bigcountry

I have hunted sika's in the swamps of MD for about 10 years now. Been successful a bunch of times.

I was sitting there in the swamps the other day thinking they are only free ranging hunting in MD/VA.

Does anyone else know if thier is wild substainable sika population in the US? Not gamefarms.

TreednNC

Texas would be my guess....escapees

bigcountry

I heard there are some in TX and Ok. But didn't know if they were wild. My buddy hates to hunt them me. Its freakin brutial. Over a mile and half walk thru 1-2ft of water with 50lbs of gear, and about impossible to track unless you see em fall.

But I find it a priviledge to hunt a deer that you can't anywhere else in the US.

TGRIZWALD

we are going downby ocean city to hunt them next week. they say they are fun to hunt. wesee them all the time by the ranger station all the time where it is safe.

bigcountry

Yea, I have hunted Assateague before. You are going to need an off road permit on the national side. I heard state side opened hunting. Not sure how everyone is doing.

Its tough hunting down there. Opening day might have been better.

TGRIZWALD

we were planing on going today but could not get off of work. they say it is hard to hunt them down there but have no where else to hunt them. i got a buddy that hunts them is dorchester county but the farmer is funny about who comes over to hunt there. i will post something if we get any. wen. or thursday will be the days.

bigcountry

Don't forget the cheasapeake forest lands in Dorchester. they are full of sikas ever since that hurricane rollled thru 4 or so years ago.

Jim_IV

BC, you can find all kinds of free ranging species in the Hill country of Texas. I believe it was TexasBowhunter who had a young bull elk on his game camera from his deer lease. Their place is low fenced

TexasBowHunter

bigcountry,
we do have quite a few of them in the hill country of Texas as well as many other exotic game that roam freely. I am sure at one point they were bought in but let me tell you they are completely wild if they are still out there. I am posting a pic of one that a guy on our lease shot the week of Thanksgiving and it took him over an hour to get a shot on this animal and he was in range the whole time, these animals are as hard to get a shot on as a whitetail, if not harder... Jim is correct we have many different animals that run free in the area that we hunt and like I said earlier, they are wild and a rare occurance that we get to bring one into camp....

rybohunter

They sound like a pretty interesting hunt. I read a little bit about them. What kind of seasons & weapons restrictions are there? I'd like to hunt them with a pistol, but considering it's Maryland we are talking about, I'm guessing that's probably out of the question?