There just aren’t many secrets anymore when it comes to duck and dove hunting sweet spots on public hunting lands. One careless social media post or slip of the tongue amongst big ears these days is all it takes to call in the troops and ruin a great hunting spot that may have taken years to pin down.
My ol’ friend Shannon Tompkins of Porter knows a thing or two about wing shooting on public lands. Tompkins, 71, grew up in Baytown and spent four decades as a newspaper outdoors writer before retiring from the Houston Chronicle in 2019.
Tompkins has traversed lots of country over the years and enjoyed some banner shoots along the way, many of them on public lands and waters. Though finding unmolested hotspots doesn’t seem as easy today as it once was, he says there are still some gems out there waiting to be discovered by ambitious hunters willing to put forth the effort it takes to find them.
