Balcones Canyonlands NWR

Does anyone have any information regarding this location for the upcoming deer hunts?

Thanks in advance.

Im guessing you got picked?

That looks like an awesome hunt congrats. I know i wanted that hunt also. Looks fun!!!

Yes sir I got picked and thanks. Although, I don't know anything about this area.

my daughter drew last year and was in Unit 2. we had a blind so we sat. i think others may have had to bring pop ups or tripods. no corn, so things move through pretty quick. Within 30 minutes of getting in blind, pigs appeared and were gone before she could get steady. saw 3 deer and ended up with a typical hill country 8pt. good times.

My son and I drew Nov 16-18. What I've seen on other forums is that the deer numbers are lower than other areas. Evidently we will find out our unit number before the orientation. Scouting and blind set up is the day before. As I understand, we use our existing tags. The NWF is in three counties with different antler restrictions.

The areas they allow hunting are widely spread out. So, you may have to wait to make Reservations at a private campground or hotel till you find out what compartment you are hunting. I have been hunted it several times. Some of the compartments have decent deer numbers and some it is very low. I have always enjoyed hunting there. Have fun!

do they require the hunters to take a doe and hog before get a buck? i have read this on some old post on some old forums. Just wondering if they still did this.
do they have any exotics at this place? never been around that area so i don't know. also read that some people were stuck in blinds were others were able to roam their compartments, i guess this is due to pasture size and safty reasons. how is the terrain if it is raining?
debating on going, it's a 5 hour drive one way, my dad and i also drew out, but we have some other places to hunt

You will have to buy the tag before you know the unit number. Exotics aren't on the list as I remember so even if you see one it's off limits. Don't know if they will require a doe/pig first or not. Deadline for purchase is 25th so we will know units shortly after that, as I understand it.

They used to have this rule for all hunts except the last one. I think they did away it but they change the rules every year.


Yes, but you can't shoot them.


Some of the roads are pretty rough and you need a high clearance vehicle. Some of the roads are not. It's the closest thing to a western style hunt and you need to be prepared to walk and get an animal out that's far from the road.


That's up to you but deer hunting in the hill country without bait is pretty tough and the success rates are very low.

My daughter drew out last year and shot 1 doe. Tough hunt! Do not remember the unit, but it was wide open country. Not much visability from the ground. Highly recommend a tripod stand if you have one. We walked alot, saw a ton of deer, but mainly with their tails in the air as they were running off.

We drew this year for the 11/30-12/2 hunt. I've heard it's pretty tough hunting depending on what unit you hunt. The weather plays another factor too.

I've hunted there before about 8 years ago before the state took it over. I was in #2 and had an assigned blind. My wife and I drew out for 11/30-12/2 hunt. I hope to get 2 again as my wife is handicapped and can't walk very far for very long, busted ankle.

My daughter and son in law are on 11 30 thru 12 2.Just wandering were to camp.I will be there the whole week.Thanks

Try Turkey Bend Rec Area, there's camping there and it's close to the area.

We're camping at turkey bend although we may move depending on what unit we get.

Has anyone found out their unit yet? Thought they would come out about the 5th.

I contacted the management area yesterday to find that out. The person I spoke with advised the names that were picked will go into something like a lottery and will be picked that way. My wife and I have the 11/30-12/02 hunt. She's handicapped so I was hoping to get a unit with stands. She's busted her ankle 8 years ago and it's been fused. Hard to walk on uneven ground. He did say he will make a note of that fact for TPWD when it comes to unit assignment. Good luck.

Did they say how we will be notified? Email or letter? Will it be from TPWD?
Thks.

I received our unit assignment. We are in unit 9 hunting November 16-18. If anyone is hunting the youth weekend in that unit I would appreciate any information you can forward after your hunt. If anyone is assigned that unit after our hunt let me know and I will play it forward.

My wife and I were assigned Unit 12, 11/30-12/02.

we used Homeaway.com and stayed in Bertram about 10 minutes from unit 2.

Has anyone ever hunted Area #4? Looks like the county line runs through the middle of it.

We were assigned Unit 8 for 11/30-12/2.

My Son and I have 7 for 11/30 - 12/2. Has anyone hunted this area before.

