We planned a trip to Sonora back in December of 22 with a crew of five guys, 4 of which are close friends and hunt together a lot…the other was a brother in law of one of us.
We decided to go fully guided, mainly because three of us had never been and wanted to soak in the knowledge of the guides. It was worth it in two senses, I learned a ton about coues and now I would feel comfortable doing it diy next time and also, driving my own vehicle down would be hectic.
I was extremely nervous about two weeks out and the wife was as well! I’m not saying it wasn’t warranted but we had absolutely zero issues other than the process of crossing into Mexico with guns and all of the redundancy. One of the guides said the most frustrating thing is the lack of consistency and I got a first hand taste of that. One guy says one thing and the other guy says…you get it.
The day of travel to and from the ranch we hunted was crazy long even though it’s really not that far south of the border. With all the stops this side at customs, Mexico side at customs and then the Mexican military, it was a long day.
Once we got to the ranch, the anxiety level went down dramatically. The property we hunted was huge steep and brushy but absolutely beautiful! The ranch managers family owned it and several other ranches in the area that have been in their family since the 1700’s. We saw just about every animal you would expect and then some! The most notable thing that was different was the sheer amount of deer and the buck to doe ratio. On average we saw 30-40 deer a day and about 40% of them were bucks.
I told myself not to chase score but rather, find a buck I felt jazzed about and be comfortable with that! Besides that, I was just happy to be there. Spent a ton of time in the glass on my badass new Tricer tripod! I was able to take a great buck on day 3 of 5 and also got a bonus Javelina! We all tagged out and one of my buddies got a chance to fil an extra tag from the group before us that didn’t get filled.
I’m already figuring out how and when to go back!!
We decided to go fully guided, mainly because three of us had never been and wanted to soak in the knowledge of the guides. It was worth it in two senses, I learned a ton about coues and now I would feel comfortable doing it diy next time and also, driving my own vehicle down would be hectic.
I was extremely nervous about two weeks out and the wife was as well! I’m not saying it wasn’t warranted but we had absolutely zero issues other than the process of crossing into Mexico with guns and all of the redundancy. One of the guides said the most frustrating thing is the lack of consistency and I got a first hand taste of that. One guy says one thing and the other guy says…you get it.
The day of travel to and from the ranch we hunted was crazy long even though it’s really not that far south of the border. With all the stops this side at customs, Mexico side at customs and then the Mexican military, it was a long day.
Once we got to the ranch, the anxiety level went down dramatically. The property we hunted was huge steep and brushy but absolutely beautiful! The ranch managers family owned it and several other ranches in the area that have been in their family since the 1700’s. We saw just about every animal you would expect and then some! The most notable thing that was different was the sheer amount of deer and the buck to doe ratio. On average we saw 30-40 deer a day and about 40% of them were bucks.
I told myself not to chase score but rather, find a buck I felt jazzed about and be comfortable with that! Besides that, I was just happy to be there. Spent a ton of time in the glass on my badass new Tricer tripod! I was able to take a great buck on day 3 of 5 and also got a bonus Javelina! We all tagged out and one of my buddies got a chance to fil an extra tag from the group before us that didn’t get filled.
I’m already figuring out how and when to go back!!
