Interesting post - thanks for sharing! This is on my bucket list but never knew really where to start. Seemed to always get mixed reviews on guides, and ofcourse I have no land owner contacts. However, I would finally like to take my two grandsons (16 and 18) on a nice PD shoot. Can you provide any guide recommendation? Ok, would be the perfect place because, similar to you, I am in east Texas and although am an Aggie, I worked for LSU for nearly 30 years if that helps, lol. Feel free to message me if you like.
You must really be conflicted when LSU and A&M meet in athletics!
East TX is a nice part of the country. One of my daughters and her family live in Tyler. I understand the desire to take you grandsons on a pd hunt. My oldest is only 8 yo, but I'm already planning a hunt for him. My son used to g w/ me, but he now has his own family and the obligations that go w/ that. I used to hunt around the Littlefield, TX in the 90's. I took a sabbatical for child rearing. When I looked at starting back out there, there was a drought so going in the fileds was not allowed. The next year the plague had hit.
If you google prairie dog hunting guides, most of what you find will be old and no longer active. Larry Gene Pate in Lubbock has previously guided pd hunts, but I don't know if he still does or not. The most recent reviews I found online were 7 years old and not favorable. Some of my friends hunted w/ him 20 years ago, but his main interest was in getting a successful shot at 500 yds or more. His old website address,
www.texasprairiedogsafaris, looks to be inactive. I just found this guide,
Mallard Bay, on Google. I have no experience w/ him. I had a couple good hunts w/
Rebel Ridge Outfitters in SW KS. He provides you a notebook of properties w/ pd towns he's and tells you where he wants you to hunt. I quit hunting w/ him because the plague hit his private lands, so we had to drive further west to SE CO making the drive even longer. I've been on a couple nice hunts w/
Sagebrush Hunts out of Dalhart, TX. He provides you a notebook w/ pd towns marked on maps of the Rita Blanca National Grasslands (NW TX). About 10 yrs ago the plague hit the Rita Blanca so I started hunting the Kiowa National Grasslands (NE NM). I believe Sagebrush has some private lands to hunt since he's still guiding hunts. I ended up in OK w/ a guided hunted after I had a family emergency and had to cancel a hunt earlier in the summer on the Kiowa. The OK guide has since retired due to medical problems..
Once you find an area that has dogs, you can find individual properties to hunt by contacting locals at various small town businesses. Some of the towns we now hunt came from meeting a guy as the local feed store. The XHunt app has maps that show populations of game animals, including prairie dogs. The OK guide found pd towns by looking for pd towns/mounds on Google earth.
Good luck.
Let know how the hunt goes.
