I would like to know yay or nay on the SOA system

Does it take away access to public land that EVERYONE SHOULD be privy to? Yes....Does it provide amplified quality hunting opportunities? Debatable

Do you support additional SOA's? Should the SOA's be done away with? Should the SOA program remain the exact same?

Let me know your thoughts

I support them for no reasons other than, it gives those that dont have access to private land/leases, that want to be able to go on, and enjoy a quality hunt, with a legit chance to take a quality buck, the chance to do so. If they were open all season to the general public, they would be over-hunted and shot up like most other public land that is not heavily controlled with regard to access and hunt dates. The top ones would be basically ruined within 2 yrs. I dont hunt public land and I've never been on an SOA hunt or even registered for one so my opinion is unbiased from that perspective.

Lots of people want to kill every deer they see. Others want to the opportunity to be able to hunt a good heavily managed area where a trophy buck is a real possibility. Some of these SOA areas (Cedar Creek as an example) give the guys that dont have access to good private or leased land this same opportunity if that's what they want.

Not sure how that is debatable? For the average Joe, hunting a low(er) pressure and higher managed area is going to be a better experience than fighting the orange army on a WMA.

Yes, for the same reasons listed by abolt above, I am for them.

I like them. Not unlike draw hunts in other states

Debatable because some SOA's were outranked as far as man days hunted/deer harvested


In other words, it took less man hours on some tracts of public land to harvest a deer than it did on several SOA's

The same statistic is true for bucks. Read it in AON magazine(RIP). They come out with the man hours/deer harvested chart every season with data from the season prior.

Now we are working our way in the right direction. What is to stop ALL public land from becoming an SOA in the future? People always talk about wanting to be like other states....do you really wanna wind up with virtually zero open access public land as is the case with much of the midwest?

Do you we want to wind up with only being able to draw a permit on "public" land in some of the highly sought after areas in the black belt once roughly every 3 years(after enough preference points are garnered)

I would think vast tracts of open permit public land is actually one of the GOOD things about this state

makes me angry that people would rather the state start sanctioning off land to make it "easier" to shoot a deer instead of resolving themselves to hone skills and spend the time, and play the pressure as is required to take a deer on open access public land.


It's not any different than socialism, I want the state to allot me land that makes it easier on me to kill a deer instead of doing the work myself to find and shoot one on land that is already public. and in the process I want to remove opportunities for everyone and give it only to select few who are lucky enough to win the lottery and get drawn.

Yes. I think the state needs to add more. I have hunted twice on SOA and several Quota hunts out of state and it's nice not to have to worry about other hunters.

I fully support the SOA hunts. I wouldn't want all public land to be a draw style hunt. There are some studs killed on the SOA and regular area hunts. One major difference is pressure. Everyone agrees pressure can negatively impact hunting and its very hard to find unpressureded land for the average hunter. SOA hunts provide that opportunity. BTW, in the states I'm familiar with in the Midwest there is a good bit of public land.

My concern is that all public land would turn into an SOA or somesuch draw unit. What is to stop that from happening? The state has smelled blood in the water with how easy it is now to get people to buy a WMA permit in order to register for a selection. Where will they stop with it? What good will a WMA license be if in 10 years you have to get drawn to use it anywhere

So which is it? You say they are making it "easier" to kill a deer, yet holding up stats that say otherwise.

The goal isn't easier. The goal is better quality experience.

I’m saying it can be done without robbing others of public land opportunities. If you’re willing to work for it. Do you actually want to hunt down a deer via skill or rely on the state to manage into fruition for you?

I don't mind hunting down a deer via skill. But as we all know in terms of mature bucks, you can't hunt down what isn't there. I do want to rely on the state to manage some properties in such a way that makes hunting a mature buck a possibility.

I'm a fan of the soa's . Especially if they keep adding tracts that where not previously available for public hunting.

I’ll climb on the same boat here. If they weren’t available before then have at it but the concern is that the big push I’m seeing here will lead to previously open permit land being available only via lottery.

The whole point (they said) was to get more people interested in hunting. Making land only available to a select few doesn’t seem to accomplish that goal

Here we go asking the State to Improve something lol because that’s worked so many times before

Nightwatchman,

I fully support the SOA system and I’m a diehard public land hunter. You still have to scout and work hard to kill a deer on an SOA, there are just more quality bucks because the land is managed. As far as the man hours it takes to kill a buck being higher that makes sense when some of the antler restrictions are 18” main beam and 16” inside spread. If those restrictions weren’t there I could’ve killed a buck the first and 2nd morning I hunted Cedar creek last weekend and brought the man hours way down.

The state isn’t robbing anybody of an opportunity. They didn’t take any land from existing WMAs and turn them into SOAs. It seems like your fretting over something that has no indication of happening.

From my understanding, there's no desire by the dcnr to take away opportunities. Instead they're offering a different opportunity. A person has a legit opportunity to kill a large buck or several does with minimal effort put into preseason preparation and without spending much money. That's certainly appealing to some people (including me). As far as stats on man days per deer, I've hunted FTS, PL and CC and there were ample opportunities to kill deer and hogs. I've only killed one deer but it wasn't due to lack of opportunities. Deer are being passed on these areas that would be killed in a lot of other scenarios.

I hope you’re right. I hope I am worried over nothing but I see this going the way of the Dominant gobbler fiasco. The dominant gobbler narrative got popular and here we are with less days to turkey hunt. My concern comes from the expansion this year. they are annexing additional property into the SOA system and the scuttlebut is that they are looking to add more. And what’s stopping them from making EVERYTHING an SOA? To the State, it must seem like a really easy way to rake in $18.31 per pop knowing everyone will spend it to register for a hunt

Numerous states have lottery hunts for certain areas, they generate a few extra dollars and hunters get the chance at hunting above average land and game. Lets say they decide to make every WMA special opportunity…all 36 and 750,000 acres or so, you do realize there are almost a million more acres public accessible through National forests and TVA alone, right?

I think if they gonna keep having them then once you get drawn you shouldn’t be able to for a few years so others have an opportunity, and before y’all think I’m jealous or complaining I have plenty of places to hunt and don’t worry about me applying. Il