Skyline WMA

So I bought my Hunting and Fishing License today and printed off the map today and saw this at top of it. Just letting others know about it. Got to go check in before hunt at a kiosk or checking station and get a daily permit for each day.

Bye bye Skyline, I won’t. be hunting you anymore

Mehh..I ain't wastin my time there no more

What a bunch of horse $hit, two permits. One of which ya gotta take time to get each day , STUPID! Chuck and Co. gonna rules, regs and license themselves out of business.

So can you not just grab a handful of self serve permits at the kiosk and fill them out as needed? Or am I missing something?

Bankhead zone b did that crap on deer hunts. It was so aggravating. Wake up 1hr extra early just to drive 40 extra miles just to get another permit. Waist of gas, money, time, sleep, danger of driving extra for what? So they can see how many hunters are coming? Its bad enough driving your deer way out of the way to check it in. Especially in the HEAT!!!!

Yeah crazy but they do have about 15 kiosk locations scattered around skyline wma. At least they put out more than one.

Is this for all game?

If Chucky gonna do stupid $hit like this he should be smart about it . Should be able to do it on yer smart phone or by using a call in number. He's increasing the carbon footprint having folks drive all over creation to get a stupid daily permit . AOC gonna get him!

Chuck recently said in an interview. The Wmas are under utilized. He said we need more hunters. Then they do crap like this.

Been having to do it forever in Mississippi. This year they went to a phone app for check-in.

This is by far the most hilarious thing I have read on this forum ever. I dont think this one can be beat. Obviously Chuck has never been hunting at a WMA in North Alabama. I cant fathom there being more hunters than there are that currently use them.

Took a glance. They got kiosks everywhere, it appears.
It is an aggravation. But shouldn’t be a Deal killer. And, yes,
Chucky needs to be made to hunt opening day at Skyline, maybe all season.

I haven't deer hunted on Skyline WMA since the mid 80's. That being said, I'd be shocked if the hunter to acreage ratio is higher now than in the 70's when there was only the Hytop area. It was bumper to bumper people , like a dove shoot in the woods.

I agree and that's one reason I quit going to Freedom Hills. I would drive half way across the State to get there. Drive for a daily permit. Then be regulted on what zone to hunt in. I had a 45 min conversation with Daniel Toole before he retired from Freedom Hills. He kept saying your odds go up when you have more people in a smaller zone. I told him yes but most of the deer a running you see and their so many people the enjoyment of the hunt goes down.

Is this new?

I've hunted WMAs for 40+ years and only ever gotten a "season map permit" as pictured. Would grab a handful and sign-date them whenver I went.

Never knew there was a second one, a "daily" permit.

It is for all game on skyline wma. It says for data collection. Is other WMA’s the same?

As far as I know it is for North AL WMAs, because I have never seen the requirement before. Someone in another thread said some of the other WMAs have been doing it before though. Several threads have been discussing this.

Your odds of getting killed go up too. Bet hes never hunted a WMA. Me and a couple friends were walking out of skyline several years ago on a gun deer hunt. We jumped 3 does that were right on top of us. These does were not far in front of us and gunfire broke out. Other hunters in front of us killed every one of those deer. And yes we were decked out in hunter orange. They dont care, they just want their 6 month old deer.

So now you have to have a state hunting license, WMA license, "season map permit" (pictured above) AND a "daily permit" -- along with federal and state waterfowl stamps, if you're hunting waterfowl -- just to hunt on a WMA?

Possibly SIX licenses, permits or stamps?

Screw that. Guess hunting the WMAs are off my list now, too.


Just like frogs being boiled slowly, and some folks don't even know it or worse, don't care.

Yes sir, that is correct.

The idea isn’t totally new. It’s kinda like it used to be in the 80s and maybe into the 90s when you had to wait at the check station to be issued a day permit for the gun hunts. At some point they started leaving the cards there to be picked up without the biologist being present, and even eventually doing away with it all together. These were for gun/mzl deer hunts only. Having to do this every single hunt for all game is beyond silly.

I think they are tryin to run everyone off to sell the land. It's doesnt make sense. Like usual.

As I remember the only permits were for gun and ML and they were for all days of the hunt . Gun hunts were two day hunts, you could get your permit the day before and it covered both days. And yes, this is beyond silly.

Are these kiosks electronic? How much $ the state spend on this crap? If they just have paper , free pick permits that are pre dated , does a state employee drive to each one each day and change them? Don't matter how they're doing it it's STUPID!

The locals should call State Rep Tommy Haynes, he's a hunter and does hunt Skyline. He doesn't march lock step with Chucky on most issues. He doesn't march with the rest of Montgomery for that matter, voted against the gas tax, my man!

Exactly.

A specific hunt - a gun hunt that might attract a horde - is fine.

Joe and his son or daughter wanting to go have a few hours for squirrels but having to do this every time? Meh.


More rules, more regulations, more laws, more nitpicky stuff, more fees, more mandatory demands - it all will continue to contribute to a further decline in hunting.

They're trying to make people lay off the deer slaughter for a couple of years. I think the difficulty is the entire point of the process. Based on what folks on here say about the hunting at skyline every year it sure ain't gonna hurt the deer population to make it a PIA to hunt it.

