A friend had the second rifle hunt for deer so I went down with him to check it out.
The base is a cool place, and it was interesting to see how everything works for this hunt. There’s a decent number of deer there, and as a bonus tag and extra opportunity to hunt I’d give it a thumbs up.
As a place where you think you’re going to find a quality mule deer or whitetail buck, I’d say you’re wasting your time. Including the 150 hunters while we were there, and the 300 before us I didn’t see a deer, or picture of one that I would shoot.
Now I guess there could of been one I didn’t see, but from the pictures posted and the ones the guy from the base showed me there wasn’t.
We did see one 120” mule deer buck and found a 150” Whitetail, other then that it was just does (20 per day kind of thing)
If we end up doing this hunt again I would likely take a later hunt with a lower priority required so you could go as a group of 4-5 hunters. Pushing bush might produce a bigger more mature deer that’s hunkered down from the masses of truck traffic. There is a ton of places for deer to hide in those swamp bottoms and no way to still hunt through quietly because it’s so thick.
That or take the first muzzleloader hunt and hope for a big buck on day one that isn’t fleeing for its life.
On a cool note I did see a legitimate B&C porcupine. When I first saw it I thought it was a small colour phase bear out of its den. Thing must have been 70 pounds !
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