I got selected to hunt at Uchee Creek SOA on 1-23 thru 1-26. I will be hunting area 11. Has anyone hunted this area that can help me out? Thanks in advance

I will be hunting it Hallowen weekend...Yes unit 11..so I am only gonna make the Saturday and Sunday part of the hunt due to work...I can feed ya some info but not much time for educated precision hunting...so scouting using satelite images and topo.. will be the plan..Will have that 1 whole day to adjust to get close to a shooter if out of range..The biologist did say that I could access the south side of the unit through unit 10/12...that could be advantageous depending on the wind direction..

That should be real close to peak but on those dates

I hope I catch the rut. The Biologist told me I would catch the second rut.

If you want to pm me I would appreciate any help or information you may have on the area. Thanks

Who is the biologist?...There are some areas over that way that have some weird rut dates. Some places close to the river rut in November but I don't think you're far enough east to get any of that. I think the rut around Uchee occurs about the same as everywhere else around here. I don't see how you would be catching the second rut either way. That would make the first rut around Christmas. The second rut for most places around here occurs in late Feb.

There are some guys on here who hunt within a couple miles of the Soa land so maybe they'll set me straight

PM sent..

Richard Tharpe is the biologist there. That's what he told me when I talked to him several weeks ago.

PM sent

I used to hunt this land. It’s definitely a Christmas rut.

I knew someone on here would know for sure. It's crazy how the rut changes across such short distances in that area. I used to hunt in Seale behind Russell Co High School.....which is just a few miles east of there....and we had a rut that happened during bow season. If you go just a few miles west then you get into the late Jan rut. You wouldn't think that an overlap would cause it to "average" out like that but it seems like that's just about what has happened. It seems like to me it would be more likely to get some does kicking off early and some late....Unique area for sure.

There's a few aldeer members that hunt real close to there. I'd be curious to see when their rut occurs

Hopefully someone will have that information. Richard Tharpe is the biologist in that area and I talked to him for a while about the rut in that area. He said there was 2 ruts there and the last one should be during the time I will be hunting. Hopefully I will have a chance to see some nice bucks.

I killed a buck that was following a doe out there two years ago on Jan 6th. There may still be some activity going on when you get down there. I went down there with a buddy this last weekend and I shot a really big buck on section 5 but couldn't recover it. So if you see a big ol limping joker when you get down there put him out of his misery for me.

I'm headed down there for the Dec 5 hunt. Will be in the SE portion of the Area - #8. We weren't able to make the scouting weekend so we're studying the topo map and trying to make a plan from that. Not much else we can do.

We are hunting section #10 November 18-21. Did y'all hunt hardwoods or fields while you were there last weekend?

I think your timing will be pretty dang good! Part of my old lease is part of the SOA now......rule of thumb for us was always Martin Luther King jr. weekend. Some nice deer in that area......some areas are hard to hunt and thick which allows for some of the deer to get some age on them.......pending weather I think your weekend will be pretty good timing!

We hunted hardwoods and transition lines between hardwoods and pines. The buck I shot was eating acorns under a big water oak. There were only a handful of trees that were really dropping acorns while we were there and the rest were still hanging on so there should still be plenty of food on the ground when y'all get down there. The fields were plowed but not growing anything yet.

THANKS FOR ALL THE INFORMATION. EVERYONE THAT HUNTS DOWN THERE THIS YEAR KEEP US UPDATED PLEASE.

Im responding to the guy who asked about section 10 at Uchee. I was a guest there this past weekend. We saw good bucks eating acorns in the bottoms on the south west end, like they didn't have a care in the world. Out of range. The fields were dead grass but eat up with tracks.

Thanks for the info. I've never hunted this part of the state and didn't know what to expect.