Lot 71

Some ground announces itself. This doesn't. Lot 71 at 44 Ranch North is 33.36 acres in Duval County that will never be mistaken for a park, and it isn't trying to be one. As ranch land for sale goes, this is the honest kind: low thorny cover, sandy openings, a gentle roll to the ground, and a whole lot of habitat that grows back faster than you can cut it. What it asks of an owner is a pair of leather gloves, a decent truck, and patience. What it gives back is hunting ground that doesn't need a manager.

Out toward the west end there's a clearing in the heaviest of the cover, bare and sandy underfoot, with a wide spreading tree throwing shade across most of it. A blind stands in that clearing. Reach out to us and we'll tell you straight what stays with the place and what doesn't, because that belongs in the paperwork and not in a sales pitch. Either way, somebody before you already picked the best spot on this tract, and you can stand in it the first day you come out.

The fall across the whole 33.36 acres runs about 24 ft, so nothing here is steep. You feel it more in your legs than your eyes. Down in the lower west corner the ground bottoms out in a bare clay pan that dries and cracks in a pattern like broken pottery by late summer, and that tells you where the runoff collects after a rain. Don't count on it as water. Do count on the deer having that spot figured out long before you do.

Cover changes across the place in a way that matters for hunting. Along the eastern half the growth stays low and gray-green and open at the base, the kind you can see across at a hundred yards on a still morning. Toward the middle and the west it thickens up dark and tall, closes overhead, and holds shade all day. That edge where the tall stuff meets the low stuff is where birds cross in the evening and where a heavy-horned buck will stand just inside the shadow and look at you for a good while before he decides to leave. Wingshooting here is the real article, and it always has been in this part of South Texas.

A caliche ranch road runs along the upper edge of the tract and a couple of older two-tracks cut in from it, faint but still passable, which is how you'd bring in a trailer or a skid steer. Access is set out in the deed and plat, and we'll go over exactly what those say with you before you sign anything. Clearing a pad for a camp or a small cabin wouldn't take long on ground this open at the roots. Check with us on the ranch rules first. They're short, and they bar business-type uses, so the place stays the kind of ground you bought it for.

The tract is surveyed, and the recorded survey governs the lines. Owner financing is available with as little as 5% down, which is how most folks step onto a place like this without selling something else first. Come out in the cool part of a fall morning, bring long sleeves and thick pants because the thorns don't negotiate, and we'll drive the two-track to that clearing, stand under the shade tree, and pace off where a camp would sit.