I looked back at my pictures over the last 5yrs or so of when we killed our biggest bucks. I hunt both private land inside Bankhead and some Government land. My daughter shot her 8pt chasing does on Nov.15th on a youth hunt, and another 8 a couple yrs later on the same week. I have killed 3 good deer in the last 3 years. 2 were shot from Nov.20-27. The outlier was a buck following a doe Dec.20 but that was on a property south of 278 at Natural Bridge. Weird thing is that same property is where she killed on Nov 15th chasing. Bankhead is a different animal. I have helped drag out some mighty fine bow kills the last few years and those were from Oct,20-31. I know 2 of those were killed off scrapes. All things considered If you give me only 2 weeks to hunt that area I would be there from Nov 15-29th. I personally think it should be shut down completely to all hunting for the next 3 years while it gets some desperately needed restocking efforts. I think they should go with say an Iowa bloodline, or maybe Kansas. No hunting for 3 years, except for private lands inside the forest of course.
