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bow only counties

I am a new member to the site and have been reading the site regularly for the past year. I have just moved to Charleston from Morgantown and am looking for a new place to hunt. I am not looking for any spots just opinions. Obviously I am running short on time but I am still planning on doing some hunting of some sort this year. I used to hunt Coopers Rock and really enjoyed it because of the spread requirement they had so public land is not a deal breaker for me. From all my investigation so far I am leaning towards hunting Logan, Mingo, or Wyoming county. I have always wanted to hunt the bow only counties and am excited I am finally relatively close enough to hunt them. From everything I have found so far I am leaning toward rd bailey wma or elk creek wma. I am a hunting maniac and have no problem with walking for an hour or more just to get to my stand location if it gets me away from the pressure. I realize that the terrain is steep and about as rough as I will find in the state but I'm not bothered by that at all. So I guess I was just going to ask opinions of the people with knowledge of the wmas I listed if they had an opinion on which wma was better for hunting and where I might have a slight chance of getting a decent buck with the small amount of time I have left to scout. Right now just from google earth and some topo maps I have two possible locations picked for both elk creek and rd bailey. I also was also open to coal company property and timber company property if anyone had any ideas of which properties are open to hunting. Thanks for your replies and good luck to all the mountaineers this season.

Lace up and hit RD Bailey, seems to always hold good bucks but requires a special mindset to hunt. Need to check it out because some gates that are open now are going to be closed before season opens and vis Versa . Shoot straight

It isn't just the roughest terrain in the state. It is as rough as anywhere in the World that is huntable. It is a FAR cry from Coopers Rock Terrain where an hour of walking will get you several miles from the truck. An hour of walking in either of those WMA,s might put you a .5 mile straight up from your truck if you mind your sweating and do it in the dark.

I've seen some nice deer in the Elk Creek WMA. I once saw 3 P&Y deer in the RD Bailey WMA in one day. I no longer hunt there due to several reasons. But, lack of big deer isn't one of them. Most of which you'll likely see for yourself if it hasn't changed.

Good luck and God Bless

Thanks for the replies! I wanted to go check it out last weekend but ran short on time. I will be going this weekend to check it out. I will most likely only be able to get out hunting only a weekend or two this year but I look forward to hunting a new location and getting an idea together for next year when I will have more time.

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