Has anyone ever hunted the Rio Bonito Ranch? If so what is your opinion of the hunt and facilities?

Thanks, Chris

I have never hunted there personally, but a company man that I worked for on my last rig took his son out there. He said he loved it. He loved it enough that he will be making the drive from Monroe, LA again soon.

Facilities and personnel are top notch. Beautiful lodge, beautiful ranch, superb food and service. The hunting in the free range pastures is good for numbers of game, but seems to be lacking for real quality trophies if you're talking whitetail deer, axis or fallow. They get a lot of pressure. There are some gold medal quality aoudad still around since they are tough to hunt. I've recently seen some gold medal class sika bucks, as well. They are not too popular so they live longer, but I'm not sure why. They get decent head gear and the meat is EXCELLENT! You have to do a fully guided hunt to get off the beaten path and onto better trophies if you want whitetail, axis or fallow, but to me, that's worth it. I did see one real nice 10 point whitetail while I was looking for a shooter fallow without a guide. I'd guess him at 4 yrs old and around 130 inches gross score. That's good for Hill Country.

i hunted there about 10 years ago, it was a super nice place to stay, alot of history there, especially the lodge. guides were nice and very knowledgeable.

hunting on the other hand, was poor. the only game seen or taken by 5 hunters was 2 hogs, 1 auodad and one sika. the rest of us did't even see anything to shoot.

i hear tht the ranch has been over hunted pretty bad

Friend of mine used to be they're Manager/guide about 14 years ago, He's the Wildlife Manager for the Stasneys Cook Ranch now. When he was there they were top notch.

Thanks for all the info.

Chris I used to go there for Hog hunts with a Vendor. You wont find a nicer Place as far as accomidations. I can only speak to the Hogs, about 80% success rate. when in the feild I would see lots of Exotics, never saw many WT.

I am sure the Rio Bonito Ranch is top quality from reading the post. I would like to recommend the Sproul Ranch in far West Texas if you are looking for an adventure and hunt of a life time. Check out www.sproulranch.com and you be the judge. Great Texas story about the ranch and how it survived being split up and the government wanting some pie that is not theirs. Also, you can read alot more about the Sproul Ranch in a magazine called TECHSAN (The magazine for Texas Tech Alumni)