Hollows flats draws what’s your pick

Pinch points; anything that funnels them into a smaller corridor. Might be terrain, water, or thick vegetation they don’t want to fight through.

Same here most shots are close

Funnels, saddles on the mountain tops make good funnels.

Mostly hollers but some hog backs too

edges between fields and thickets

The NF spot I've been hunting it's the ridgetop flats.

Until the snow falls I’ll be on pinch points if there is traffic in the woods but mostly standing on funnels or a sweet inside corner. After we get snow it’s all about tracking

Low gaps are a favorite here. A favorite site on the property I hunt is a point overlooking a flat that runs above a cliff.

About 1/3 up the mountain where the transition from swamp fir trees change to hardwood and the sunrises behind me. Specific enough? 🧐

Put many down there over the years. Most of them leaving the low lands/fields in the AM for bedding on the sunny side of the mountain behind me.

I watch a lot of those tracking videos on YouTube. Snow is rare these days during our seasons, but the Mountaineer Heritage Season is in January, so there’s a chance for snow during it. Don’t have the legs for big woods tracking, but always enjoy poking around in the snowy woods, season open or not. In recent years, we’ve really gotten dumped on in January or February, cutting off access to my WMA for days or weeks.

My old man would hunt the thickets I’m trending that way I would ask him why and his response was that’s where the deer are

That’s some of my favorite deer hunting. Usually 2/3 up a hill here but hunting benches on hillsides or the runways leading out of the swamps.

You guys making me want to get my boots on and poke around in this hot weather in N.C. Oh, be here before we know it.

During the rut If im far enough back in the deep woods with no other hunters around (where i like it best) I love to hunt ridge's and saddles that have fresh scrapes 👍👍.....Hb

How plentiful are the deer there? We have a good many here, they come in my yard most every night!

Plentiful doesn’t describe the bears are getting that way as well

The bears are a scurge in my area! They have taken over running around like stray dogs and are useless POS....Another reason I like to hunt Ohio and Indiana (no freakin bears)..Hb

Deers don’t like bears I’ve found that out they’ll ruin a good spot bear dogs will as well

I got off a lease for that very reason last year. ^^^

I would say flats for myself and just off the downwind side of them preferably where it drops off steep, not so much dead on the flat. And real subtle ones on skinny points make a great crossing place for them and they’re still small enough a bigger deer will utilize it. Convergence of multiple terrain features in a small area is the real winner. Secondary points running off into/around a flat really perks my interest. Hard to put it in words sometimes, you walk off into a place and you just know it’ll happen there by how it sets up. I love big public ground….something about it gets in your blood.

Oh yes you are exactly right! bears have ruined several of my favorite deer hunting spots. They are a curse on the land!.....Hb

My place is in Carroll Co Va. The last 2 weeks of July I had pics of 7 different bears. Deer would be in the same spot within minutes. They don't seem to care.

Let bears chit all over the place at some dropping white oaks and see how many deer show up....Hb

Same here , have seen them with in 15yds of each other .
In the mountains and east in Louisa county , Greene county, NOVA , deer population is high in both places .
Besides bear meat is good eating if you trim it right and fix it right .
Kenneth

If your going to eat one make sure to cook it very well as 95% of black bears are infected with trichinosis...I wouldn’t eat one of the nasty dumpster divers If you paid me but to each his own....Hb

We are loaded with bear where i live along the the shenandoah national park or atleast we were before the mange killed off a bunch. During hunting season ive had bear and deer around the stands a lot. Fawns dont last long in the spring around bear. We try to kill a bear or 2 every year. Bear can be great eating or nasty as hell. Depends what they are eating. A bear thats been eating dead turkeys is not much good to eat. We have turkey houses all around us.

DWR has let the bear pop get out of control.
In just 5 years[or so] we've gone from maybe seeing one on occasion to seeing 4,5,6 different bear regularly from our porches.

