Cooper WMA?

Both of my kids were drawn for youth gun either sex at Cooper WMA Nov 5-6. Never been there. Anyone have experience, tips or know the current deer population out there?

Congrats on the draw. Never been deer hunting there but have done some work in and around the WMA. There are plenty of deer there. Have fun and good luck. Hopefully someone on here has been.

There are deer all over the WMA. You won't know what area you get until that morning so it really does no good to scout. Behind the dam, Hwy 71 bottoms, and Dog Town Road are good spots. John's Creek is thick and rough hunting. Howard and the other guys out there are good people and will tell you some good spots. Good Luck

Congrats on the draw

Congrats.

You will get to pick an compartment for you hunt based on the order your are drawn. For your hunt, the compartments will be closed to everyone except the drawn permit holders.

Note, these compartments are located outside the park, and they are heavily hunted by the locals. When I won the hunt a few years back, the compartment was covered in permanent deer stands, which is against the rules. They need to go in there and clean them out....

Anyway, the amount of deer in the park is unbelievable. They will walk within a few hundred feet of your vehicle and stair at you. Unfortunately, those deer figured out their survival chances are higher if they avoid the compartments and stay in the park.

You will see deer. It should be a good hunt. Bring your own blinds and chairs.

Thanks for the replies. They said the smallest compartment was 500 acres. That could be a lot of area to cover in 1.5 days having never been there. Hopefully we will get lucky!

Let us know how you do.

We chose to hunt behind the dam on east side due to location, ease of getting in and setting up, and good view with the fresh mulching done. Set up ground blinds at 2 locations that had multiple trails coming out of the thick stuff, thru some big oaks and into the fields. I'm sure these are popular locations since they had deer & hog sign all around.

Saturday evening it was hot and quite until about 6:20 when a lone doe walked in. She stopped broadside about 50 yds out and my boy (11) put a great shot on her that did the job! She weighed 100 lbs and was about 4 yrs old. Wife & daughter (14) saw nothing at their location.

Sunday morning we switched out kids and had high hopes with it cooling off some but once again it was dead out there and saw nothing at either location. Looked like nothing had even touched the corn piles overnight either.

Heard the other groups saw a few deer and missed a few shots. Our deer was the only 1 harvested so we came home thankful to have meat in the cooler and happy for quality family time outdoors. Howard and crew did an awesome job and were very helpful thruout the hunt!

Good job. I'm really surprised there was only one taken. That spot behind the dam is good. A lot of land to cover and a lot of places for them to hide. Glad ya'll had a good time. Now that the weekend is over I can go back to bow hunting.