November 9, 2013
This post describes the tedium + adventure of scouting good hunting land.
Yesterday I drove out to Imperial Valley solo (photo above is of the Alamo River) to scout out the available hunting land there, and boy did I underestimate the magnitude of how FAR Imperial County is from Poway, and how long the whole endeavor would take.
But what I paid for in hours, stressful driving conditions and grief, I gained in the beauty of the desert and… a signed release allowing me to hunt on all Brundy Farm fields! You must always hunt on either public lands where the use of firearms is not permitted (most parks will NOT allow shooting!) or procure a signed hunter’s release on good private property.
I spend countless hours obtaining maps of our public lands out in east county, and cutting/taping BLM (Bureau of Land Management) maps together to my liking along with highlighted routes to keep me sane. You always have to assume that GPS is not going to work out in the desert, just to be safe. I also scoped out some land to the north toward the Salton Sea which is huntable (according to said maps).
Not pictured are the hundreds of miles of road traveled to reach this site, or the kind dudes who scrawled a makeshift map on the back of a napkin for me at a local Mexican restaurant directing me to their farm land… I am supposed to tell anyone who gives me grief about hunting there that “Doug said it was okay.”
This is the hardest part of hunting I think – scouting, finding land. I didn’t even see any doves, so when we go out here I don’t even have any guarantee that we will have a successful hunt. I’m chalking this up to experience though.
