Chaparral Archery Tag Drawn

Drew the archery tag along with my buddy from Idaho yesterday to hunt the Chaparral WMA. I had 10 PP and he had 4. Don't know much about it but I love South Texas brush country so it can't be bad. Hope to get some help from my brothers on here. We drew the second week. Dec 8-11. I'm guessing that's pre-rut for the area. I'm also thinking that we'll be hunting on the ground.
Lot's of time between now and then!

Cool buddy!

Congrats!

Congrats on the draw! It’s my favorite WMA to hunt.

I drew an archery tag there last year. I saw a couple really nice shooters but couldn’t get a shot within bow range. It’s a huge ranch, but they have quite a few hunts and hunters there which makes the deer very wary.

I learned a lot there and if I ever get to go back I think I’ll have a better game plan. I’ll share with you what I learned.

Most of the deer harvested there, including the biggest bucks, were shot off the senderos. I wouldn’t waste my time hunting out in the brush. I would look for heavily travelled game trails that cross the senderos. Some areas there were ruts literally a foot deep from so many deer regularly traveling through.

I would bring probably at least a half dozen game cameras and set them up on the heavily travelled game trails. I would bait them with corn heavily in the morning and see what shows up. Maybe lightly corn your spots in the evening. The more corn I put out in the evening the more was eaten at night.

I would initially set up on the most promising looking spot. These deer will spot a pop up blind in a heartbeat. Brush blinds work best. If you can tell it’s a brush blind from 10 yards, they’ll know. They can spot anything out of place very easily. Again these deer do get pressured and are well aware of things out of place. I would set up 15-20 yards in the brush off the sendero and corn the sendero along the area you can see.

If you’re not seeing deer after the first sit or two, move. The deer are there but you have to find them. This is where the game cameras come in handy. It allows you to scout multiple spots every day. Don’t forget to keep putting out corn at all your spots. I only had one camera and I felt handicapped. I had some really good deer on camera but they were coming in at night.

If you can do it, stay all day. I saw deer throughout the day. It’s a once in a lifetime hunt so the more your out there the more you’ll see.

I really enjoyed the hunt even though I came up empty handed. I’ll put in for every deer hunt there every year. If you have any other questions I can help with please ask. Good luck!

Thanks hilltop. I read your input several times and I can vision what you are saying really well. It almost sounds like you would be well served where you could watch the trail and the sendero at the same time. It's going to come down to putting in the sit time and some luck. My best success in finding deer has been getting a vantage point and try to find/pattern them and then move into an ambush spot once you've got them figured out a little bit. Thanks!

If you want to play around with a decoy, it is an awesome place to give it a go. Decoys are always a gamble though, keep that in mind.

There is low success there for a reason with archery not a lot of opportunity to get an advantage on them. As mentioned find well used trails and hide well, obviously play the wind too I was rifle hunting on a multispecies hunt there one time and had a huge 10 cruise by me at 60 yards, couldn't have got him with a bow, good thing for him I wasnt able to shoot bucks at all

Congrats Scooter,
I made my yearly contribution to TPWD drawn hunts. One of these days...

congrats man I won chap archery a few years ago and been to chap with the kids on a few hunts big bucks in there best tip I can give is brush in good and wait find best spot possible and take all advice given from the TPWD staff they know the area best. I made the mistake of not taking the area the staff suggested and picked another spot with lots of animals I got a doe and my 1st jav with my bow and saw lots of deer but never any shots at a big buck but the guy behind me that took that compartment they suggested he got the widest 8 point I've ever seen like 25" In my opinion the best compartments I've seen monster bucks in is on the west side compartments.

I went last year on the first archery hunt . First time to ever hunt South Texas. Never hunted but East Texas. The area I hunted wasn’t really thick. I made 3 sets. One with a pop up, one a natural ground blind, and believe it or not, one with a lock on. There were several mesquite trees big enough to put on up and get 12 to 14ft off the ground. Only had one deer within bow range on the 2nd evening and he was a legal buck according to their specs. But I was going thru a card on one of my cameras and had a monster on it and this is where I was planning to hunt the next morning, so I passed on that buck. Big buck did not show next morning but did see another really nice buck but was just out of my range.
Take a pair of loppers and leather gloves. Use the loppers to cut you out a hole in a thick bush or cactus from a heavy used trail. Where I hunted, that was hard to do because trails were everywhere. What I should have done on the very first afternoon was corn the sendero and sit in the tower blind and just glass. I hunted mainly scrape lines being it was way pre rut, but they too were everywhere. Also take a bag or 2 of deer pellets. Other people were having good hunts with that. I had 3 cameras out and 2 good bucks show up in daylight. I just wasn’t there when they did!!