Skyline sucks, stay away....

If they want less does killed then make it buck only. Pretty simple thing to do.

Alabama’s wma system is a joke and has been for years. Why I don’t support Forever Wild any more.

I don’t know why they don’t open some all season like most states do.

I hunt FW lands often both land within the WMAs and outside of WMAs. I appreciate that program and find it difficult when a hunter would not support that program. There are over 22,000 acres outside of the WMAs that are manged as open permit public lands and according to the information in the Disgest around 228,000 acres are within our WMAs. Man that would suck for the public land hunter if those 228,000 were not available.

Regarding the daily permits, the main WMA I hunt (Hollins) has been doing this for a couple years. The kiosk are easy to access and it takes all of about 2 minutes to grab a permit fill it out and move on, then at the end of my hunt another couple minutes to drop the portion you carry with you while hunting. In talking with the area bilogist, i can understand need user inormation for management and reporting to the USFW in association with the PR dollars that help fund our DNR.

Crenshawmike, are you saying you're required to turn a portion of that daily permit back in after you get done hunting??

Barbour has been doing daily permits for years.

From what I was told last season by a Conservative Officer. (Yes). Your required to check in and out.

Yes, the daily permit is different than the map permit. It has a portion you fill out and tear off put in a box, carry the other portion with you while hunting and put that in a box on your way out. Kiosks with the daily permits are on all WMA main roads at Hollins. Looking at the skyline map that started this thread, they are at all main roads also.

Good Lawd, that makes it even more ridiculous , having to turn part of the permit back in at the end of each day. I bet folks who live within walking distance are really gonna comply , especially for skwerls and such.

Used to have great hunting at oakmulgee and then they went in and cut all the hardwoods out and replanted pine. Ain't never seen a deer eating pine straw.

......or pine cones.

Good luck with a cell phone at skyline

But managed correctly they provide way more forage then most hardwood monocultures.

I aint drivn back to dump no permit off. Its bad enough goin outta the way to get 1. I aint looked at the wma laws for this year yet. I will quit if thats the case. I know a bunch that quit buyin the wma license already.

They're going to have to invest more money than it's worth into enforcement to think this crap will work. At over 60,000 + acres I want to know what they think they can accomplish by thinking people will invest in time and money to travel back and forth to get a permit and return it. With game check now just punch in private land and go home it you connect. Chuck wants to add hunter numbers but tie them up in regulations That ain't the way to accomplish anything but noncompliance

That's what pine foresters say, even if true there's that pesky managed correctly part , which I'm sure the state along with most don't do.

I hear that. So what do the deer eat in planted pines? Cause all i see are pine needles, cones and pine trees. I dont see any undergrowth. I aint never heard anyone explain what exactly the deer eat! How can you trade oaks with pines and come out better for deer forage?

Maybe in the first three years after planting while in cutover stage but that WMA has a lot of tall open pine areas with very little cover or feed. Wonder why their harvest and buck quality has gone down there? Hmm....

How many acorns are falling in March thru September? There is a time when pines aren’t as giving to the needs of deer but once the first thinning happens it opens up way more forage. Big open hardwoods are definitely prettier and I love them but a good balance of both is way better then all of one type. Of my 40 acres I have 15 set in long leaf that are 7 or 8 years old. I promise you I have way more forage for deer then I did before I cut timber. We have seen wildlife numbers grow triple what it was before also. Trust me I hate seeing a 2000 acre property with 200 acres of 40’ wide smz’s and the rest in pine.

Fire and plow

What's ruining hunting is people that think they have to go sit in a deer stand and blast a doe just because the season is open. Filling out the permit is not doing a dern thing but weeding out the folks that don't want to follow rules. It might improve the hunting on the place.

If you are so butthurt about it that you can't go fill out a permit.... take up golf or do something else with your Saturday. Join a club with a bunch of other doe blasters. Figure it out.

I can guarantee you that that ain't happening. And NO there aren't hundreds of kiosk spread all over the sixty some thousand acres.

Probably would have saved a lot of heartache and panic if you would have taken a picture of the reverse side for those that didn't read that the dates were posted on the other side. Or you can call Skyline WMA for those dates. But I just wanted to let y'all know that there is a fifteen dollar privilege fee charge for that call. lol

My point exactly

22000 acres scattered across the entire state

And 228,000 acres that are scheduled hunts

Why not open 150,000 to statewide seasons like most other states do?

Id venture to say...if they opened those 150k acres to state schedule, the hunting would just get worse. The wma's that i hunt are packed. The kill numbers are pathetic. We sure dont need more hunting days on them.

Alabama is always the exception

Of course

I imagine it's like the daily permits you get at alot of out of state places I've been to. They ask what you've seen, killed, etc on that hunt. It's not that big a deal. Half yall would gripe if you got hung with a new rope, the other half dont even hunt skyline so what's it matter to you.

It’s been that way on Skyline for awhile. They only do it on a couple of the gun hunt not all of them.

We definitely dont need more days hunting deer and turkey on the North AL WMAs. I cant speak for the others. More days would put an absolute beating on the deer population. Dont get me wrong, I would love more hunting days, but the acreage and animal population just cant handle it, not with the amount of hunters we're talking.

Probably should close them for 10 years and restock everything