How you can hunt.

What's allowed

• +Guns: almost any legal firearm for game animals and non-migratory birds — but no rimfire ammo (like .22 LR) for deer, mule deer, pronghorn, or bighorn. No fully automatic firearms.
• +Suppressors ('silencers'): legal for hunting if you legally own one under federal and state law.
• +Magazine size: no limit for game animals — except migratory birds, where your shotgun can hold no more than 3 shells (use a plug).
• +Archery: longbows, recurves, compound bows, and crossbows are all legal. No minimum draw weight. Broadhead points are required for turkey and big game.
• +Air guns and arrow guns: allowed for many animals, including deer and turkey, but big game needs pre-charged pneumatic types meeting a minimum power. Smaller air guns are fine for squirrel, quail, pheasant, and chachalaca.
• +Baiting: legal for deer, most animals, and upland birds on private land. Not for East Zone turkey or migratory birds, and usually not on public land.
• +Calls and decoys: allowed — but no electronic calls and no live decoys for migratory birds.
• +Dogs: allowed to help hunt birds.
• +Night hunting: allowed for feral hogs, nongame animals, and furbearers on private land (with a light).

What's not allowed

• xNo spotlighting game (shining a light to find and shoot deer or other game). Narrow exceptions exist for hunters with documented disabilities. Scope-mounted dot sights are fine.
• xNo shooting from or across a public road.
• xNo hunting deer with dogs. You may use no more than two dogs to trail a wounded deer.
• xNo firing a bullet across a property line you don't own without written permission.
• xNo drones or aircraft to find, herd, or scout animals (including wounded ones).
• xNo computer-assisted 'remote' hunting.
• xCrossbow exception: in Collin, Dallas, Grayson, and Rockwall counties you may not use a crossbow during the archery-only deer season unless you have an upper-limb disability (with a doctor's note).
• xEast Texas dog rule: in Angelina, Hardin, Jasper, Nacogdoches, Newton, Orange, Sabine, San Augustine, Shelby, and Tyler counties, you can't carry a shotgun with buckshot or slugs in the field with dogs on someone else's land during deer season.