Two suggestions.
1) make friends with the local tree surgeon. The guy I used to clear some trees and limb what was left in my yard told me he ends up grinding down 80% of the hardwood they cut for clients. They do sell some split and dried firewood, but he also likes to give some of the cut trunks away (about 10-12' in length. Reason is if he has a job close by, he can drop a truck load off and be back on the job site to reload in 15 minutes as opposed to having to drive 45 minutes each way back to his tree yard in a neighboring town. As infrequently as I need wood, that has worked out for me. I just cut it to length with my chainsaw and rent a splitter for a 1/2 day from Lowes and I'm good for an entire season of smoking and heat from the fireplace. I can also ask for certain species of wood that are common in our area such as hickory, white oak, and pecan.
2) make friends with your local apple orchard owner and pecan farm owner (regional of course). They have limbs and trees that either blow down, are trimmed, or culled every season and often beg people to come haul what is trash to them away. Not going to get cords and cords of wood this way, but it is probably going to be free as you are doing them a favor. I have about a 1/2 cord of pecan that came from my bosses house when a tree split in a storm last year. Again free, and he gets a kick out of when I bring in items that are smoked on sticks from that harvest.
For the average smoker, these will work. For a volume or competition smoker, it may not produce enough wood for a season, but you could augment it with purchased wood as a back up.
Oh and as to hickory, I had 3 trees that lightning hit a few years back in my parents yard. The largest of them was nearly 4' in diameter at the base. The tree surgeon who dropped them was more than happy to cut them to length (due to the diameter) and move them to a pile at the front of their house with his bobcat. He did not even have to dispatch a log truck on that job as I took 6 trailer loads of huge hickory rounds home to split and stack to dry. I just rolled those big rounds up on the trailer and strapped them down with a cargo net. Split it with a rental splitter at the place where I stacked it. Used that wood in the fireplace for 5 years and still have a little left (and a bin of fist sized chunks I cut for use in the
WSM that have been dried in the basement for years). That was one of the biggest hickory trees I've ever seen. The smallest of the 3 was a good 2' in diameter.