Recently, I asked someone at DCNR about the loss of WMA's, particularly in southwest Alabama, where we have lost over 30,000 acres of public hunting in two years. Most of that was Scotch WMA in Clarke County, removed from the WMA system due to an alleged threat the federal government listing the black pine snake as endangered. Despite that, most, if not all, of the former Scotch WMA has been privately leased.

But I digress. The DCNR official informed me they have no plans to try to replace these WMA's, but intend to try to increase SOA hunts. I don't see how they can get anywhere close to the access WMA's provided with SOA's.

It's a shame no one is looking to replace the WMA's. They were a great opportunity and drew lots of people and lots of money in.

If you know something different, post it here. If not, maybe we should start a letter/email writing campaign to DCNR.

I don't know how hard they tried to keep the Coosa WMA from losing 3/4 of it's land, but it certainly was disappointing for those of us who used it.

I think the SOA may be a good model if they have only a few hundred acres in a tract, but I really hate to see it be their main way to manage. They have enough land at Cedar Creek to make a very nice WMA in an area of the state that really needs some public land, but most of us will never get to set foot on it. But at least we can read about the great hunts that our director has on it, so I guess we can enjoy it vicariously through him.

I want kinterbish back....i only got to go once....then it was gone. Saw a pile if turkeys on it.

Public Lands, in general, is one of the few places I and the Republican Party (as a whole) don't see eye to eye. Republicans, in general, want to sell off public lands, or in the case of the Federal Gov't, turn them over to the state to do with as the state pleases (which, more often than not, ends up being selling the land off). I'm as hardcore conservative as anyone on 98% of topics, but the Public Land issue falls into that 2%.

Kinterbish was a gold mine for bowhunting. I hauled a ton of deer off of there on gun hunts too.

As I recall reading somewhere Alabama is one of the lowest states in the entire country for public land.

I've complained for years about this.... Alabama power hasn't put a WMA or a Waterfowl/Bird dewatering area or a single dern thing around ANY river in AL. Not one.

They'll sell you a lake lot though.

It's bad. I don't know what to do about it y'all keep electing people like Kay Ivey who then appoint people like Chuck Yikes. What do you expect. Our house ain't in order. Won't be in 4 years either.

I'm plenty open to correction if I'm wrong, but ain't no way a WMA "draws in money". As I would imagine, nothing could be more opposite of the truth. The reason Alabama has shrinking public lands is because they don't have a fraction of the money needed to preserve what we have/had, much less expand. I suspect much of the land used as WMAs is perhaps timber company land? At the end of the day, the timber company (or whoever actually owns it) can just make far more money from someone other than the DCNR. Does the State actually own any/much of the WMA lands?

This. And why I cant stand Ted Cruz.

Yep it sucks. Not enough land to go around. And think, look how much land on James d Martin thats not accessible. That non accessible land adds to our total state land numbers but hell you need a helicopter to hunt it.

Lived for years close by and never hunted it. The year I decided to scout it and bowhunt they closed it down.

X100

An older guy told me that you used to could hunt power company land for free as long as you got a permit. He said he used to walk out of his house and go across the road with a shotgun and deer hunt on power company land. This would have been in Elmore county near the coosa river above lake Jordan. Is there any truth to this?

We will also be adding acres for those type areas. The Dept. is constantly on the look out for properties to purchase and manage. It’s hard to find quality 10,000 acre tracts for sale.

And ikillbux is right. Every acre lost was privately held and has since been leased at fair or over market value. Nothing could be done about that.

Night hunter I believe I read an article a few years ago that talked about possible additions to the forever wild lands. I believe I remember reading that Forever Wild was considering buying white oak plantation along with another 2,000 acres in Macon county. Did that have any truth? Also I remember seeing in that same article that they where planning to add to Yates lake WMA which did happen.

Link

This was the article

This is not the state, this is the DCNR. Different money from different pots.

Not to my knowledge.

Kinterbish was awesome. Too bad. They sold off some of the best parts of Barbour too.

You don’t realize just how little public land Alabama has until you go out out of state.

I’m thankful for what we have and thankful for every bit of public ground the state adds.