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Well, I got to go hunting yesterday for only the third morning this years because of how my work is going and Wolf River Management area has really gone to pot. This might be the first year in the last 25yrs that I do not take a deer, due to work, lack of funs to take a trip and my usual hunting spots not being like they use to be.

One of the major gas lines I have hunted through the years was always cut and planted with rye grass, and it was beautiful and through the years I have dropped some deer on this very gas line, in fact I would have to go back to my records and count how many I have killed on this very gas line over the last 20yrs. What is sad is that for the last two years due to lack of state funs, they have only planted 1/3 of what they use to. Here is a picture of the gas line I usually hunt and what it looks like today. The deer sign has dropped by at least 66% this years alone.

From where I am taking this picture out of my blind, which up on a steep grade, is 460yds to the end. You had better not fall asleep or fail to keep glassing or the deer will slip right across and blend into all the growth. Needless to say, I saw nothing and I did glass a whole lot especially along the edges incase one decided to step out and walk up or down one of the the edges for a ways before stepping back into the thick woods. Here are a few shots I took yesterday of what use to be one of my favorite spots to hunt.

 

[jbpmidas]

From the looks of it, you probably never saw more than you ever did!

 

[bullet]

From the looks of it, you probably never saw more than you ever did!

Not sure what you point is so help me out.

 

[jbpmidas]

It's very narrow! I hunt places like that and you really have to stay on your toes! I have a bad habit of napping in stands so I don't have much success in those places.

 

[bullet]

Oh, I see what you mean. I do hunt hard and use my binoculars a great deal of the time and in the past I have had a lot of success in this spot. Things have changed now so I need to change how I hunt in that area. Will have to pull out my 358Win Hawkeye and hunt the creek bottoms.

 

[cottonmouth]

I know what you mean, the Copiah County WMA is no where near what it once was.

J.B.

 

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We are not allowed to plant anything in the Management Area, they determine what is planted and they do the planting. The pressure from hunters on public land, it is oppressive at times and when there are a certain amount of hunters in the Management area they close it. It has been closed three times this year, that is how many hunters have been in that place.


When a favorite hunting place changes, it is like watching an old friend die, it really is, and that had been a friendly place through the years for me to hunt. The game warden says since that it is up on the north end, that it is surrounded by private leases that plant a lot of food plots and he believes from the tracks that cross the roads on the north end that they are going there to eat. He must be right because I checked out a creek that they have always used to get places and there was the same amount of sign I have seen in the past. It is hard to hunt the creek bottom because it has been logged and there are not trees to support a stand and it is very thick there.

Now you add the increase in hunters because of the population growth around where I live, it just makes it harder than ever, but that is where the challenge is and I like a challenge.