***Note that this review is based on my experience hog hunting the BoxROutfitters Ranch in Cross Plains, Tx on two separate weekend hunts - one in February 2018 and the other in April 2018. Your experiences may vary. We hunted at Rusty Reed's BoxROutfitters ranch in February 2018 and again in April 2018. We had a great time both weekends and we look forward to returning late this year or early 2019. Overall, I give it a 8.5/10 and I highly recommend it if you want to have a fun and challenging pig hunt with a very, very high shot probability. I'd say it's 100% shot opportunity but there's always that one time.
The CampThe cabin that is available for $40/night is very functional and in my opinion, a much better deal than a hotel room. A bedroom with two sets of bunk beds, a bathroom, a living room with a couch that can be slept on, and a kitchen with stove, fridge, freezer, and microwave. It also has central heat/air with an extra window unit to really cool the place down if needed. The camp is also only about 3 miles from town so it's easy to go to 7-11, DQ, or whatever if the mood strikes.
The camp area includes a walk-in cooler that stays between 38F-40F and a well-lit, covered cleaning station with a power winch and running water. Best cleaning station I've seen on one of these pig hunting operations really.
The HuntAn ATV isn't needed to hunt and in fact, you really don't want one in the hunting area while you're hunting but I recommend having one nearby for game retrieval. We left our ATVs at the pasture gate and walked the property on foot.
The pigs are trapped elsewhere and released into the pasture and they are wild, wild, wild! The pasture is a "pig fenced" part of the ranch that I guess is about 75 acres (that's just a guess on my part). There are a couple of stock ponds and a few open areas with good Mesquite cover. There are also thick wooded (mostly Oak I think) areas and seasonal creek beds surrounded by dense (think South Texas dense) brush. These areas give the pigs great cover and make the hunt challenging (in a good way, I don't want the pigs to walk up to me!).
There are three box blinds - one is about 20 yards from the feeder and the other two are 60-70 yards away. Two of them are just about brand new and the third is an old metal blind that is kind of noisy - that being said, I shot two pigs from it one evening so it's not THAT noisy.
The feeders all go off on time and throw plenty of corn. When we've hunted they've gone off 3 times in the morning and 3 times in the evening at one hour intervals.
On our most recent hunt it was violently windy and that kept pig movement to a minimum but the three of us (two rifle and one bow hunter) still took 5 nice pigs and could have taken more but that's really all we wanted so we were very happy with it.
Overall ImpressionThe only reason I gave it an 8.5 out of 10 instead of higher is that night hunting isn't allowed. Those are the rules so we follow them. It's not really necessary because you can kill all you want in the daytime but we do like to night hunt.
Overall, BoxROutfitters in Cross Plains, Texas is a great place to pig hunt! Rusty's place is the 6th different pig hunting operation I've used in the general North Texas area since 2009 and in my opinion, the best. There are other good places to hunt for sure but there are also a few duds out there as I've found. If you want to spend a day or two chasing wild pigs, this is the place to do it.
