With Skyline having 60K acres, I think there is a large variety of opinions on how good the hunting is there. I see a lot of hunters parking and only going a short ways into the woods. I think that leads to hunters being frustrated after the sun comes up and seeing other hunters in proximity.

I grew up in Scottsboro until I went off to college in '86. My dad and I hunted some private land on Crow Mountain and over in PRV. We never hunted Skyline WMA, which was smaller back then. Back then it was even tougher to see a deer and it was bucks only. I think I only saw two or three deer before I moved away.

I moved back to AL in 2004 and started hunting again in 2013. But I didn't get serious with it until last year. Last year on three hunts I shot one buck and one doe and saw another buck. This year on two hunts I have seen 6 does and zero bucks. I did take a doe on 12/12. I have seen much more sign this year than last, but I am learning where to look.

I think with Skyline you have to be willing to go a little farther off the dirt road and look for the areas they aren't getting pressured or look for the routes they will take when they are pressured. Unfortunately, that sometimes means you have to get there earlier, go farther and when you score, you have a longer, more difficult task to get the deer out.

To paint Skyline with broad strokes when it is such a vast landscape is wrong in my opinion. I think there is a lot of acreage where you won't see anything but orange. There is a lot that's inaccessible without a very long walk because it is bordered by private land. But there is some good hunting that will require you to walk a good ways and may involve a change in elevation of several hundred feet. For me, I cannot afford a hunting club and don't know anyone with land willing to let me hunt so far. So I absolutely enjoy the resource I have in hunting the WMAs and appreciate that our state has made them available.