Joshua Creek Ranch

Positives: Wonderful Ranch, great layout, fantastic food, great accommodations and warm and friendly staff. Negatives: 1400 acres with maybe half of it at best due to daily operations, suitable to hunt turkeys. When we arrived, we were informed that no gobblers had been seen or heard for two weeks, followed by, only one gobbler taken on the ranch in two years. 5 gobblers, 4 jakes and a few hens were all they had seen this spring. That was not the story when booking the hunt. Arguably, not enough to have a sustainable hunting program by any stretch. With three hunters there, had we filled two tags each, it would have decimated the flock, no professional resource management given this scenario. Sad situation in my opinion. Guides were friendly, but not seasoned turkey hunters and had no direct bead on where birds were at the time or their daily patterns. Truth be told, during our time there, they were roosting off the property, and the Ranch had no backup parcels to cover unforeseen circumstances, or lack of birds. Despite all this, I had one gobbler cross onto the property and closing under 200 yards only to go silent and never heard from again when the ranch truck pulled in directly in front of us a little over 100 yards to release pheasants for the soon to start bird hunt over dogs. My guide told me that the hunting manager is always aware of our location, and this is unacceptable and unprofessional for allowing ranch operations of one type of hunt to directly interfere with another. This is not my first rodeo with nearly a dozen successful hunts in the great state of Texas, and thirty-one spring and fall turkey seasons under my belt, and this was a dismal hunting experience. I have not been contacted by anyone on staff and was told that the incident with the hunt interrupted was communicated. Given what we learned upon arriving and not given reasonable choices to hunt gobblers where they actually are, the hunt should have been canceled and refunded. I was offered an even swap for a whitetail doe the first evening, and I declined as I came to turkey hunt. They are not set up in so many ways, in my opinion to offer a quality turkey hunt.