Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire McAlester Ammunition Plant deer hunts.....

Thought some of you might find this interesting.

McAlester Ammo Plant in in the SE portion of Oklahoma and consists of approx. 45,000 acres which is fenced and some what guarded.

I don't know what they produce specifically, but I've heard they make some of the "big" bombs that the gov't uses.

This 45,000 acres holds probably the best deer herd in OK. It is managed by the OK Dept. of Wildlife on a draw basis. Hunting is allowed for traditional archery only (recurves and longbows). NO compounds, sights, rangefinders, binoculars,..etc. This is not a canned hunt. The deer free range all over this place and the success rate is around 10%-15%.

Because of this the bucks can live for a LONG time and they get Extremely wary. I hear the bucks and does on this place can hear you break a sweat.

The bucks are so huge that the biologists usually give them names and chronicle their growth thru yearly photographs. I got drawn once about 15 years ago and they had pics of a particular buck for 12 years in a row. They think he died of old age.

Well, they have a website now that I thought some of you might like to see.

This link is the [color:#3333FF]2010 Results[/color][/b] with some pics of some nice bucks taken last year. At the bottom of the page you can see pics of "[b]10 most wanted" bucks that were believed to have made it thru the season.

This link is some of the [b][color:#3333FF]All Time Greats[/color][/b] that have lived on the plant. I would guess that most of these probably died of old age and were not killed by a hunter.

Anyhow, IMO it's nice to see what some age will do for a buck. These deer aren't imports from up north. They're just OK deer that were allowed to mature and breed.

Boy I'll take one

I was involved in training exercises twice over the years at McAlester Army Ammunition Depot. That would have been around 1988 and again around 2001; the Depot was swarming with game - they have a white deer there too, one supposedly brought in by the Navy Captain that commanded the plant in WW-II, which are also everywhere. I never got to hunt there, but every depot I was on had plenty of wild game on it. A few that come to mind; Aberdeen Proving Ground MD, Toole Depot UT, Sunny Point Ammo Depot NC, Umatilla OR - all worth hunting on if you can get drawn. I did do a lot of hunting at APG - in the mid-70's it was a game paradise.

There is a arsenal in Radford Va that has lottery hunts each year. http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/hunting/quotahunts/raap-faq.asp
You must participate in a doe hunt prior to applying for a buck hunt. After the buck hunt, you must participate in a doe hunt prior to a buck hunt again. There are plenty of deer but there are lots of restrictions and cautions taken. The game commission employees extract jawbones from all deer taken. I have been once, didn't take a deer.

Wow! That sucks! I see that even includes does.

I looked up the figures from last year and did the math.

Success was 17.7% Not great, but this is a bonus hunt.

It doesn't add or subtract from a persons deer limits. You get to camp out, hunt a new place with big deer and see some racks that a person might not normally see.

16,455 people put in for 1,475 permits.

I hunted the depot back in the '70s when I was a student at Oklahoma St U. It has an abundance of deer, and is located in one of the most beautiful parts of OK.