The land is not at all what I expected. There’s some serious terrain, up and down. Kinda like Choccolocco with sand. At least in my section. I did drive through a bit of river swamp traveling to my section.

There are a lot of deer, but they’re not behind every tree. And they’re still wild. I saw a decent buck from the stand but did not get a shot. I saw 9 on greenfields driving to and from my area.

Bruce Todd, the biologist, is quiet and understated but a nice guy. He did me a solid helping me navigate the roads then pointed out an area with good sign. There are scrapes everywhere in there.

Speaking of navigating the roads, lots of them have green city street style name signs. Just struck me as comical to see a city street sign on a dirt road by a food plot. I’m glad they have them. Woulda been hard to find my way around without them.

If you get drawn, stay in Jackson, not St Stephens Park. It adds to your drive time to stay at St Stephens. I’m sure it’s a great park (I’ve only seen it in the dark) but Jackson is more convenient to Stimpson.

I’m hunting through about lunch tomorrow and then heading home. Win, lose or draw, I enjoyed seeing some new ground and I hope the state will continue doing the SOA hunts or maybe even expand them to more areas

See turkeys?

Heard one gobble one time about 9 this morning. He wasn't far.

I was down there this past weekend. I too was surprised by the amount of relief in my section (Section 5). My section was small and had no food plots. It was also right off the road into the check station and the main road. I was very disappointed in this section. I'm glad my guest was unable to make it at the last minute. This section also abutts private land that had food plots so Bruce's advice was to get as close to the neighbor's property as possible to catch deer moving on and off the food plot. As I was getting my stand set up in the morning, a nice 6 point came out of the trail but my bow was still on the ground. I never saw another antler. I saw a lot of does - missed one by taking an inpatient shot. I stayed in the same area the entire day. Unfortunately, the private landowner decided to drive onto his greenfield and dump a load of lumber and start some construction project in the middle of the afternoon. Too late to move so I just sucked it up and enjoyed the squirrels. Bruce was helpful and gave good advice. There is no way for him to control what the private owner was going to do.

Day 2 I found a trail and followed up into an area that had a lot of sign and shooting lanes and also good cover for my climber. Again, only saw does. I passed on a couple of easy shots hoping to see one with horns. No luck.

I didn't hunt Day 3 - raining sideways and needed to get back home.

I will definitely sign up for every archery hunt offered on a special opportunity area. Next time, I will try to find out earlier which sections I am assigned to and do my best on-line scouting as far out as possible. If from my pre-hunt research I don't see a lot of promise in the section I will withdraw from that hunt. Since this was my first time to hunt public land, I would have gone to Section 5 anyway but the other sections looked a lot better from a topo standpoint. I will be more picky in the future. Second, I would take a deer cart. I didn't and I would have had a lot of fun trying to drag a deer through the deer trails and up and down steep terrain had I harvested one Third, a handheld GPS was essential - I marked the location of my truck as a waypoint since I entered and exited in the dark. You may have a good enough enough sense of direction but I would not have felt confident without one. Fourth, take shots when presented. In hindsight I wish I would have taken the doe that presented herself with a 20 yard broadside shot on day 2. Fifth, I stayed in Jackson at the Hampton Inn. Clean and comfortable and there are a few decent places to eat in Downtown (The Fat Cow (BBQ) and Lil Touch of Cajun).

I did see some big turkeys by the way

I messed up. Found that first sign, saw the buck. Kept hunting there. I should have scouted more. I felt pressed for time.

Sounds like you saw a bunch of deer, with no scouting. Not real sure what you are complaining about.

I'm not complaining. I was just letting folks know what I would do the same and what I would do differently. As I said, I would definitely do it again but because of the lack of scouting opportunities I would probably have a more precise game plan than I had this time.