My son got stationed ant MacDill about 2 months ago. He’s beginning to learn the area. Didn’t know if any of you guys have any recommendations on WMAs in his area. Looks like most are about an hour out of Tampa.

He plans to search out some of the rivers in the coming weeks and scout out some of the near by areas

Thought I’d reach out here too

Also, looking for a good Florida outdoor forum recommendation similar to ALdeer to refer him to

Thanks

Hunting in this area SUCKS! I like ~10 miles from the base as the seagull flies.

There is croom and citrus WMA, north of Tampa. Both will be busy during season. Avon park is another decent area for FL.

E.g. Citrus >50,000 acres and they killed 93 deer. No food plots, pretty good amount of deer, but you can only shoot bucks and the season is stupid short and you have to be drawn to hunt.

They don't give a crap about hunting.

Might as well fish and hunt women.

Don’t end up shooting a buccaneer in a fight like my dumb friend did 😂🤣😂🤣

https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1991/02/10/buccaneer-shot-in-argument/

Fishing is about like hunting an WMA on opening morning down here now. It is insane. You have to get your pelican dehooking certification to fish on some piers (not joking).

I used to hit the skyway often on my way home from work. It was great. I would just throw Got-cha lures for mackerel. Then they started charging, didn't go as much. Now it is so crowded you can barely fish.

There would be a person every ~3 light poles, and today it is like this most any decent weekend.

This is the case everywhere with hunting and fishing.

All hunting will be over an hour away. Any decent WMAs will require several points to draw a quota permit. It's too late to put in for permits this year (Mat 15- June 15). Green Swamp East, Richloam and Croom WMAs all are open to hunting without a permit after the first 9 days. Richloam is a dog hunt WMA and is 60,000 acres. Green Swamp is 60,000 acres of still hunt area south of Richloam, with not nearly as many roads as Richloam. He might be able to walk and get away from people in GS. Croom is different. It's 30,000 acres and It has a lot of deer and a lot of people (hunters, hikers, bicyclers, ect). Hunting in these WMAs is challenging and folks will say it's not worth going. Other folks will kill deer in these WMAs every year. My advice would be to be happy with any legal buck and be persistent. Be in early and sit until last light and don't get discouraged if (when) you get walked in on. Don't take it too seriously.

I grew up ~15 miles from Croom:

Croom = they killed 99 deer out of there last year. 1 deer per ~300 acres. No one is passing on a legal deer waiting for something better.

Deer with at least 1 antler having 3 or more points (each point 1-inch or more in length) OR a main beam length of 10 inches or more.

3 days Mz (this is the best hunt - quota)
22 day Gen gun

https://ocean.floridamarine.org/HGMSearch/BrochureDetails.aspx?srctype=pfs&title=croom

A lot of folks I know down that way hunt the Ocala NF.