My daughter got drawn for youth deer at Balcones for Nov 11-13th. We've never been drawn for a national wildlife refuge hunt, never seen Balcones NWR, have no clue what to expect, and I haven't been able to fine much on it, except that unit 7 is tough rascal to hunt. Whatcha got? Who knows anything about this place? Seems like that area ought to have a lot of deer, but I've thought that before and gotten skunked. Thanks in advance for any even semi-useful info.

I have been draw several times under the old system. I have no idea how it's going to work with this new draw system. It will be interesting to see because before you could pick your unit that you wanted to apply for. So you did have contrail on what units you hunted. I have always enjoyed hunting there, even though the hunting is tough and only got a deer about 50% of the hunts. Congrats and enjoy the hunt

I just called the refuge and spoke to a pretty nice dude. He's putting the kids into a random draw computer program as we speak to draw the units. He said the people that have already confirmed would be in a first drawing so they can go ahead and assign some, but it sounds like the only benefit is that you know sooner, but no preferential treatment.

he also told me this deal:

In the past, on the big units, they would have multiple hunters. he said the first guy would pull in the gate and park, and everyone else would see them parked there, and they would park there with them, and all of the hunters would be jammed up in a small area. He said now they spread cones throughout the unit, and you have an assigned cone to park by. You have access to the entire unit, but at least everyone start out from a different spot.

my son got drawn for the same hunt, same weekend...and we are in the same boat as far not sure what to expect. whether we see anything or not I think it will be fun.

That's what I'm thinking. But it's more fun to get one!!

I was drawn for a hunt Dec 9-12, anyone else drawn for those dates? Maybe we could meet, join forces?

I can help if you happened to draw unit #4

We hunted unit 7, area B. Tons of acorns. only saw one deer, but did find lots of tracks, a couple of rubs, and she got a nice a buck.