Hunt4more
Very Active Member
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- 1,089
"I am writing to you regarding the 28-1 youth hunt that I took my son on starting Sept 15th, 2021. As you know the future of hunting depends on our youth and therefore I am compelled to provide you with our comments regarding the hunt we recently went on.
A little background on myself and my son. I am 38 years old and my son is 13. He loves to hunt and fish and has taken two antelope and one deer in his short hunting career. I have been hunting all of my life and have traveled all across the west in search of deer, elk and antelope, bowhunting and rifle hunting.
As you know the 28-1 youth hunt is limited to 10 tags only, any deer tag ( doe or buck, mule deer or whitetail). We traveled some 1000 miles to come on this hunt and not to harvest a doe. My son missed a week of school (independent study) to embark on this exciting adventure and we were both excited to say the least.
What we found after 5 hard days of hunting was an extremely low deer population in the hunt unit. To the point where an experienced adult hunter would have struggled to find even a decent buck and does were very limited. We hunted private land (2000+ acres with lots of irrigated AG) down to the river as well as the high country along the Ridge Rd. Even the irrigated AG had relatively few does on it for the amount acreage. We glassed Bob Moore creek drainage, Jessie Creek and the high ground around Wallace Lake etc. The deer numbers were so low that we only seen 2 does along ridge road, 12 mule deer does in the private and a half a dozen whitetail deer on the private in 5 full days of hunting! We know we were finding all the deer because we kept finding the same ones. Sure, may be a few whitetail does and mule deer does in the backyards of various residences in the valley, but that's something we cannot hunt, let alone shoot a rifle in and what kind of experience is that.
The 40k+/- acres in 28-1 had very little deer feed in the public land (lots of rock and shale) and the deer population is struggling at best.The hunting is so poor I am not sure if you are doing more harm than good with our youth hunters? I have taken my son on 3 other youth hunts in the past and they have all been quality in terms of opportunity to take a good representation of the species. This was absolutely terrible. From talking to the locals in Salmon they confirmed the deer hunting has been very poor on that mountain for a long time.
We did locate plenty of elk coming down to the river each day and I am experienced glassing for big game animals. Not road hunters.
My son follow up this hunt with a general adult rifle hunt in Nevada, probably one of the worst rifle tags in the State of Nevada and seen 10 bucks the first day and killed afternoon day one.
I scoured the internet and reached out to any all guides that would answer the phone about the unit prior to going. I have never had a tag like this where so little information was either available or so few people willing to discuss. I know why now. My bad for thinking a youth hunt would provide enough opportunity for a youth to stay engaged. Never do that one again. Stay away.
Respectfully,
Tony Ford
A little background on myself and my son. I am 38 years old and my son is 13. He loves to hunt and fish and has taken two antelope and one deer in his short hunting career. I have been hunting all of my life and have traveled all across the west in search of deer, elk and antelope, bowhunting and rifle hunting.
As you know the 28-1 youth hunt is limited to 10 tags only, any deer tag ( doe or buck, mule deer or whitetail). We traveled some 1000 miles to come on this hunt and not to harvest a doe. My son missed a week of school (independent study) to embark on this exciting adventure and we were both excited to say the least.
What we found after 5 hard days of hunting was an extremely low deer population in the hunt unit. To the point where an experienced adult hunter would have struggled to find even a decent buck and does were very limited. We hunted private land (2000+ acres with lots of irrigated AG) down to the river as well as the high country along the Ridge Rd. Even the irrigated AG had relatively few does on it for the amount acreage. We glassed Bob Moore creek drainage, Jessie Creek and the high ground around Wallace Lake etc. The deer numbers were so low that we only seen 2 does along ridge road, 12 mule deer does in the private and a half a dozen whitetail deer on the private in 5 full days of hunting! We know we were finding all the deer because we kept finding the same ones. Sure, may be a few whitetail does and mule deer does in the backyards of various residences in the valley, but that's something we cannot hunt, let alone shoot a rifle in and what kind of experience is that.
The 40k+/- acres in 28-1 had very little deer feed in the public land (lots of rock and shale) and the deer population is struggling at best.The hunting is so poor I am not sure if you are doing more harm than good with our youth hunters? I have taken my son on 3 other youth hunts in the past and they have all been quality in terms of opportunity to take a good representation of the species. This was absolutely terrible. From talking to the locals in Salmon they confirmed the deer hunting has been very poor on that mountain for a long time.
We did locate plenty of elk coming down to the river each day and I am experienced glassing for big game animals. Not road hunters.
My son follow up this hunt with a general adult rifle hunt in Nevada, probably one of the worst rifle tags in the State of Nevada and seen 10 bucks the first day and killed afternoon day one.
I scoured the internet and reached out to any all guides that would answer the phone about the unit prior to going. I have never had a tag like this where so little information was either available or so few people willing to discuss. I know why now. My bad for thinking a youth hunt would provide enough opportunity for a youth to stay engaged. Never do that one again. Stay away.
Respectfully,
Tony Ford