We have unit 1 any info would be appreciated.

Greetings, My daughter got drawn for the youth hunt on November 9,10,and 11. She will be hunting in unit 7 section I. Question, does any one know of an RV park close to this unit or the vicinity of the office head quarters? I emailed Lonny Castillo,the game warden and he told me about Turkey Creek Park. I called LCRA to make reservations but the park is for primitive camping only. I've tried google but i would sure hate to book a spot that is 40 miles away and on the wrong side of the unit.I did call one RV park but they informed me that due to the heavy flooding they are having right now that they are evacuating all RVs and not even thinking about making future bookings.I haven't talked to Lonny recently about the hunt. As of now,I'm assuming that the hunt will still go forward for Nov 9-11. Last note for anyone hunting this unit and section in the future.I was told this unit has no blind so bring pop up or such. This unit is accessible by 4x4 vehicle and ATVs are for game retrieval only.A hunter can harvest only (1) 3pt or more deer and possibly a spike buck and then the other 3 must be doe’s.

Thanks to any tips on hunting and assisting on finding an RV spot. HAPPY HUNTING...

All the camp sites on Lake Travis are closed. We moved to a motel.

Scouting tomorrow. If anyone else is pm me and we can compare notes. I'm in unit 9.

Scouted Unit 9 yesterday. The area is similar to Sovervell, Hood, Palo Pinto and Erath Counties. Hilly, rocky, mixed juniper/cedar and live oak. Early scouting was not producing any patterns but I finally figured out the travel routes. I'm not sure if they are day or night travel. Found one rub. No scrapes. found one doe bed and busted a shooter buck on the way back to the truck. Our unit is surrounded by NWR on three sides. I had initially attempted to scout the borders looking for crossing points. There were no fences between our unit and the rest of the NWR so I had to regroup and figure out a different scouting strategy. I went to soft areas without rock and finally found sign. It doesn't appear there is a dominate food source so I expect they will move from bedding to water to browse back to bedding. Unless of course the rut kicks in before then. There didn't appear to be rut activity, no buck tracks crossing other tracks. There are high areas with tree cover from which we can glass the surrounding areas. I've picked out some within shooting distance of the bedding areas that we will sit the first evening and morning, watching for deer patterns and plan our attack from there. The live oaks are conducive to tree stands and the juniper/cedar stands are conducive to ground blinds but I expect we won't need the ground blinds (we are taking them anyway). The areas I would set up in a ground blind are higher elevation and the setup process would be exposed. I think we will work up the the tree line set down next to a tree and glass from there. I think that will be less disruptive. Our unit runs north/south with our only access being from the south. Current projections are for south winds so we will have to figure out the approach.

Good luck to all hunting the youth weekend. I see some of you on the 16th.

Anyone have reports from youth weekend? I was wondering how it went. For those hunting this weekend, WU forecast for the Lago Vista area shows temps ranging from the low 40s to the high 60s Fri and Sat with SSW winds 4-5. Sunday shows low 50s to low 60s with NNE winds of 8. WU has another station in Bertram that my be closer to where you are hunting.

Leaving tomorrow for the hunt this weekend. Anyone else have this hunt?

Sorry it took till today to post an updated on our youth hunting experience at Balcones Canyonland. Where to start, First off we stayed at Idyll Glen RV Park. which is about 10 min away from the head quarters where the orientation was.
In my opinion it was an excellent RV camp and I have no complaints. We got there Thursday and left Sunday at 12:00pm checkout.Total price was $120.00@ $40.00 per night.Cash,check or money order only. No debit/credit cards excepted. What was the killer was the Toll booths,From Houston area to Balcones Canyonland( around 10 of them)."Texas Dot tag or we'll mail you the bill" was their slogan on all the toll booth signs. I guess its no more throwing your change in a basket or a live person to take your money.

In near by town called Jones town there is an Ace hardware,Lowes grocery store, Sonic and a couple other restaurants.You have to do a hunt for diesel.

As far as the youth hunt goes, it was hard hunting...and we didn't see any deere movement the whole time on the WMA. If there was any deer around we couldn't see them for the 3 foot tall blue stem that surrounded our hunt area. We hunted in a pop up blind,and should have had a tree stand.

