Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Seven miles north of Paducah… in the Texas Panhandle… the Matador Wildlife Management Area offers about 28-thousand acres of rolling grasslands.

Former assistant area manager, Bill Adams, said it’s open to the public.

It’s open throughout the year for hiking, bird watching, nature tours, horseback riding… We have 76-miles of road on the area, and it will take you through a diversity of landscapes.

The site is off limits to the casual visitor only a few times a year.

We have a few hunts during the year that it’s closed. And those are our gun hunts for feral hogs, and deer and also for our spring turkey hunts.

Adams says turkey hunting is strictly regulated on the Matador.

We’ve got three good roosting sites for those turkeys, but they’re range is limited to those roost sites. We have to regulate the number of hunters we allow to take those Toms. We also have to consider natural mortality of the turkey population in the area. We want to be careful with what we harvest. Regulating that harvest is a way we can provide for public hunting but also provide for betterment of the turkey population on the Matador.

That’s our show… made possible in part by the Wildlife Restoration Program… helping to fund the operations and management of more than 50 wildlife management areas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.