Laguna Atascosa Rifle Hunt 2016/17

[onthetake]

There aren't many public land hunters to start with. To make it worse so few of us voice our opinion it makes us easy to ignore. The refuge views the hunters as an burden. They will continue to seek ways reduce our burden on them until the birders and sightseers are all that are left.

[gemini2759]

Trump will fix it

[onthetake]

Gemini I hope you are right but I'm guessing he has more important issues to tackle than dealing with the anti hunting regime at our refuge. His sons are hunters maybe you can contact them. I'm sure trump could fix it with one tweet.

[robie]

I got back yesterday evening from my hunt. The animals are few and far between for this last deer hunt. Total was 3 animals killed. 2 Cows and 1 doe.

Most people that I talked to reported not seeing much. I rode my bike around units 8, 5 & 3. Some beautiful country. I ran into 3 rattle snakes. Not my favorite.

Tip for those walking around a pond, look for a large hole on the side before you do and stay the hell away from it. I was looking at tracks and noticed a small lizard, then several of them before I even looked at the hole. I left quickly.

If anyone else is interested in riding out to horse Island I can tell you it has the most poop piles of any place on the ranch. But the place is almost un-huntable unless you want to sit on the road and wait for something to come back. Also I wouldn't go over there without a bike and a trailer, it is not close. Very fun bike ride and pretty view at the end. I watched a nice buck walking between the islands.

I had some close shots at does but that's about it. Nilgai cow at about 500 yards and running. Good luck to anyone else heading out there.

[aggiebowhunter]

Heading there this week. Thanks for all the input. Is 8 more open than the other units or just easier to access? Looks like it will be warm this weekend, is the area pretty dry?

Any other suggestions or pointers would be very appreciated.

[CaptTank]

Heading there this week. Thanks for all the input. Is 8 more open than the other units or just easier to access? Looks like it will be warm this weekend, is the area pretty dry?

Any other suggestions or pointers would be very appreciated.

8 is just the easiest unit to access due to you can drive the length of it. All of the other units will take some walking or biking to get back in to. Packing out animals is still no easy task even from 8.

[JFRITZ06]

Follow Up

I was also drawn for the Jan 20-22 hunt. How often are the "big bulls" seen? It seems that several younger animals and cows are being harvested. Are the bigger bulls held up in the heavy brush or do they stay out of range on the salt flats? What would be the best strategy for hunting a mature bull?
Thanks

Just a follow up...
I returned from my hunt today and this is how it went.
I arrived Thursday morning and it did not get off to a good start. Even though we were told we could scout the day prior to the hunt, they had all the gates locked. The "lead" ranger, Marion was by no means friendly and made it very obvious she did not want to cater to the hunters. She was a whole different person when she interacted with the two groups of bird watchers that I had to wait on before getting any attention. She said I was free to scout within the open units on foot or by bicycle. After getting the Refuge manager Boyd involved, Marion was instructed to open the gate that allows access along unit 8. She definitely expressed her feelings at this point.
I walked all of unit 8 and most of 3. I found some animals in 8 and planned on hunting there opening day along with a few guys I met down there. (I got to meet some really cool people and look forward to future hunts with these guys) After a full day hunting the only encounters I had was hunter after hunter after hunter walking up and down the roads. (No wonder the harvest rates are so low) On day two, I decided to hunt unit 2 with another TBH and get as far away from roads and hunters as possible. This strategy paid off. After a very heavy blanket of fog lifted, it wasn't long before we started seeing Nilgai. I had a group of 5 cows/calves run across one of the flats I was overlooking and stop in the brush about 50 yds behind me. I elected to pass in hopes of a bull showing himself. Just minutes later a mature bull emerged from the same trail the cows took to cross the flat. He made it half way across the flat and stopped to mark a scat pile. That was his last move. I shot him straight on in the center of the chest flipping him over backwards. He jumped up stood there briefly and fell over to expire. During all the commotion, another large heard of Nilgai ran out of the brush and crossed the flat. It was an awesome experience. On the other hand, what was to follow was just the opposite of awesome. Gutting, quartering, caping and hauling a 500 lb animal out 2 miles in 91 degree weather in one trip wasn't too awesome.
After checking in the animal, I had to wait a few hours for the inspectors to get there to inspect for ticks on the cape. This gave me a chance to visit with the Federal game warden as well as some Reduge employees. We spoke about the hunts that are run out there and compared them to some of the state park hunts I have been on. (There is no comparison)
I gave them some simple ideas of how they could more efficiently run these hunts and drastically increase the hunter success rate based off what I've seen at the state park hunts. They all had the same look on their faces, the you're wasting your time look. The Federal Warden spoke up and said " We do not benefit from these hunts. We do not make any money off the tags and the hunters are not killing enough animals. It is just easier for us to do helicopter hunts. Eventually we will probably go to strictly to helicopter hunts. "
This was all after our conversation of trying to get more hunters out there and trying to increase success rate as well as talking about donating the meat harvested by the helicopter hunts to the locals instead of allowing it to be sold.
Needless to say, long story short, the future of Nilgai hunts on the refuge does not look good. I was very disappointed in the attitude and mentality of the individuals conducting this hunt.
As far as the actual hunt, I had a great time and got to meet some great guys. Good luck to the future hunters. I hope they take the advice everyone is giving them and improve on all that was mentioned above.
Thanks for all the advice and info. I'll post pictures as soon as I can. The site is not allowing me to at this time.

