Laguna Atascosa NWR 2006

[Bloodhound]

I'll be scouting LANWR, my favorite place to hunt in all of Texas, November 11-14. I have a general idea of where I hope to bag a Boone & Crocket buck, a Nilgai, and some hogs. Having said that, I hope to at least equal my harvest last December - a nice doe that dressed 64#. That was my first time hunting LANWR and I loved the place so much that I hope to hunt it every year as long as I live.

I'll be putting up a tripod this time. The trees are too small for treestands. I'm drawn for both the December and January hunts.

Who else is going? I know you are, Sneaky Phil. You never miss it. Too bad all the past LANWR info was lost when the TBH hard drive crashed. We'll have to replenish the helpful info as best we can.

I'll have a camcorder for my scouting trip and my hunts. I'll do my best to post video and pictures after all my trips. Others, please do the same! This place is awesome.

[SneakyPhil]

I will be there bowhunting and rifle hunting in Decmember and bowhunting again in January. We are going to switch it up this year and try to hunt unit 6 and see if we can use the masses to bag a nice buck.

[Bloodhound]

Phil, what had been your strategy in the past?

[Sideler]

I'll be there for the hunt in Jan.

I stopped hunting there about 4yrs ago just got tired of passing 50 hunters on the way to my stand. Just when I though I had walked futher than anyone else would dare to walk I would see someone.

I'm loking forward to only having 200 hunters in Jan.

[SneakyPhil]

I try and hunt the edges of mud flats or grass flats. The thing is that I hunted the same area for the last 5 years and aside from a great year in 2003 as far as buck action havent been very productive. I had hunted unit 8 exclusively until last year. Last year I hunted unit 1 and didnt see anything while on stand. This year I think that we are going to try unit 6. Last year there didnt seem to be as many floks as other years. The hunt in January should be a good one. Good thing is that Cameron is a 3 buck county. I plan on useing all of my buck tags this year.

[Bloodhound]

Last year I hunted 3, 5, and 8. I bagged a doe in unit 3. I plan to start in unit 3 this year and then move to other units if necessary.

[SneakyPhil]

Whos Scouting? I will be out there one day this weekend.

[SneakyPhil]

Watch your step!

[SneakyPhil]

Watch your step!

[Bloodhound]

I scouted last Saturday, Monday, & Tuesday. Unit 3 is not the vast area of dense cover that I thought it was. Thus, I've decided not to hunt unit 3 unless I'm desperate this year.

I checked out unit 1 for the first time and I loved what I saw. SneakyPhil, how many days did you spend in unit 1 last year? And where did you hunt? I marked 4 spots on my GPS that look like awesome spots. 2 friends and I will put tripods in these spots. I can't imagine not seeing game at these locations. Did you use a tripod?

[SneakyPhil]

I hunted unit 1 last year all but about three days. I didnt see anything while on stand but did see a few deer on the way in and out. We saw one buck out in the open at about 90 yards that was really nice. You dont have a lot of presure in that unit. I hunted a few days around the old corals. Did you see the picture of my new buddy in the post above yours? We saw her in unit 5. I have only scouted one day so far. I saw about 6 deer. I could only tell the sex of three of them. One was a doe and we also saw a 6 point and a unihorn spike.

[boss bowman]

ttt

[Bloodhound]

SneakyPhil, that's a nice rattler. I saw a big black snake in unit 1, plus a tortoise. I got the tortoise on video.

Last Saturday in unit 8 I saw 2 Nilgai bulls at 100 yards. Their horns appeard to be 5-6 inches long and they appeared to weigh 400+ pounds.

The only deer I saw were when I was driving the long dirt road next to unit 8. I had several deer blow at me, however. I'm glad to hear unit 1 gets little pressure. I believe my friends and I have high odds of ground checking some game based upon the appearance of our tripod locations.

Boss Bowman, have you ever hunted Laguna?

[SneakyPhil]

I would like to see a Nilgai durring my gun hunt.

[Bloodhound]

Yep. There were around 24 Nilgai taken by gun-hunters last year. Only 3 by bowhunters. I hope to bag one this year.