Lot 238

The road in is new. You can read it the second the blade work starts, pale caliche cut clean through grass that leans hard when the wind moves, thornscrub standing green and shaggy on both sides of you as the ground lifts ahead. Tract 238 fronts that fresh ranch road, and frontage is the first thing worth knowing about these 22.23 acres of ranch land for sale at Tortuga Ranch in Duval County. It settles the practical questions early: where a gate sits, where a camp trailer rolls in without a fight, how you get a water truck or a tractor to the high end in one pass.

The ground works here. From the low end to the top you pick up about 73 ft, roughly 623 to 696 ft, and on a tract shaped long and narrow the way this one is, that grade earns its keep by giving you a built-in high end, slope to shed weather away from a pad, and a longer look into the brush than flat ground will ever hand you. The upper end is where I'd set a camp. Walk it end to end in July and you'll feel the climb in your legs on the turn back.

Cover is the other asset, and it's honest cover. Thorn brush stands shoulder high and taller in runs, dense in the draws and broken by openings where native grass holds gold through the heat. A few old trees sit above the scrub with crooked gray limbs spread wide as a room, and the shade under them is the coolest ground out here at noon. Somebody stacked cleared limbs into a pile years back and the rabbits and the birds took it over, which is exactly what you want left standing if you hunt. This ranch has a name among bird hunters for dove, and brush like this is the reason.

There's old iron in the grass too, a capped wellhead with a faded operator sign gone soft and rusty in the sun, the sort of relic this ground has carried since the oil crews worked it. Ask us and we'll get you the documents to read for yourself before you sign anything.

The ownership side is plain. Your boundary is surveyed, your access over the ranch roads is deeded and written into the paperwork instead of promised at a tailgate, and the restrictions are light, which means a camp house, a barn, or a bare pad and a cattle guard are all within reason. The tract carries an agricultural valuation, and that keeps the yearly tax bill small; call us and we'll walk you through the appraisal district detail so you can confirm it and understand what holds it in force. Owner financing is simple, with as little as 5% to get started and terms we'll carry ourselves.

Best time to look it over is a cool winter morning when the grass is cured and you can see into the brush. Wear boots and sleeves that'll take thorns. We'll meet you at the new road, walk the length of this one from the low end up to the top, and stand where the frontage would let a gate swing.