[robie]

Congrats on the success. It is an interesting group of people down there.

I'm glad you were able to fine a bull. Did anyone else connect?

[onthetake]

Yep. Unfortunately so few actually speak up it is probably a lost cause. The problems have been posted here plenty. The only response txbowhunters have generated is the "I got drawn tell me where to hunt" post. The young new batch of wardens do not have any people skills and view the hunters as a burden. They are simply a product of the refuge management. Guess I should give up, get a lease and start feeder watching.

[Etxnoodler]

Yep. Unfortunately so few actually speak up it is probably a lost cause. The problems have been posted here plenty. The only response txbowhunters have generated is the "I got drawn tell me where to hunt" post. The young new batch of wardens do not have any people skills and view the hunters as a burden. They are simply a product of the refuge management. Guess I should give up, get a lease and start feeder watching.

Don't give up yet! Hopefully we can make this turn around! I agree about the response from most texas bow hunter posts tho.

[Etxnoodler]

Also onthetake do you remember which thread the email addresses were on. I've sent an email about this issue before but would like to send another.

[onthetake]

Here ya go.

Robert Jess at
robert_jess@fws.gov

Boyd Blihovde
boyd_blihovde@fws.gov

Kelly McDowell
Kelly_mcdowell@fws.gov

Dr. Benjamin Tuggle
RDTuggle@fws.gov

[JFRITZ06]

Just a follow up...

I returned from my hunt today and this is how it went.

I arrived Thursday morning and it did not get off to a good start. Even though we were told we could scout the day prior to the hunt, they had all the gates locked. The "lead" ranger, Marion was by no means friendly and made it very obvious she did not want to cater to the hunters. She was a whole different person when she interacted with the two groups of bird watchers that I had to wait on before getting any attention. She said I was free to scout within the open units on foot or by bicycle. After getting the Refuge manager Boyd involved, Marion was instructed to open the gate that allows access along unit 8. She definitely expressed her feelings at this point.

I walked all of unit 8 and most of 3. I found some animals in 8 and planned on hunting there opening day along with a few guys I met down there. (I got to meet some really cool people and look forward to future hunts with these guys) After a full day hunting the only encounters I had was hunter after hunter after hunter walking up and down the roads. (No wonder the harvest rates are so low) On day two, I decided to hunt unit 2 with another TBH and get as far away from roads and hunters as possible. This strategy paid off. After a very heavy blanket of fog lifted, it wasn't long before we started seeing Nilgai. I had a group of 5 cows/calves run across one of the flats I was overlooking and stop in the brush about 50 yds behind me. I elected to pass in hopes of a bull showing himself. Just minutes later a mature bull emerged from the same trail the cows took to cross the flat. He made it half way across the flat and stopped to mark a scat pile. That was his last move. I shot him straight on in the center of the chest flipping him over backwards. He jumped up stood there briefly and fell over to expire. During all the commotion, another large heard of Nilgai ran out of the brush and crossed the flat. It was an awesome experience. On the other hand, what was to follow was just the opposite of awesome. Gutting, quartering, caping and hauling a 500 lb animal out 2 miles in 91 degree weather in one trip wasn't too awesome.

