Lake Ophelia Report

[Reggoh]

My dad and I went for a weekend trip to Lake Ophelia on Nov 8-10, 2013.
We had scouted out an area the previous Saturday with a lot of fresh sign and when we got there Friday all indications were that everything was still very fresh and no one had been back in our spot.

We hunted Friday from 11am until dark.
Hunted Saturday all day with a 30 minute break back to the truck for lunch.
Hunted Sunday until about 10am

We didn't even see one deer... Talked to a few people around the refuge and they all said about the same... they were hunting the fresh sign but were not seeing a lot of daytime movement.

We only saw 1 person with a dead deer while we were going out... a small doe killed right at dark on Saturday night.

I guess that is just part of deer hunting... sometimes they move and sometimes they don't.



We stayed at Mac's Campground and that wasn't the most pleasant experience...

The "Shower House" was actually 1 toilet and 1 shower stall... no sink. The toilet was utterly disgusting and I don't think anyone has dumped the trash this year. There was actually smeared poop in several spots on the floor and there was a surprise package in the toilet when we got there.

There are 3 people that live there permanently and I suspect that the guy in the camper at the very end has a home based business selling drugs... people coming and going ALL FREAKING NIGHT on Friday night... we didn't sleep very well... one of them even honked the horn all the way out of the camp site just to make sure we were fully awake. Thankfully Saturday he was apparently out all night and we were able to get some rest.

I did get to meet Mr. Mac on Saturday evening and he was very nice and offered us some spots to try next time we go back to Lake Ophelia. His brother killed a nice deer that night too on private land near the camp ground.

I stopped off to check out The Red River campground and looked a little nicer but when I talked to him he does not have a shower facility or bathroom and does not allow tent camping... RV or Camper only for $25/night and it is about 3 miles closer to the Refuge than Mac's.