Speakin of WMA's

[cutun]

Do you guys spend much time hunting on the WMA's. Being a waterfowler I do hunt a couple of them from time to time. Have been lucky enough to get to hunt Hog Island on a drawn hunt. BUT, I've not had to good of experiences upland game hunting 0on them, dove hunting was a real bad experience. I even decided to give the turkey hunting a try this season.... til I lucked in on that privite farm. I'd been saying for years that if all I had to hunt was "public lands". I'd just have to give it up...... Trouble is, good clubs or privite lands are getting real hard to come by this days. I was raised in a ( good)deer club and could think of no other spot that I wanted to hunt. That club bit the dust and now, I've knocked around for a while now visiting clubs, joining a few along the way,only to find them "not too good". What do you guys think????

[Moccasin]

I did spend quite a bit of time on WMA's, Amelia and Powhatan when I lived in Chesterfield. The biggest problem I saw was the sheer numbers of hunters, especially during dove and deer seasons. I eventually quit going on weekends and holidays since so many people were out then. I never was much on hunt clubs, just never appealed to me to join one.

[fiasconva]

Cutun, I know exactly what you are talking about. I want to get back into hunting but I have only the WMA's to hunt. From what most of the people say, it's not worth the effort. I'm not a deer hunter so no real interest in the hunt clubs. I'd sure like to get back into a nice field or woods for a while though

[cutun]

Been trying to find a couple nice farms or a small timber tract to lease and do some upland game hunting, I say that because I consider myself a "part time" upland game hunter. I will hunt pretty hard in the spring for turkeys but in the fall, I will hunt the rut for deer...with my BP....then that's it for the deer. Then, it's waterfowl 24-7. Big thing for me is ...I like to know where folks are , with WMA's, people are always roaming around and you just never know who is behind the next tree. You'd think,with the bad rap big dog clubs have gotten it'd be easy to find a spot to still hunt....but it's not

[Vahunter]

I'm very particular about who I hunt with, so public land is out of the question. Now I'm sure everyone on this forum is a safe and responsible hunter so don't take offense when i say that the trigger happy city boys that frequent public land scare the hell out of me.

[Micro]

I pretty much gave up deer hunting some years ago. I never belonged to a hunt club, and never liked competing with other hunters on public lands. Hunting during the week was OK, but weekends was out of the question. I really love squirrel hunting, though, and may start doing that more. It's a nice, leisurely pursuit, and I love carrying a nice .22LR afield. Chickahominy WMA is an excellent place to squirrel hunt. When big game season is out and only small game is in, you can sometimes have the whole place to yourself.

[zephyp]

I'm very particular about who I hunt with, so public land is out of the question. Now I'm sure everyone on this forum is a safe and responsible hunter so don't take offense when i say that the trigger happy city boys that frequent public land scare the hell out of me.

If I lived in the country would that make me a trigger happy country boy?

[CajunBass]

I've never seen these "trigger happy city hunters" everyone talks about. Never. Maybe that's because I don't hunt public land on weekends, maybe it's just because I've been lucky.

I've hunted WMA's before. Mostly Powhatan, and recently Phelps, and to tell you the truth, I don't really remember ever seeing another hunter except in the parking lot maybe.

I also can't say I've ever killed anything on a WMA, which is probably more of a testament to my lack of skill as a hunter, than to any inditement of the WMA for the ammount of game available. I've sure seen sign to indicate that game is there.

I was a member of a hunt club, for years. Two actually, but the second one was only for one year. I enjoyed both of them. Both were "deer clubs" that hunted deer with dogs. I enjoy that type hunting, but I did just as much small game and still hunting. I've always been blessed with a lot of time off during the week, so I pretty much had the club land to myself most of the time. I might know that "Joe" was rabbit hunting or bird hunting somewhere, but that would be because I saw his truck parked. I'd seldom cross paths with him. Every deer I ever killed was with those clubs, and a lot of squirrels and other small game. Most importantly I made a lot of good friends.

[fiasconva]

Micro, I'm waiting until the 2nd part of dove season comes in next week to give Chicahominy a try. Have you ever hunted the 2nd part of dove season there? I think you can hunt there any day during the 2nd season instead of just Wednesdays and Saturdays like the first season. I'm going to have to give the squirrels a try too as soon as it cools off a little and the leaves start falling.

[Micro]

I've only hunted doves on Chick WMA when it first came in - to scratch and itchy trigger finger. Otherwise, when small game came in, I was done with doves.

[fiasconva]

The second part of the season comes in on Wed so, as usual, rain is predicted. I'll try to get up there but not if it's thunderstorms around.

[suburbanredneck]

I just moved to NoVA in '07. I immediately started looking for hunting spots. I didn't have any luck finding private land, so I decided to try out the WMAs. I probably spent 15 days hunting Phelps and Thompson last season. Only been out 3 or 4 times this year due to the birth of our second child. But I'll tell ya, I think Phelps is a fantastic piece of property. I pulled 3 deer out of it last year, 2 during archery, 1 during firearms. During archery season, I typically saw anywhere between 2 - 5 trucks in the parking lot I park at on the weekends. I believe there are 5 lots, and the one I park at is probably the busiest. There was more than one occasion last year when I was the only truck there. On the muzzleloader opener, there were probably 10 trucks. The following weekend it was back to about 5 trucks. Firearms season is a different story. Its significantly busier. The firearms doe day was crazy - the parking lot was completely full and folks were parking on the road leading to it. There were probably 30 trucks there when I arrived (1.5 hours before sunrise). I saw orange vests walking up and down the paths nonstop. But I will say this - I saw more deer movement that day than any other day I hunted. Same with the muzzleloader opener. So its a blessing and a curse.
I was amazed this year - on the archery opener there were only 4 trucks including mine and one of the guys I hunt with. The weekend after, only 2.
My feelings on Thompson are totally opposite. I hate it. Poorly managed, a nightmare to navigate, thick as heck. I'd rather sit in the treestand in my backyard with a 1% chance of seeing a deer than hunt Thompson.