Howdy, I have a few questions I was hoping y'all could help me with. My brother and I are planning to hunt during the upcoming gun season, we grew up hunting ducks and the occasional dove and quail, but are total novices when it comes to deer. I live in Nashville, and he lives in Chattanooga, and so we were thinking of meeting in the middle somewhere on the Plateau. We don't have an ATV so will be walking in.
We've been to a few places to see how good the road access is and get a little familiar with the landscape and have settled on trying Bridgestone-Firestone, but would like to find a couple more areas to try.
About Bridgestone, am I right to assume that the northern part of the WMA, the burn demonstration area off Eastland and the quail clear-cut off Scott Gulf, will have a lot of folks hunting in them? Also, we went over to one of the Big Bottom entrances and there was a big sunflower field (assume for dove) with a hog trap in it, and what looked like hog tracks and rooted up ground in a few places, although I'm not much of a tracker and could have been mistaken. Are hogs that common in the area? I saw that hog-taking is allowed during deer hunts, but wasn't sure how plentiful they were.
How much hunting pressure is there usually at the WMAs around Dale Hollow: Standing Stone, Skinner Mountain, and Alpine Mountain? We went up there to camp at the park earlier in the summer and did a little poking around, Standing Stone seemed like it might be worth exploring further, but what about Skinner/Alpine? They seem to have very low harvest numbers and the topography looks pretty intense. Looking at a map I could not figure out how to get on Alpine Mountain without crossing private land, but I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. The TWRA page for it doesn't have any directions for access. Anybody know?
Last one, as a first-time deer hunter (more or less) should I be using a climbing stand if hunting in the woods? As a kid I hunted deer from the ground a couple of times, and I think that'll work well if shooting in a field or cleared area, but it seems like a stand is really best for the woods, especially since I probably don't have the experience to pick good spots yet.
We've been to a few places to see how good the road access is and get a little familiar with the landscape and have settled on trying Bridgestone-Firestone, but would like to find a couple more areas to try.
About Bridgestone, am I right to assume that the northern part of the WMA, the burn demonstration area off Eastland and the quail clear-cut off Scott Gulf, will have a lot of folks hunting in them? Also, we went over to one of the Big Bottom entrances and there was a big sunflower field (assume for dove) with a hog trap in it, and what looked like hog tracks and rooted up ground in a few places, although I'm not much of a tracker and could have been mistaken. Are hogs that common in the area? I saw that hog-taking is allowed during deer hunts, but wasn't sure how plentiful they were.
How much hunting pressure is there usually at the WMAs around Dale Hollow: Standing Stone, Skinner Mountain, and Alpine Mountain? We went up there to camp at the park earlier in the summer and did a little poking around, Standing Stone seemed like it might be worth exploring further, but what about Skinner/Alpine? They seem to have very low harvest numbers and the topography looks pretty intense. Looking at a map I could not figure out how to get on Alpine Mountain without crossing private land, but I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. The TWRA page for it doesn't have any directions for access. Anybody know?
Last one, as a first-time deer hunter (more or less) should I be using a climbing stand if hunting in the woods? As a kid I hunted deer from the ground a couple of times, and I think that'll work well if shooting in a field or cleared area, but it seems like a stand is really best for the woods, especially since I probably don't have the experience to pick good spots yet.
