Might be moving to Temecula, CA--what are the hunting opportunities there?

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My wife and I are considering some possible places for us to move to, and one of them is Temecula, CA. Can anyone tell me what kind of bowhunting opportunities there are in So Cal? Is it really difficult to draw permits? Is most of the hunting in CA on private ranches? Is there much public land to hunt?

Thanks for your help.
 
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Dec 30, 2017
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San Diego all the way up to Gorman. Endless pig tags . Turkeys. Come on out you'll be 60 miles away from where I live.

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Dunndm

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If you are willing to drive about 3-4 hours I can tell you some general areas with deer/turkey. BUT! I'm always goin alone so i would have to tag along with you hahah


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boom

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In CA, there is a big game draw. As a bow hunter it’s fairly wide open with what we call the ARCHERY ONLY tag. I put in for a point as my first choice, And then the AO tag as the second choice. The AO tag lets you hunt a lot of public land. The tag is a gimme. Down south there is plenty of wilderness area that hold deer. You will work your butt off for a smaller animal, but the reward quotient is high.

If I have more time, I will take my accumulated points and put in fir a quality hunt (bow or rifle) and still get the AO tag as the second choice. I’d=f I draw my first choice grit. If not, I get the point and trudge the subpar areas for an okay deer. You end to look at Regis to see which area are open to the AO tag. There are a lot of them.

Turkey! No prob. Lots of turkey. You may have to beg fir permission. But they are not beloved. Pigs. Public land. More up near me in northern ca.

And yes AZ is very close for you.

Good luck e everything.
 

super

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not sure there are any deer in southern california. atleast it doesnt seem like it. i've lived here all of my 16, nearly 17 years and I ain't seen one. All the hunting magazines i look at say all the good hunting is up north. really hope you can find some though.
 
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There is a ton of great hunting in SoCal, especially for archery. The Big Game Draw closes June 2nd.
Big Game Tag Drawing
If your move is imminent I suggest putting in to build points.
D19 zone is one of the unrestricted zones for deer as an example, which means over the counter tag. There is a lot of “wilderness” that is steep and huntable terrain from 500’ to 10,000 feet above sea level. With a point or two, there are a lot of desert wilderness opportunities.
A buddy of mine hunts archery and rifle in San Diego County, a little more private land there, so access is difficult, but they pull several deer out every year.

We have a BHA chapter and many other wildlife organizations here.
 

SWOHTR

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not sure there are any deer in southern california. atleast it doesnt seem like it. i've lived here all of my 16, nearly 17 years and I ain't seen one. All the hunting magazines i look at say all the good hunting is up north. really hope you can find some though.

Really? Drive 15 miles outside of SD and you’ll find some. Otay ranch area.


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Billinsd

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Lots and lots of public hunting in San Diego, but most is covered in chaparral. Hunting on public land is real tough and deer are very small. I don't like Temecula myself at all. I live in San Diego. If you like to bowhunt, I wouldn't leave Colorado. If you are getting a huge promotional salary you could hunt outside of California.
 

Lowke01

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IMO the job or family situation would have to be an absolute must to warrant a move here to California. That's for multiple reasons including hunting. You can hunt, but you probably won't have much fun compared to all the other Western States.
 

boom

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i have been admonished to NOT post up any of our game camera pics. but there are a lot of deer in one of the worst D-zones. down south!!

we are gonna try for one with the (damn-near) OTC archery only tags.
 

Billinsd

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A lot of deer in Southern California has a different meaning than a lot of deer in Colorado. Compared to Colorado there are very few deer here. You can find deer here and in some places you can find more than others. If you want to see our deer's potential you go to the San Diego Wild Animal Park in the evening when the deer come out and they are the best feed deer you will find and some are pretty nice, however, they are a subspecies of mule deer and they are not blacktail deer. I think they are a bit smaller in general than blacktails. D-17 has the transported rocky mountain variety and D-12 has very few deer, but a few real big ones. California is awful as far as all the new laws, taxes, etc. To me the public hunting is very poor in general compared to other Western States. I'm at the point now, where I really don't want to bother hunting here, and especially I don't want to support this state, so I save my nickels and hunt out of state as much as possible. I was born and raised in Southern California and it used to be a really great place until about the 70s, or 80s. Bill
 

5MilesBack

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Had enough of the Colorado population and traffic explosion, huh? I am real close........real close to doing the same, but it won't be CA.
 

BuckSnort

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A lot of optimistic posts above but I'm from CA and can't wait to move out of this hellhole.. If I was from CO and moving to CA I would hate it, not trying to be a debbie downer just being real..
 

William Hanson (live2hunt)

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I'm from California originally and it would take a ridiculous amount of money to get me to move back. That said, hog hunting used to be pretty good along the Santa ana river about 45 min north of temecula.

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