For deer hunting:
Funnels, ridgetops and pinchpoints.
especially if the above lead to or are producing whites
Scanned some whites yesterday and it appears like a fairly good year for nuts in my area.

I'm not a "mountain boy" as I'm trapped here in the flatlands of Richmond and surrounding suburbs. But give me 2-3 hours, and I'll be there!

I'm one of those sad case hunters you've always heard about from the Metro areas... 9000 deer hunters on any given Saturday! Freakin' place has so much blaze orange once the sun comes up, it looks like a pumpkin patch! Those nearby WMA's within close proximity to metro Richmond are a total joke! Pfffffftttt... everything instantly turns nocturnal when hunting season comes around. That's why I don't mind the drive or a sleazy roadside motel for the night, just to get away and hunt where it's way more spread out in the GWNF.

What county[s] in GWJNF?

Is there a test for that?

Theres a new motel /air bnb coming on rt 60 at oranoco in the near future

Have you hunted the various state forests? I've hunted Cumberland and some further east. Not bad hunting at all. I think a lot of folks just go for the WMAs and forget about the state forests.

I've been to Cumberland a few times. Not too bad, but (in my opinion) waaaaaay too many deer hounds. Sorry to be talking like that, but day-um, you know?

They don't care. I'm in Dare Co. NC several time a month and see bear and deer eating within yards of each other on almost every outing. Deer always has his tail up if he knows a bear is nearby. If a deer has a bear pegged, deer can get away.


A Virginia DWR study from a few years ago showed bears are the #1 fawn predators in the Virginia mountains. No doubt they are anywhere there are bear.

Yeps, and it doesn't get any better the easter you go. I was part of a hunt club many moons ago but got tired of it and quit. Many of the clubbers are slobs. I've gotten pretty good at picking off deer that club dogs are moving. They tend to head to the thickest, greenbriary places near water they can find. When I hear dogs moving, that's where I head. I know damned well the club hunters ain't going into that stuff. They do seem a little put off when you drag a deer out from an area their dogs are working/ That's the type of hunting where a 12 gauge with buckshot still works great.

I try to hunt weekdays. That's why its hard for me to get to Big Levels. I typically take most of my time off during the week in the later half of the eastern season when many huners have given up.

I have hunted the dog counties in my youth not for me I have a weekend neighbor from Amelia now and he loves the west side hunting life been doing the dog running for 60 years

Monday through Friday, until about noon on Friday, (and never on a holiday) are the best times to hunt the eastern WMAs if you want to minimize hunting when there are hounds in the woods. After noon on Friday and on Saturday (and now on Sunday) the slob clubbers are running their dogs and hunting from the roads. If you can hunt on a mid season Monday or Tuesday, you may have the WMA to yourself, or danged near it.

What someone wrote already, on the eastern WMAs, everything goes nocturnal after the general fiream season opens. If you want to score a deer on any sort of regular basis, you need to hunt the thickest shyt you can find. Super dense stands of young pine and devils walking stick are good areas.

I’ve got 200 acres of mountains to myself and my kids on the west side I’ll stay here

If I had that, I would too.

Has anyone hunted the Goshen WMA, particularly the Laurel Run access area (on Rt 39 across from the Maury River) that leads up to the power lines in the last couple of years? I was there a few years ago and there were homeless folks living in tents off the trail leading up to the powerlines. Kind of off putting. Not sure why the DWR let that happen.

I fish goshen and mill creek hidden Valley and bull pasture there’s some strange peoples over there I carry always

I did have to take a emergency pit stop this spring and there’s a nice ladder stand about 100 yds up the road where your talking might be a dirty sock around it

We've only 75[ours] but have another 40 or so of a absent neighbor for us only to hunt.
I rarely leave home these days.

