Of all the youth hunts we’ve participated in over the years with either tpw or the TYHP, I’d have to say this one is at the top. The staff did a tremendous amount of prep work to ensure a successful hunt for these young hunters. Fiberglass blinds in well planned locations corned regularly for the last couple months. Not one kid went home empty handed over two separate hunts and some even tagged out on their first sit. The park hadn’t been hunted in almost 10 years so there’s plenty of game but they are focused on knocking down the doe population for now. Each kid could kill 2 doe or spikes plus all the hogs they wanted.
The park hosted 2 hunts for 5 hunters each, however, only 2 showed for the first hunt and 4 for the second hunt which we attended. Kind of stinks knowing some other youth could have enjoyed this opportunity.
The first night, we hunted a blind that had six pigs, a spike and a doe shot just a day or so before we hunted, so while we saw lots of animals, they were all real hesitant to step into a decent range or at the right angle. The next morning, we saw many bucks and again, good does to take but those big bucks kept them off the corn and at a tough range for a youth hunter. The last evening sit was windy cold and slightly rainy which kept the deer bedded up but the hogs came in and gave my middle child an opportunity at his first pig. In total, I believe there were 6 deer, and 3 hogs killed by our 4 hunters.
We stayed on site in one of the park cabins and probably the most frustrating thing was coming back to camp and having 5 or 40 deer bedded in the drive way
Anywho, there’s limited info on this hunt on the www since it’s been years from the last hunt, so I wanted to give a little feedback. They’re still trying to figure out what to offer in coming years, possibly expand bow opportunities or buck tags as well, but for the youth hunts, know this is a great one to apply for not only because of the availability of game, but the staff is absolutely fantastic!
Here’s a few pics.

Great summary thanks for sharing

Congrats. I liked the youth hunts. Seems the ones we went to they worked hard to make it a successful hunt.

Cool hunt !

Congrats!

Good deal! Congrats to your kiddo. Cool looking pig.

May have to put my girls in for this one next year.

Those are a couple nice bucks pics. I guess they were not on the menu for that hunt?

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing. I also did a youth alligator hunt 20 years ago and it’s one of my favorite memories.

There is some surprisingly good antler genetics right there with some incredibly small bodied deer, makes aging hell but easy to drag them when you do shoot.
Congrats on the hunt to the kid and Dad.

Not this year but it’s a topic of discussion for future hunts. Main focus is lowering the doe numbers. I’d suspect it may be another year or two before they start hunting bucks.

Nice summary! Congratulations to your son on a nice hog!