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What's the Word on Happy Hollow WMA?

DeerMan66

DeerMan66

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Joined
Oct 21, 2017
Messages
331
Location
Cleveland TN
I've lost my lease and am currently looking for another in or around Hickman County. In case I don't find another lease and have to hunt public, I'm looking for information on Happy Hollow WMA. Does anyone have any experience with Happy Hollow?
 
I've been drawn to hunt there three times. There is sign absolutely everywhere. That being said, I've only seen one deer there all three years. It's a nice piece of property, challenging to walk because of the hills, and every time I find scrape lines and rubs and bedding areas and trails constantly but don't see any deer. I talked to some other guys hunting different parts of it this past year and they said the same thing. Lots of sign, no deer. This was about five or six different groups of hunters too, not just one or two guys. I don't know if I just wasn't setting up good because it's different terrain than I'm used to hunting or if they are just all nocturnal or what could be the problem, but I don't see deer and nobody I talked to does either
 
If they didn't draw so many tags, turkey and deer, it would be better. I know a couple guys that hunted that place for years before it became draw hunting and no one really knew much about the place. They killed some really big deer, and these were, for the most part, lazy hunters.
 
JCDEERMAN said:
If they didn't draw so many tags, turkey and deer, it would be better. I know a couple guys that hunted that place for years before it became draw hunting and no one really knew much about the place. They killed some really big deer, and these were, for the most part, lazy hunters.
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That area, being right on the Duck River, definitely holds some big deer.
 
decker528 said:
I've been drawn to hunt there three times. There is sign absolutely everywhere. That being said, I've only seen one deer there all three years. It's a nice piece of property, challenging to walk because of the hills, and every time I find scrape lines and rubs and bedding areas and trails constantly but don't see any deer. I talked to some other guys hunting different parts of it this past year and they said the same thing. Lots of sign, no deer. This was about five or six different groups of hunters too, not just one or two guys. I don't know if I just wasn't setting up good because it's different terrain than I'm used to hunting or if they are just all nocturnal or what could be the problem, but I don't see deer and nobody I talked to does either
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Sounds like your talking about Cherokee mountains. Not a ridge you walk will not have abundance of buck sign but you'll be fortunate to even see a deer.
 
Ridge-and-hollow country like Hickman County usually doesn't have mid-slope benches. Most older buck travel is just below the military crest (not the peak of the ridge but just below the "break-over" point of the ridgeline).

A big caveat to that is old roadbeds, even ones grown up in trees. Deer love those old roadbeds, and they will follow them straight up the steepest hills, or anywhere they go.
 
That's all I really know how to hunt myself. I hunt some in the foothills also which isn't anything compared to the N Cherokee which I hunt most of the time. If you hunt sign in these places you can forget about it. You have to hunt terrain. That is your best bet.
 

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