-end operations where the quail are actively managed rather than relying on ambient population. The bobwhite remains culturally present as a touchstone of what MoCo hunting once looked like at scale.
Fishing — Lakes, Creeks, and Stock Tanks
Montague County’s fishing economy runs quieter than its hunting economy but reaches more households. Nearly every rural property has at least one stock tank holding largemouth bass, channel catfish, and bluegill — the informal childhood fishing ground that requires no lease and no license if you’re the landowner. That baseline of access shapes fishing culture in the county as something ordinary and continuous rather than seasonal and transactional.
Lake Amon G. Carter and Lake Nocona
The two constructed reservoirs are the county’s primary public fishing destinations. Lake Amon G. Carter (1,540 acres, 1956, serving Bowie) and Lake Nocona / Farmers Creek Reservoir (1,362 acres, 1960, serving Nocona) both support largemouth bass, channel catfish, white crappie, and sunfish. TPWD manages these lakes for both water supply and recreation; public boat ramps are available at both.
The white bass run is Lake Nocona’s signature seasonal event: in March and April, white bass migrate up Farmers Creek from the lake for spawning. When conditions align — rising water, warming temperatures — fish stack in the tributary in numbers that attract regional anglers. It is brief, unpredictable, and when it happens, productive.
Bass tournaments are a regular presence on both lakes, bringing outside-county competitors and modest economic traffic to local motels, bait shops, and restaurants.
Red River Access
Red River access is more limited. The river runs along MoCo’s northern boundary; most bank access is through private land, with a handful of county-road crossing points. The Red River’s character — sand-bed, variable salinity from upstream Permian deposits, highly variable seasonal flow — makes it a different fishery than the reservoirs. Channel catfish and flathead catfish are the primary species; the channel-cat tradition of setting trotlines overnight on large rivers is alive in MoCo as in most rural north Texas counties.
The Fishing License
TPWD requires a Texas fishing license for anyone 17 or older fishing outside their own private water. Regulations for Lake Amon G. Carter and Lake Nocona — including any lake-specific size limits or special management rules — are published annually in the TPWD Outdoor Annual.
The Economic Picture
Hunting leases generate substantial collective revenue for MoCo landowners, though aggregate county-level figures require Phase 2 research to document specifically. The economic effect extends well beyond lease payments: hunters staying the weekend fill motel rooms, buy fuel, eat at local BBQ spots, and purchase supplies from local stores. Opening weekends of dove and deer season are measurable economic events for towns like Bowie and Nocona.
The hunting lease market also supports real estate values. A ranch with documented deer management and established lease history commands a price premium over bare agricultural land in the north Texas rural market. The county’s large private land base — several hundred thousand acres of Cross Timbers ranch ground — is a durable asset in a regional outdoor recreation economy that continues to grow as the DFW metroplex expands and hunting access within reach of the city becomes scarcer.
Related pages: Native Mammals of Montague County · Feral Hogs in Montague County · Native Fish of Montague County · Lake Nocona · Lake Amon G. Carter
Sources: current/hunting-and-fishing-leases.md (C-HIGH); TPWD hunting and fishing regulations; nature/native-mammals.md; nature/native-fish.md; nature/feral-hogs.md. Specific aggregate economic figures, outfitter inventory, and lease pricing trends are Phase 2B verification priorities.