My youngest son drew a hunt down there last weekend. He wanted to camp out in a tent. The camping was fun as hell. I haven’t camped out in 30 years and never camped out with electricity and water. The camping was fun. The deer didn’t move in the daylight. The first stand we hunted at was 4X4 looking at a 30 yard sendero #11. We saw a WT doe and 5 PT buck. I don’t think he could have killed the buck if he’d wanted to. He saw us the same time we saw him.
We changed blinds Tge next day I liked the setup much better although we could only see 65 yards. at least it was open. We committed to hunting this area the next two days. We only saw one hog and killed her before it got dark.

I was very impressed how the hunt was run. A retired JR high principal ran the thing and he was a great guy. He made the hunt.

It was tough and out of 9 hunters there were only 5 WT deer killed and one boy killed 3 of them. He thought he hit another and we helped look for her. That was the highlight of the trip for my boy to go check out a new area with Charlie Rooke running the show. He did a great job.

We saw Axis every night driving back to camp.

There was no fishing allowed at the state park,”Because it was too dangerous.” During the hunt. We went east of Junction in the afternoons and caught some bass.

I liked the hunt but it’s not the dream hunt many people think it is.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us

How was fishing “too dangerous”?

Would have liked to hear their explanation of that one.

Good to hear. I feel like a lot of the highly sought after exotic hunts here are gonna keep dwindling down

Charlie is a splendid dude. Great retirement gig he has.

When the kid and I drew this hunt, Charlie had complimentary hot cocoa for the kids and coffee for the adults since it was pretty cold.

Wish the hunt had gone better for you. Like anything else, the earlier hunts have way better success rates and the later hunts the animals are smart and more nocturnal.

Thanks for the report.

We hunted a few years back with one of my sons and shot a couple WT does and spikes pretty quick. The axis seemed limited to a few blinds. I saw 1 axis bull and 2 does and he saw a group of does walking out of his blind. Most of the guys on the hunt were looking for axis and didn't shoot the WT.

thats how it was on our Garner State Park hunt. Saw zero deer.