Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Tonto 2019 camp and shoot

Dates for this year's event are Feb 22, 23, 24 Friday thru Sunday.

Tonto Basin Arizona, just outside of Punkin Center.

Meals provided from Friday dinner to Sunday breakfast.

Most of us camp on site, it's a huge dispersed camping area on national forest, no faculties.
There is lodging available close also. We shoot on site also.

Lots of fun, shooting and BSing.

Some come early, I usually try to get there thursday.

I'm out hunting now and more details will come up, the regulars can answer questions,
just getting the dates out for those interested.

Kent

Best news I had all week.
Thanks.

Watching 4 bulls eating across the canyon, about a 10% chance they will cross over and give me an archery shot, most likely they will head up into the unhuntable manzanita patch.

Kent

Good Hunting Kent!

I really hope I can manage to be there!!!! This year I wanna see Camp Reno! 😉

We will plan some fun shoots and have a great time. Weather should be pretty good by then-certainly better than what a lot of the country will be seeing! I have a javelina hunt that weekend in the unit across the street but intend to go kill my pig Friday morning and be back in time for the festivities.

For us pussified men do you need 4 WD to get in to camp.

I drove an old Cadillac CTS in a few years back so I would say definitely "no" unless the road has taken a turn for the worse.

Saved the dates in my phone.

Well,Judy and I discussed it and due to my health issues we will not be attending.

We take RVs, cars, trucks, trailers. Pretty much anything can get there. I would advise against a Corvette or similar low-profile car as there are a couple of dips in the road. The dirt road is less than 2 miles and all but the last 1/4 mile is very nice graded road.

ttt

Roger that.

In this old 1881 map you can see the Old Camp Reno in the top right. The road from Tempe, which was the hub of what is now the valley including Phoenix, Mesa ect, Hayden's ferry on the Salt river... I was born a couple miles from Hayden's ferry on the other side of the river.

Anyway, the road from Ft McDowell to Camp Reno went through Sunflower, which is still there and an old mercury mine, we used to picnic there on Sycamore creek when I was a kid, and exploring an old mine shaft found a wooden box with blasting caps, Dad took them and being an engineer did something with them I can't remember. Though back then him and his hunting buddy also an engineer could get dynamite, Ray his buddy was an avid hunter and when he killed his mountain lion it went under a rock boulder to die and they had to dynamite it out.

That road is impassable now, I tried it on a quad 20 years ago, it goes over a steep mountain, I don't know how they used wagons to get supplies over from Ft McDowell, but that was the reason the camp didn't last long. Once the Apaches found out the camp was deserted they burned it down.

Kent

Here's an 1873 map showing Camp Reno.

Kent

Awesome. Hope my work schedule doesn't screw me again this year.

If your trailer axles are low to the ground, it will give you problems, but I knocked the tops off of a few rocks with a hammer and made it OK. Too early for me to know yet. miles

ttt

Well friend, that really sucks should I be able to make it. My wife is having a hip replaced in Jan, I have a knee scheduled for new parts in March, and I think I drew a HAM tag over a couple of hours west of the camp about the same time. I was hoping to fit it all in. Crazy yes, but I ain't dead yet so I figure I should keep busy having fun while I can.

Just take care of yourself. Maybe sometime I can make it to NM.

Geno

If I'm still alive I should be there.....hated missing Quemado last summer...

I've penciled it in. We'll see.

Norm