After checking in the animal, I had to wait a few hours for the inspectors to get there to inspect for ticks on the cape. This gave me a chance to visit with the Federal game warden as well as some Reduge employees. We spoke about the hunts that are run out there and compared them to some of the state park hunts I have been on. (There is no comparison)

I gave them some simple ideas of how they could more efficiently run these hunts and drastically increase the hunter success rate based off what I've seen at the state park hunts. They all had the same look on their faces, the you're wasting your time look. The Federal Warden spoke up and said " We do not benefit from these hunts. We do not make any money off the tags and the hunters are not killing enough animals. It is just easier for us to do helicopter hunts. Eventually we will probably go to strictly to helicopter hunts. "

This was all after our conversation of trying to get more hunters out there and trying to increase success rate as well as talking about donating the meat harvested by the helicopter hunts to the locals instead of allowing it to be sold.

Needless to say, long story short, the future of Nilgai hunts on the refuge does not look good. I was very disappointed in the attitude and mentality of the individuals conducting this hunt.

As far as the actual hunt, I had a great time and got to meet some great guys. Good luck to the future hunters. I hope they take the advice everyone is giving them and improve on all that was mentioned above.

Thanks for all the advice and info. I'll post pictures as soon as I can. The site is not allowing me to at this time.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JFRITZ06]

Just a follow up...

I returned from my hunt today and this is how it went.

I arrived Thursday morning and it did not get off to a good start. Even though we were told we could scout the day prior to the hunt, they had all the gates locked. The "lead" ranger, Marion was by no means friendly and made it very obvious she did not want to cater to the hunters. She was a whole different person when she interacted with the two groups of bird watchers that I had to wait on before getting any attention. She said I was free to scout within the open units on foot or by bicycle. After getting the Refuge manager Boyd involved, Marion was instructed to open the gate that allows access along unit 8. She definitely expressed her feelings at this point.

I walked all of unit 8 and most of 3. I found some animals in 8 and planned on hunting there opening day along with a few guys I met down there. (I got to meet some really cool people and look forward to future hunts with these guys) After a full day hunting the only encounters I had was hunter after hunter after hunter walking up and down the roads. (No wonder the harvest rates are so low) On day two, I decided to hunt unit 2 with another TBH and get as far away from roads and hunters as possible. This strategy paid off. After a very heavy blanket of fog lifted, it wasn't long before we started seeing Nilgai. I had a group of 5 cows/calves run across one of the flats I was overlooking and stop in the brush about 50 yds behind me. I elected to pass in hopes of a bull showing himself. Just minutes later a mature bull emerged from the same trail the cows took to cross the flat. He made it half way across the flat and stopped to mark a scat pile. That was his last move. I shot him straight on in the center of the chest flipping him over backwards. He jumped up stood there briefly and fell over to expire. During all the commotion, another large heard of Nilgai ran out of the brush and crossed the flat. It was an awesome experience. On the other hand, what was to follow was just the opposite of awesome. Gutting, quartering, caping and hauling a 500 lb animal out 2 miles in 91 degree weather in one trip wasn't too awesome.

After checking in the animal, I had to wait a few hours for the inspectors to get there to inspect for ticks on the cape. This gave me a chance to visit with the Federal game warden as well as some Reduge employees. We spoke about the hunts that are run out there and compared them to some of the state park hunts I have been on. (There is no comparison)

I gave them some simple ideas of how they could more efficiently run these hunts and drastically increase the hunter success rate based off what I've seen at the state park hunts. They all had the same look on their faces, the you're wasting your time look. The Federal Warden spoke up and said " We do not benefit from these hunts. We do not make any money off the tags and the hunters are not killing enough animals. It is just easier for us to do helicopter hunts. Eventually we will probably go to strictly to helicopter hunts. "

This was all after our conversation of trying to get more hunters out there and trying to increase success rate as well as talking about donating the meat harvested by the helicopter hunts to the locals instead of allowing it to be sold.

Needless to say, long story short, the future of Nilgai hunts on the refuge does not look good. I was very disappointed in the attitude and mentality of the individuals conducting this hunt.

As far as the actual hunt, I had a great time and got to meet some great guys. Good luck to the future hunters. I hope they take the advice everyone is giving them and improve on all that was mentioned above.

Thanks for all the advice and info. I'll post pictures as soon as I can. The site is not allowing me to at this time.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JFRITZ06]

Thanks again for the info!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk