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Aransas NWR 2017

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    #31
    Originally posted by RifleBowPistol View Post
    I am not the only one seeing this problem. Most every place in the state, that you could go out when you had the time and hunt, or you could pick the date or dates you wanted to hunt, have been taken over by the state and are now drawn hunts. So the chances of getting on one of those places, is extremely slim, then if by some chance you get on, likely not on a date that works for you. Then TPW brags about all of the public hunting opportunities there are in Texas for public hunting.
    X2

    Public hunting in TX for the most part has been reduced to some goofy Ponzi scheme drawing so the TPWD can make money. FUBAR

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      #32
      Originally posted by Thumper View Post
      X2

      Public hunting in TX for the most part has been reduced to some goofy Ponzi scheme drawing so the TPWD can make money. FUBAR
      I am glad to see I am not the only one seeing this. Poaching is bad, poaching is illegal. But that is what happens, when people can not afford to pay to go hunting.

      TPW keeps saying there is so much public land to hunt, but they have taken 98% of it over and then make you play their stupid games to get on the land they have control of. TPW is making lots of money on the deal and just stringing lots of people along, who are trying to get drawn for these hunts. Your chances are extremely low. I was looking at the BS numbers they posted, as the number of people who had applied for each hunt. Many it was showing, something like 1400 to 2400. I don't believe those numbers at all. That may be per day, that are applying, but not total.

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        #33
        Aransas NWR Rifle Hunt 1 (11/4-8)

        Aransas NWR Rifle Hunt 1 (11/4-8)
        Never been before, got drawn.
        What can anyone tell me about the current conditions of the land?
        Do you need an ATV to get inland?
        Can you hunt from a ground blind?
        Do most camp or come/go?
        How does the individual area marking/flagging work?
        Thanks for the help!

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          #34
          Originally posted by houstonhunter2 View Post
          Aransas NWR Rifle Hunt 1 (11/4-8)
          Never been before, got drawn.
          What can anyone tell me about the current conditions of the land?........ Plenty of water but not flooded, grass tall, mosquitoes really bad.
          Do you need an ATV to get inland?......... Not allowed.
          Can you hunt from a ground blind?......... Yes, or 6' tripod.
          Do most camp or come/go?.......... Camping at hoppers, $10 a night without electricity, with electricity $25, RV Campers $35.
          How does the individual area marking/flagging work?........ There are no individual areas, you mark your stand location and sometimes it works, mostly because there's a lot of blocking flagging or flagging that is never hunted.
          Thanks for the help!
          Call the Refuge, you should have gotten a copy of their rules and regulations when you bought your permit, (361) 286-3559.
          Last edited by Thumper; 10-24-2017, 01:34 AM.

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            #35
            I don't wish damage on anyone's property, but I sure hope that the hurricane wiped out that Water Moccasin & Mosquito population at Aransas... I hunted their ONCE, and will never do it again...... just wasn't worth the hassle to be enjoyable.

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              #36
              Originally posted by houstonhunter2 View Post
              Aransas NWR Rifle Hunt 1 (11/4-8)
              Never been before, got drawn.
              What can anyone tell me about the current conditions of the land?
              Do you need an ATV to get inland?
              Can you hunt from a ground blind?
              Do most camp or come/go?
              How does the individual area marking/flagging work?
              Thanks for the help!
              When you bought your permit you should have gotten emailed a pdf of rules and regs. It answers all of your wuestions in one page.

              Good luck and let us know what you see out there!

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                #37
                Can I get a collective go-no go from those that have been there, based on current conditions? Looks like it's gonna be awfully warm for a deer hunt...
                Last edited by houstonhunter2; 10-24-2017, 05:54 AM.

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                  #38
                  Originally posted by houstonhunter2 View Post
                  Can I get a collective go-no go from those that have been there, based on current conditions? Looks like it's gonna be awfully warm for a deer hunt...
                  I am going. But a few mesquitos and snakes won't deter me. I love deer hunting and haven't done much public land so I'm exciting for the opportunity. I hope folks stay home, more room for me to wander around.

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                    #39
                    HH2, if it's warm, it's going to be a fairly miserable hunt like all places. If you have other places to go hunting, I'd pass. But if you like to get out of town, then go.

                    But cold or hot it's a tough hunt.

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                      #40
                      Originally posted by houstonhunter2 View Post
                      Can I get a collective go-no go from those that have been there, based on current conditions? Looks like it's gonna be awfully warm for a deer hunt...
                      It's typically warm when hunting out there, but I have hunted that place so much, I have seen some cool weather and some heavy rain, light rain. Been out there during a tropical storm once.

                      This year is going to be very hard to saw what it's going to be like. The hurricane blew all of the leaves off of the oaks, all my years of living on the coast and having gone through a few hurricanes. Never seen one that blew all of the leaves off of the trees, that were not blown over. We were down in the area two weeks after the storm hit, we saw deer standing on the side of the road, that seemed shell shocked. Looked confused, absolutely no fear of the trucks driving by, in the middle of the day.

                      The deer down there mostly forage on leaves, then get fat on acorns during the fall. I seriously doubt there are any acorns on any of the trees down there. But there may be, would be odd to see oaks with acorns and no leaves.

                      We have bow hunted the place since about 1986. Then finally got to rifle hunt the place about five or six years ago, when they were letting people buy permits from some out of state company. What we found, was it's better for bow hunting than rifle hunting. At least for us, all of the areas, where we found the big bucks and lots of pigs, they close off for rifle season. We never really hunted the areas that are open for rifle season. We had no choice, the two times we went down there to rifle hunt, within the last five or six years. I saw plenty of doe, my buddy saw some pigs. I also saw a coyote. I had the doe down pat. We saw no bucks at all, rifle hunting.

                      When we used to bow hunt, we would see nice bucks to some pretty dang healthy old bruisers and some huge hogs. During rifle season, because of the areas where you are limited to, you probably won't see many gators or moccasins. You might run into some rattlers, don't get me wrong, you could still easily run across a few gators and or moccasins. Closer to the water, you have to be very careful where you step or walk. Turns out a trail we used for a couple of years was a gator trail. We suspected that for some time, but never saw a gator in the area. Then one morning before sun up, we were walking up the trail ad saw something huge on the trail and knew right off what it was. We let him have his trail, we went through the grass around the big guy. Those **** things are fast, so don't mess with them. Stay away from all water, even a little water hole 6 ft. across, can have an 8 ft. gator in it. They will find small water holes and dig them out, then lay in the holes, waiting on a pig or a deer to come get a drink. I have seen hunters come close to being gator dinner years ago. We did find one gator, in a small water hole one year rifle hunting, then following year, that little hole was dried up. He found another even smaller hole to hide in.
                      Then the mosquitos are more dangerous than the gators. As long as you don't mess with a gator out of water, he won't chase you. If they are in a water hole, which you will not know they are there, they are hunting and you don't want to get next to the water. Mosquitos don't care, you are fair game any and all times.

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                        #41
                        Originally posted by jason86 View Post
                        I am going. But a few mesquitos and snakes won't deter me. I love deer hunting and haven't done much public land so I'm exciting for the opportunity. I hope folks stay home, more room for me to wander around.
                        You are in for a surprise, you say a few mosquitos. HA!! HA!! HA!! HA!! You have never been there. We call the place the Aransas Mosquito Refuge. You are going to get introduced to mosquitos to a level you never thought possible. If you are really tough, it can be some good hunting, the bow hunting is much better than the rifle hunting, because of the area you can hunt with a bow and not with a rifle.

                        Honestly, I have told people a story for years. The intercoastal runs on the east side of the place. We would see tug boats, shrimp boats going down the inercoastal from a mile a way or so, across the marshy flats on the east side of the place. It looks odd, seeing them, they look like they are in the middle of the marshy area. But at times you will first spot the boats because of the black smoke. One day we drove up to a area we liked to hunt, stopped the truck and were getting our gear ready, to jump out of the truck. We were looking at the swarm of mosquitos and asking each other, do we really want to feed those little *******s again. Then I saw a black cloud out on the marsh, assumed it was a boat, after a while, it was still in the same place. I finally grabbed the binoculars to make sure it was not a fire starting. Nope, no fire, no boat. It was two hunters about 800 yards out on the marsh and the cloud of mosquitos swarming around and over them. That is a true story. Mosquito nettings is a absolute definite, if you want to survive or possibly kill anything but mosquitos. You will be doing nothing but swatting mosquitos.

                        Good, luck, it's a cool place, other than the flying vampires.

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                          #42
                          This is a gator we found rifle hunting four or five years ago. Then the same gator the following year, when his water hole dried up. At one point that gator, was hiding in a water hole that was probably only four feet across. It looked like the water hole was no more than 4" deep. But it turns out, the gator had dug the hole out about 18" to 2' deep. We found out the following year, when the hole was dried up. That gator was about 8' to 9' long. We found him two years in a row. We have seen gators out there, that were easily over 12' long, probably in the 14' range. Even that size, they are very fast when they want to be, we found out the hard way. We always hunted closer to the water when bow hunting and ran across gators on most every trip. We only found one rifle hunting. I know of a area, that is within the rifle hunting area, that has quite a few gators. So don't think you won't run across one. They are very much off limits to shoot.
                          Last edited by RifleBowPistol; 10-29-2017, 07:09 PM.

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                            #43
                            Very cool photos!

                            Do you think a thermacell would be enough to keep the mosquitos managable, or is a net a must?

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                              #44
                              NO skeeter pics?

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                                #45
                                Just FYI, the refuge website now has a link to the hunt map and FAQs. Just scroll down a bit.

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