Bowsite.com

Hunting land & best counties for deer

My son and I have never hunted in West Vir. and we would like to try hunting in your state. What would be the best counties to look at with plenty of public land? Also our son wants to try and find some hunting land with a small cabin to buy. He is looking for 20-40 acres. He just got out of the Army a year ago and he wants a get away place. Thank you so much for your help. Mike Mahan in Ohio

Stonewll Jackson WMA and Lewis County is full of deer.

Probably your highest deer concentrations are west-central counties. Wood, Jackson, Mason, Lewis, Preston, and Doddridge all have TONS of deer. The better bucks are farther south but their is also less deer there.

Mason has lots of public. As does Preston and Lewis.

Mike, how you doing? Plenty of deer and plenty of hunting every where. You know if you don't find one before this season, your welcome to come stay at mine as long as you'd like. Good mast u there this year so the hunting will be great. Probably more deer in the above mentioned counties than in Southern WV but, Northern and North Central is loaded. Anywhere. I'd be looking into Wetzel, Mongalieia(sp), Harrison, Doddridge, Taylor, Marion. LOTS of deer and close to home. God Bless

My daughter and husband live in rural marion county near the Monongalia border and the place is slap full of deer ,, public land in that area may be scarce,, but like cory said stonewall wma has a lot of land and deer,,,Bluestone WMA is big one too and very nice

Bluestone has been under antler restrictions for several years now and they are seeing and killing a few studs.

Braxton also has lots of public land with Burnsvilee and Elk River WMA. Lots of deer too! Moreso, near Burnsville.

Thank you all for your respones. Justin, I am not back to 100% health yet. The doctors said it would take a year to 18 months to be back to normal. I was up at the Cleveland Clinic back on July 7th and they take cat scan of my heart and my aorta is completely healed. I just got the okay to start shooting again about 6 weeks ago. Justin, I would like to take you up on your offer. I will talk to our son and see when he come. Would it be okay if we came down for a weekend and you could show us the area? Our son really wants to buy land and a cabin on it if possible. Once again thank you everyone and May God richly Bless you. Mike Mahan (Archer Fanatic) in Sidney, Ohio

I am partial to monongalia county. I frequented Coopers Rock for the past 5 years and I feel like it got better for deer numbers every year since I hunted there. They have a 14" spread requirement so lots of people won't hunt it because a lot of people want to hunt with the brown its down attitude. Gun season it can get fairly busy and bow season it is busy in certain areas but if you look at maps and do your research you will see deer. Last year I hunted practically every day of the bow season and only went 3 days all season without seeing deer. I also seen more bucks than does. The key is finding the bucks over 14". I had three last year that were over 14" (outside the ears) unfortunately none of them presented me with a shot before gun season last year and after gun season they disappeared. If you have the patience and time to sit and wait for a big buck you have a decent likelihood of walking out of there with a nice buck. Good luck whatever choice you make.

Register here to reply to this topic