Lot 67

Brush is the point here. Mesquite and huisache stand close together across most of these 17.98 acres, tall enough in stretches to close over your head, and that heavy cover is the reason tract 67 at Soledad Creek Ranch is worth a look for anybody shopping ranch land for sale in Duval County. It's cover, first and last. Deer bed in it, quail hold in it, and a camp set back in it disappears from the road in about 40 yards.

A dirt ranch road already runs the south end, roughly 660 ft of it, tracking east to west along that edge. That's your working line. Brush has been leaning back in on it, so bring loppers or a blade the first weekend and you'll have a clean run from one side of the tract to the other. From there you can open lanes north into the thick where you actually want them and leave the heavier mesquite standing everywhere else, which is how this country stays good hunting instead of turning into a mowed lot. How access to the tract reads on paper is a deed and plat matter, and we'll go through the recorded documents with you before you sign anything.

The ground rolls, though you have to walk it to feel it. Call it 16 ft of fall from the high side to the low, long and easy the whole way. That gentle grade matters more than the number sounds: the high ground is where you'd set a camp and a water tank, and after a South Texas rain you'll see which way the ground wants to shed. In the openings the grass comes up waist high and goes gold by late summer, standing bright against the green of the mesquite.

• About 660 ft of existing dirt ranch road across the south end, east to west
• Heavy mesquite and huisache cover through the body of the tract
• Gentle roll, roughly 16 ft of fall
• Light restrictions, commercial operations kept out

This is Duval County brush country, out in the stretch of South Texas that hunters have talked about for generations for whitetail, quail, and dove. Freer is the town up the road, an oil town tough enough in the boom years that LIFE magazine came down to write about it. The country hasn't changed its character much since. Big sky, low horizon, brush running out as far as you can see in every direction, and heat that teaches you to do your work early.

Soledad Creek Ranch is 1,744 acres broken into surveyed tracts, and at just under 18 acres this one is sized for a camp and elbow room rather than a cattle operation. Restrictions stay light and commercial outfits stay out, so what your neighbors do won't undo what you build. Owner financing is available with as little as 5% down, handled in house, straightforward paperwork. Ask us how the ranch is valued for taxes and we'll tell you exactly where it stands.

Come walk it in late fall or winter, when the heat lets up and the brush is easier on you. Wear snake boots and long sleeves either way. We'll start at the dirt road on the south end, work north into the cover, and you can decide for yourself where the camp goes and which lanes you'd cut first.