Originally Posted By: JUGHEAD
Originally Posted By: metalmuncher
The biggest buck I ever saw in the woods was on a club that bordered Skyline WMA. Last two weeks of January is when you want to be there.
I've hunted most all of Skyline WMA at one point or another for about 25 years now and I would argue that you will have missed LOTS of good hunting by then. We've killed several good bucks chasing does on the mid December and end of December hunts over the years. You can certainly kill a goodun during the timeframe you mentioned roaming and looking for a last remaining doe, but your chance of seeing a chase during that time period is pretty slim, regardless of what part of Skyline you hunt (though I will concede I haven't spent a whole bunch of time right close to Highway 79). If you know what area to hunt when, you can hunt 2 distinctly different primary rut timings/cycles on Skyline WMA with a rifle.


I hunted the Jacobs Mt area , south of the shooting range, northwest of the town of skyline. Yes we did shoot some good ones earlier in the year. I killed a 9 point and my buddy killed a 10 point both on opening day of succeeding years. But other than the opening few days of the season, More of the better bucks (9 point or better) were killed in the last 2 weeks of the season than at any other time. I did only hunt there for 3 yrs though. I have seen chasing in the last week of January. I know that sometimes the deer only a few miles apart can have quite different breeding dates though, and this may be the case around there. On my club in Russell Co., the deer primarally breed in late Nov. as they do in the ajacent area of Georgia. 10 miles down the road, they breed mainly in January.