A round trip to Sam Houston National Forest is going to cost a few hundred bucks in fuel at today’s price. The birds you are looking at traveling to hunt are Eastern turkeys as where the birds in South Texas are Rio’s. There are a lot more Turkey in South Texas then East Texas so if killing a bird is a priority I suggest dishing out a few hundred bucks and hunt locally. Good luck and welcome to Texas.

i agree with the previous response and would add that you would be a lot more successful hunting anywhere besides Sam Houston NF.  I have been there a lot and there are very few birds.   How's the quail hunting in Arizona? I hear it's phenominal.

AZ quail can be pretty phenomenal. Depends largely on water though. If the spring rains hit at the right time the quail have a great hatch and the hunting season reflects that. If it hits wrong a lot of the chicks either dont make it due to drought or they drown. On a bad year its still pretty good though. On a good year it can be epic. And with three species to hunt you can mix it up and keep it intersting all season.

I agree with both of these guys stay down South....You also can find hunting land around a lot of the big lakes that the Corp of Engineers run. Good luck

I agree with the previous responders. When I was living in San Antonio before I had a hell of a time finding public land for spring turkeys. One season I drove to Sam Houston and Angelina NFs, and spent 3 day hunting. I heard one gobble. I even asked the guys fishing down by the river in SH if they had heard any gobbles, they just laughed at me. It would be an incredibly long drive for you, but my go to spot now is Aquilla and Lake Whiteny near Hillsboro (just north of Waco). Although compared to Padre to Sam Houston, not that bad. Ok, I've never killed a turkey in there, but I've heard them and seen them, so I blame it on my poor calling abilities. That land is managed by the COE and you have to get their (free) permit to hunt there, which means you have to go into the office at Lake Whitney dam during business hours the first time, after that yo can renew on the internet. All that being said, I agree with the others that in today's gas prices, it is probably cheaper to pay that $450 or save drive time and know their are turkeys on the property guaranteed. Just my $0.02