Choccolocco wma

I would like to hunt there but don't have a clue where to go. Can anyone tell me a general direction where to go? Are there a lot of deer there?

i live in jacksonville and hunt it a pretty good bit yes there are a lot of deer there but you have to do your homework i like hunting around white plains watershed not as many acorns as last year also try the mountain longleaf section but it is very steep in spots hope this helps

Havent been there since the mid-80's. Wish I could help.

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I've hunted Choccolocco since I could legally go by myself. Now that it is split in two sections you may want to familiarize yourself to the different zones, since the gun hunts alternate which zone they are in. In my opinion, if you get far enough off the road ( up to a mile or more) you can't go wrong. With the pressure on the WMA it pays to put your hiking boots on. I focus on the main part of the WMA. I'm not a big fan of the smaller tracts on the old McClellan property, but people do kill deer there. Try and locate areas on the map that can put you out of reach of the weekend warriors who walk a few hundred yards in and sit. There are a number of pretty hardwood bottoms but I prefer to find areas that have a mix of hardwoods and pines. The closer you can get to the thick stuff the better. With the pressure that gets put on the deer during weekend hunts they will be heading for the thick stuff. Pattern other hunters and you will be a lot more successful. Just my two cents.

I took my first deer with a bow there in 93

With 45000+ acres Choccolocco should be crawling with deer but it just isn't. I've been there many many times and not even see a track much less a deer. Back in the 70's/80's the deer were thick there but something happened. Maybe they sent in drone attacks and poisoned them or something.

One problem with Choccolocco, is it is located in the National forest, therefore the roads are maintained by the forest service. They don't want to have to keep the roads up, so they close all the secondary roads. Hard to hunt the 45,000 acres, when you can't get to it. It steeeep! Not everywhere, but most places, and where its not, that's where your going to find most hunters. The NE corner of the management area has some big bucks, but also some steeep ridges and deeep hollows. Try and find a road, that is closed that runs parallel with a road that is open and well traveled. You know hunters will hunt off the well traveled road and you go down the closed road, and let the hunters push deer to you. Try and find a thicket on that road and setup between it and the other hunters.

So why do you think there were so many more deer there 40 years ago than today?

Not sure there were more deer 40 years ago. In the 80's they would have over 1000 hunters on a hunt. Deer were moving everywhere. Then about the mid 90's clubs took off and the hunters numbers dwindled. They had the doe population in check in the mid 90's, and then when hunters dwindled, the doe population exploded again. Not that many people hunt the management area, like it used to be. Lack of hunters, deer don't move as much and people think the numbers have dwindled. The deer are pushed from the roads in the mornings, and they just go where there are no hunters. Used to, there would be hunters waiting on those pushed deer.

Well your comments are interesting to read and it's possible you are right but I don't think so. When I was a kid I heard stories of deer hunters counting doe after doe and as many as 100+ per day. That would have been in the 1970's timeframe. Especially in South Alabama and I've talked to people who hunted Choccolocco area and there were many more deer there too so they say.

Well, i'm 50, and hunted the management area every hunt for years in the late 70's and 80's. Did i see a lot of deer? Yea. 100 a day, come on man. I'd see groups of 8-10 doe. Somebodys pulling your leg. Mountain terrain, cant support a high deer density like farmland can. Now, with that being said, there was a dieoff in the 70's, linked to some disease, maybe CWD. There were more deer there in the 90's, than the 70's, just like the rest of Alabama.

wouldn't say there's a lot of deer there. It should be since there going to quality deer management program now. And also stop having so many hunter's choice hunts. Hunters kill off to many young deer. North part of the management area is a good place to start looking around

Only time I've ever doubled up deer hunting was at Choccola , I was so mad that morning at my buddy who walked me WAY back into the woods before daylight and just pointed in a direction in the pitch black dark to "walk that way and climb a tree" Ok so I climb a tree and hour after daylight I see a descent rack buck walking about 75 yards on the side of the ridge, got the crosshairs on him and dropped him in his tracks (6 point). Was'nt 15 minutes later I heard a shot and my buddy killed a 8 point. Very good hunting memory!. I always heard stories of my pawpaw, dad and uncle waiting in the mile long line of hunters waiting to get in the gate on a Choccolocco deer hunt in the early- mid 1970's . I had always wanted to kill a deer there because of the history and all the stories I had heard them tell about the place. The 6 point I killed that morning is a special one to me.

The stories of 100's of deer was from South Alabama around Selma if I remember right. Not Choccolocco. I was just a little guy and since we had no deer in marshall county I remebered these stories well. Now you got me wondering if they were true and I also remember shooting a doe was a sin, just something you didn't do, tabboo, wrong, against nature and when I began deer hunting I had to change my way of thinking to even be able to shoot a doe.

Seeing 100's of deer in south Alabama, may have been a common occurrence, i thought you were talking about Choccolocco. Stories often are exaggerated. South Alabama was loaded with deer, and still is, but they started hammering the doe's down there and some of the big farms, i think turned to pine plantations when wood became more financially stable than farming. Remove food, and the carring capacity drops.

I can remember seeing 25 deer a day on Skyline in the late 70's and now your lucky to see that many in season. I think between the doe days and coyotes the pop is way below carrying capacity.

I agree ridgestalker. When i go to Choccolocco and see those big woods with mature hardwoods its beautiful but you can go near and far and not see a deer nor a deer track. I just don't buy in to the talk about it being so big the deer are hiding way back off the road. I've hiked way back and all over that place for the past 12 years and I'm amazed at what little wildlife I see there. Deer ought to be crawling all over that place. Then I get to thinking maybe it's my age. I grew up in a time when deer were all over the place when we went deer hunting. Seems people get excited over seeing just a couple nowadays. Then I read articles about there is more deer than people in Alabama...I don't believe one word of it. Hell even just a 3 or 4 years ago I can tell a drastic decrease in pop just driving around. I don't see near as many as I used to. All I see is more and more people driving around as fast as they can go and more and more houses.

I've learned one thing over the past 20+ yrs of hunting the national forest. Drive right on by those beautiful mature hardwoods and look for young pine plantations and 2-3yr. old cutovers. *Sometimes you can find saddles/funnels in those hardwoods that are productive if the understory is thick enough and often this is in rough, steep country(bluffs,cliffs). But mainly look for edge, transition, and thick cover.

My.02

I'll second what Stob said. There are a lot of pretty woods but the deer don't normally hang out in those woods when the pressure gets on. Hunt the edges of the nasty stuff and as high on a ridge that you can. My favorite spot is on the side of a tall ridge and right next to a few acre patch of thick woods. It's a hike to get to it but when the gun shots start going off, the deer will be heading to cover.

Agreed. National park looking hardwoods can be like a desert during hunting season, especially when there are no acorns.