For Butch A.
There is some very good hunting in NF from Wythe up the chain towards Rockbridge if one is willing to get a little deeper in than the average pud-hunter.
Plenty of primitive and semi-primitive camping throughout

We got a name for the Rockbridge crowd “rock jumpers” cause they all come over to Amherst to hunt

LOL @ eb

It's wild how things have changed over the past 35-40 years.
Bath & Rockingham counties used to be 'the place' for deer hunting west of the Blue Ridge along with Craig & Giles to the south & west.
There's still big deer there but you'll really need to hike pretty deep to find them.
Have the #'s really fallen off as much as it seems or did the explosion of deer #'s along the east facing slope just make it seem that way?

I haven’t seen a explosion in deer numbers more a explosion in bear numbers the “rock jumpers” have always been in Amherst lots of national forest off route 60

In Montgomery, Floyd, ROA, Bedford the #'s are off the charts for deer and are getting that way for bear.

30 years ago everyone I knew in Montgomery went to one of the four counties listed in prior post to hunt deer.
We had very few here[then].

Oh yeah I can remember back in the day if you did not travel to Rockbridge/Bath/Botetourt county during rifle season you was not a serious deer hunter...I spent a lot of time on Short Mtn in Bath county and North mountain in Rockbridge county, I have some great memories of those hunts 👍....I know several of my hunting buddies liked to hunt the Wythe/Smyth/Grayson county's area too....Hb

I remember the days when deer numbers were low and many of the mountain counties had a one-deer-per-year limit, and Buchanon and Dickenson were close altogether for deer hunting. I remember the old printed hunting regulations you got with your license and paper tags, and Buchanon and Dickenson counties were colored black.

Back in the mid 80's we used to tent camp on NF in Craig Co.
Set up the octagonal army surplus for the full 2 weeks[max time allowed]
The Pines Campground on Barbours Creek at the base of Potts Mtn.
We'd do a little trout fishing too if weather was decent.
The campground also had a horse corral.

Three of us would pile in a truck and take the forest road to the top of the adjacent mountain before daylight and slowly hunt our way down the mtn.
Never drag anything 'up'.
The weekend before the Monday opener was always a blast, basically a big party in the campground.

Good times!

Plenty in Carroll, Wythe and Pulaski too. Places I hunt anyway

Thanks.... I'm either in the Big Levels area, Coal Rd, etc... south of Stuarts Draft, or if I really feel up to it, I'll continue further west to the other side of Staunton and Buffalo Gap, Route 42, etc... and all up and down that huge ridge area of Elliot Knob. Rumors are always around about massive big bucks, but you gotta go way up to find them. Nail one, and you got a loooooooong drag back down!

yep
I just kinda started a crooked line at Floyd going up

I have been hunting Floyd for 30+ years... I have one mid-day stand that I call "The Grocery Store".

Give me a heads up next time through Cash

Back in the 90's used to hunt Alleghany, Craig and Botetourt, Counties. Relly nice around Oriskany, Roaring run, Hoophole trail, the "gas line" etc.

Regs changed for the worst so we quit going for the out of state hunt and stayed in NC

How is the area around West Augusta and Ramsey's Draft these days? A friend has a family farm we used to hunt up there.

I used to hunt in West Augusta and Ramsey’s Draft a lot back in the 70’s. I was close friends with the Dively family who owned a small farm in West Augusta that backed up to National Forest. It was sandwiched between the Charlie Hunter and Allan Griffin farms. But my favorite place was Ramsey’s Draft. It was big and wild and I loved being up there. I used to stay overnight at Sexton Shelter which was a small cabin managed by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. From there, I’d walk on out to Freezeland Flat and bow hunt around a few old apple trees that were there. Back in that day there were a decent number of deer in there. I have since moved away but was in the area this past March for a funeral and my wife and I walked out to the old cabin foundation. She and I stayed in the cabin a month or so before it was dismantled back in about 1983 or 84. But much to my surprise, we did not see any deer or any deer sign on that entire hike. Anyway, a lot of fond memories being in that area again. We even stopped at the old Whiteway store and bought a loaf of their homemade bread.

I hope that when I retire I can spend more time in the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. Awesome place!

Mackey