When we ended the hunt at 10:30 Sunday ,I looked over the hunt log and no one on our unit killed anything. As far as i know there was only a small nub buck and a doe seen.

I really am baffled as to what the food consumption for deer is. I mostly seen Post oak trees and cedar. Didn't see any acorns.

I think this hunt would have been better if they allowed you to throw corn out. As far as unit 7 terrain goes,you really need to have 4 wheel drive cause 2 wheel is not gonna get you up the climbs. There were times I was kinda nervous my 4x4 was gonna let me down.It wasn't muddy just loose gravel and steep.

The Park Staff will let you use ATV or any off road vehicle to get you to and from your stand, due to the rain they had.They stress that if you get stuck, they are not allowed to pull you out.

You are given a list of about 30 wrecker services in your hunt area that you can call to bail you out of the pickle your in when your stuck.

Use your GPS/Google maps cause I hate to say it but I got lost. I was a D1 idiot{Division 1}. They gave us a map and on this map was Xs that marked the cones from Letter A to Letter J. After the evening hunt we left at 5:30 to go to the entrance gate. I took a wrong road/trail and I had a heck of a time trying to figure out the right road to get back on. Needless to say I found Cow Creek Road entrance gate at 7:15pm. I didn't make that mistake a second time.

I think I pretty well covered everything. I email the Federal Game Warden(Lionel Castillo) and thanked him and Balcones Canyonland park staff for sponsoring a great and last youth hunt for my daughter and I.

It is the last Texas Parks and Wildlife hunt for us do to age restrictions. We really enjoyed the beautiful environment for our father/daughter bonding time.

I asked Mr.Castillo if any of the youths were successful at getting a deer. He said, as far as he knew there were 9 bucks and 1 doe killed. out of all the units.

I believe there was around 40 to 50 youth hunters present at the Friday orientation.

Well guys and gals, I hope that I answered any and all questions you might have, and hope you will have a very successful hunt at the Balcones Canyonlands NWMA..Good luck and happy hunting.

Thanks for the update!

Thanks for the update doesn't sound that encouraging we are in unit 1 for the Nov 30 thru Dec 2 hunt.We have a house we rented by turkey creek unit.

I saw on another Texas hunting forum that there was some pretty nice bucks taken at Balcones last week.

I fought the BCP every week for 10 years stealing land in Austin as an avid mountain biker..
Bastards

We'll be hunting at Balcones Canyonlands starting tomorrow. If anyone else is, good luck to you.

My son and I just hunted this unit on the hunt ending today. Our experience was almost identical. It would be much better if you could bait. No animals killed or seen in our unit. When we checked in this morning, 5 of the hunters had signed out on Saturday stating that they were done for the weekend. Two other hunters signed out this morning at 9:30 stating they were done. I checked the log of Unit 9 right by the headquarters and the hunters left after Saturday's hunt with no animals seen or killed. Hopefully we will have more success at Aransas NWR this weekend.

My wife and I had Unit 12. The unit had a couple of really great stands, very comfortable. The unit had around 350 acres and from the looks of it, it looked like a decent hunting property. We started hunting at 2pm on Friday afternoon until dark on Sunday afternoon. The only thing we saw was 1 coyote. I got out of the stand a couple times to see if anything was moving and didn't see anything and saw hardly any sign either. I noticed on some of the property around this unit, the owners had put up feeders or had a grain fields. The few tracks I saw were trails from the cedars going to the grain or feeders on adjoining property. As long as they deny hunters throwing some feed out it may not get any better. I'm not real sure I will put in for this hunt again. The up side is, it is close to home.

When we hunted it last year and heard at the orientation that there were about 30 animals killed for 250 hunters on their hunts i told her we will kill the first legal animal that steps out. we saw 3 deer total and maybe 10 hogs.

My daughter managed to kill a small 8 point.We were.in unit 1. the hunting was very hard .I was expecting a way better hunt, but we managed to have some fun and got to spend time with my daughter We hunted right up next a farm house 200 + yrds away but because they had feeders we was able to find a trail and set on it that was the only deer we saw the whole weekend.