A Reddit user said he was in Texas trying to do something that used to be pretty normal for hunters without private access: drive around, knock on doors, and ask landowners for permission to hunt. He wrote that he had done the same thing when he first moved there about five years earlier and had gotten plenty of noes back then, but most people had at least been polite about it. This time was different.
According to the post, he spent a weekend visiting five ranches he had not asked before. He said he wore a nice shirt, cleaned up his truck, and was ready to offer help around the property or limit himself to certain species or cull bucks for the first couple of years if that made landowners more comfortable. He was trying to make a decent first impression and not come off like some random guy looking for a free place to shoot.
He said the first ranch went bad immediately. Before he could even really start the conversation, the door got slammed in his face without a word. At the second place, he wrote that he had not even gotten fully out of his truck before a man came out holding a shotgun and yelled, “you better leave right now.” That was the first gun.
The next two ranches, he said, actually went fine. Both landowners told him no because they already had hunters leasing the land, but the conversations stayed civil. Then came the last one. The poster wrote that the landowner heard him out, then lifted his shirt to show the pistol in his belt and told him that if he ever saw him or his truck again, “you’ll be sorry.” That was the second gun.
By the end of the day, the hunter said he was done. He wrote that he loved hunting, but not enough to keep risking his safety just trying to ask for permission. He also said he did not understand what had changed over the last few years, because in his earlier experience most people had at least said no without turning the whole thing hostile. His wife apparently had a theory about that. He said she thought the recent development where they lived may have made landowners assume he was some kind of developer or land buyer because of how he was dressed and the nicer truck he was driving.
He ended the post saying he would probably stick to miserable public-hunt draws instead of going door to door anymore. The comments filled up with people telling him that showing up in person to ask for permission was not worth the risk now, especially in Texas. A lot of replies said the better move was to mail letters, use OnX or county records to find names and addresses, and avoid putting yourself face to face with angry landowners who might already be fed up with trespassers, poachers, or strangers coming to the door.
The story he told was pretty simple and ugly. He set out trying to ask five ranch owners for permission to hunt. One slammed the door. One met him with a shotgun before he even got out of the truck. Two said no politely. The last one showed him a pistol and warned him not to come back. By the time he got home, he had decided asking in person was no longer worth it.
What do you think — if two different landowners flashed guns at you in one day just for asking permission to hunt, would you ever go door to door again?
Original Reddit post: Had a gun flashed to me twice today, done asking for permission
