Permits are necessary for visiting, Check the information below for where to purchase the permits. Note on the map when the "Entire Area Closed" dates are listed. Though County Road 473 is always open unless there is flooding on Catfish Creek. The gate on the north end of Gus Engeling Wildlife Management Area on FM2961 is always closed.

Gus Engeling Wildlife Management Area is a large acreage and probably could be broken down to multiple eBird Hotspots. You could easily spend all day here.

When the area is open, the South Unit's Catfish Creek area in the southeast corner is especially good for older hardwood specialties. You can reach it from the south entrance, it's the first fork to the east off of the main central road.

Further north up the main road it the Beaver Pond, with a parking area and a trail around the south end. This pond is great for both species of gallinules, rails, waders, anhingas and Prothonotary Warblers.

Birding along County Road 473 can be good, especially at the Catfish Creek crossing on the east side. There is a primitive camping area along the creek on just northwest. County Road 473 west is mostly mid-sized hardwoods that continues past the WMA to the Anderson Co.--CR473 (W. of CR475) Hotspot.

The North unit is generally higher ground on the north west corner. You can walk in roads to the west. There are two pond on the last road to the west you can drive into. The road to the east is sometimes passable depending on the rains. But again it will take you towards Catfish Creek where theres a small wooded bridge. Much of the habitat in the North Unit is Post Oak Savannah, where oaks are widely-spaced and the ground is blanketed in tall grass. These oaks are great for Indigo Bunting, Yellow-throated Warbler, Great Crested Flycatcher, and Orchard Oriole in the spring and summer. Historically, this was one of the best locations for Bachman's Sparrow in the Post Oak Savannah Ecoregion, but the species may be extirpated from the site due to low population numbers and no immigration into the site.

On the north west edge of the WMA is a large treed area reachable from County Road 471. It's another spot good for wooded passerines and woodpeckers.

Birds of Gus Engeling Wildlife Management Area PDF

Common and Purple Galinule, Anhingas and night-herons. Any of the woods are great for east Texas woodpeckers like Pileated, Hairy and Red-headed. Nesting passerines including Acadian and Great Crested Flycatcher, Kentucky, Yellow-throated, Prothonotary and Swainson's Warblers, Northern Parula. 

This 10,958-acre area was purchased from 1950 to 1960 under the Pittman-Robertson Act using Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Program funds. The Gus Engeling Wildlife Management Area's primary purpose is to function as a wildlife research and demonstration area for the Post Oak Savannah Ecoregion. The area is comprised of 2,000 acres of hardwood bottomland floodplain and almost 500 acres of natural watercourses, 350 acres of wetlands: marshes and swamps and nearly 300 acres of sphagnum moss bogs.

The Gus Engeling Wildlife Management Area (GEWMA) is an island of Post Oak Savannah surrounded by coastal bermuda grass pastures, harvested timberlands, and fragmented wildlife habitat. It's rolling sandy hills dominated by post oak uplands, bottomland hardwood forests, natural springs, pitcher plant bogs, sloughs, marshes, and relict pine communities contain a rich variety of wildlife. Sound wildlife management tools like prescribed burning, grazing, brush control and hunting are used to demonstrate the results of proven practices to resource managers, landowners, and other interested groups or individuals.

Historically, the upland sites of the Post Oak Savannah were open and dominated by waist-high grasses and large scattered trees. In addition, early observers reported large oak "motts" or islands of hardwood forests scattered throughout the grassland prairie. Massive, mature oaks dominated the deep, rich, moist soils of bottomlands. Both uplands and bottomlands supported an abundance of wildlife in early reports.

The Texas Game, Fish and Oyster Commission purchased most of the land comprising the GEWMA between 1950 and 1960. Federal-Aid in Wildlife Restoration Funds purchased the area to act as a wildlife research and demonstration site for the Post Oak Savannah Ecoregion where trained personnel could study wildlife and wildlife management practices.

The area was originally named the Derden Wildlife Management Area after Milze L. Derden, from whom much of this land was purchased. The area was renamed in 1952 after Gus A. Engeling, the first biologist assigned to the area, was shot and killed by a poacher on December 13, 1951.

The GEWMA has not been impacted by man's presence as much as most of the Post Oak Savannah. Although livestock grazed the area for many years, it was not extensively cleared. Mature bottomland forests still dominate Catfish Creek. Native tallgrasses such as little bluestem and indiangrass can still be found in the areas pastures and open woodlands.

Many Texas Wildlife Management Areas are open for activities such as biking, primitive camping, birding, fishing, hiking, equestrian activities, driving tours, and wildlife viewing.

Many times you need minimally a Texas Limited Public Use Permit (LPU - #175). You can purchase a Limited Public Use Permit or Annual Public Hunting Permit at any location that sells hunting licenses or at the Texas License Connection. If purchased online a representation of receipt is acceptable until official printer version has been mailed to you. In some cases it's not obvious when you need a permit for a Texas Wildlife Management Area so it might be better to be safe, because Texas game wardens do check for such permits.