Anybody on here ever get drawn into this hunt? I put in for the first time and got drawn into the Boggy area for Oct 19-21. I'm super pumped about it. This place is a legend around here. Just check out their facebook page or do a quick google search and you'll see home of the bucks that live here. 46,000 acres and they only draw out about 1200 hunters a year with success rate for bucks around 6% (from the research I've done). Doesn't sound like great odds for dropping one but you have a chance at seeing the biggest buck of your lifetime at this place.

The catch is that this is a primitive style hunt. Recurve bows only with no sights, range finders, binoculars, etc. I got me a Hoyt Dorado I've been shooting around around and plan to shoot a few arrows a night leading up to the hunt. First year shooting a recurve so it should be fun.

Hope it works out for me!

I did a bunch of survey work there back in the 90's. VERY impressive bucks roam that place. Good luck on your hunt

Only recurves, no sights? No wonder there’s only a 6% success rate. I bet there’s 100s of gut shot & wounded deer everywhere out there.

Can you use an atlatl??

Got few family members that have hunted it. One of the best public draw areas to hunt whitetails in the lower 48. Probably the best chance of killing a 180 plus deer in the country

Easy there are some trad guys on this forum that can make 95% of the compound guys ground check thier bows.

I went to high school at McAlester in the '70's. I have hunted the place several times. Both as a standby, and a drawn hunter. They would give us a half day to scout. Then drop us off well before light in the morning and pick you up after dark at designated rendezvous locations. There were phones marked on the map, dispersed all through the place. If you took a deer, you walked to a phone and called in your location. Someone would be along to pick you up shortly. Your excitement is well founded. It is a special place. While you are in the area, go to Krebs, and check out either Petes Place or Roseanne's for Italian food and Chalk beer. You will thank me for that one.

I'm more of a Giacomo's fan myself. Love their steaks and family style dining. Can't go wrong with any of those places though! My grandparents moved from Broken Arrow to Lake Eufaula a few years ago so that's our go-to for special occasions

Yup. No argument from me about the dining at Giacomo's. I grew up with friends from each family. Good luck at the AAP! Back in the day, Pete's was the place to take your best girl, and dine in one of the private dining rooms.

Funny story about that actually that my father in law told me recently. He was driving through McAlester coming hack home from installing some cabinets at a jobsite so he decided to stop there and buy his installer lunch. They didn't know it ahead of time and were a bit surprised when they were seated in one of the private rooms hahah. I'm sure they had a nice meal together lol

Shot a deer of a lifetime there many years ago. Just over a fence, could see him on the ground and they told me "Sorry, we can't enter that area to recover the deer." I spoke with everyone I could to no avail. I'm sure my rack is on some colonels wall, or in a pile somewhere. I've also turkey hunted there in the spring. They won't let you keep the sheds you find.

Man that would be a tough pill to swallow. Sounds like they don't make too many exceptions over there lol.

Yeah, I wouldn't have swallowed it.

Sounds like a waste of game, on their part.

You can also use a long bow on these hunts. Worked some with one hunter that had been drawn for a hunt there. He had not shot trad other than as a kid. He got his buck with I think he said 18 yard shot.

Best of luck on your hunt, would love to see pics of the OP with hands on one of the monsters that call that place home

that's a heck of a shot! I've been dialing in between 10-15 yards so far. We'll see how my target shooting goes between now and October but anything over 20 would scare me

I would love that as well! I'll make sure to post about the experience either way. I'm sure no matter the outcome, it will be a trip to remember

Good luck, I've taken alot of deer with my training wheels bows, I'm just not confident or I should say "good" enough to try an take one with one of my old grayling recurves...

May have been a land mine area

IDK there are some really good archers out there people don't know about, its definitely an elite segment of the sport, not everybody can play golf like Tiger Woods.

I'm so old that my first bows had no sights, used wooden arrows and 2 bladed broadheads. Truth is you just have to practice a lot but once you get the hang of it you can get an accurate arrow off pretty fast.

Well our hunt at McAlester was this past weekend. Me and my dad weren't able to get a shot off but it was a great experience and I learned a lot. I will be putting in for this hunt every year going forward.

This place is 47,000 acres and there were 230 hunters hunting this weekend. When we checked out Sunday there will 20 deer taken which goes right along with the overall success rate of 10% Keep in mind you are only hunting with a stick and a string basically haha.

We got there about 8am Thursday where they gave us a quick briefing and went through our vehicles to make sure we didn't have any restricted items (bullets, matches, lighters, guns, etc.) Once we cleared the checkpoint we drove in to the campgrounds to get all checked in. We instantly started seeing deer as soon as we drove through the gates. Saw 3 or 4 different groups just in the mile stretch of road to the campground. Got all checked in and sat around drinking coffee and chatting with other hunters.

The big meeting started around 10am which went over all the ground rules and what we could shoot. Next they broke us out by section where we assigned drivers and pinned out parking spot on the map. We broke for lunch around 11:30 and had to be back by 1pm so we could go scout our spots and hang our stands.

We walked around for about 2 hours and found 2 promising areas so we grabbed the stands from the truck and got them hung.

We got to start hunting Friday. We met at the campground at 5am and got our trucks lined up so we could follow our escorts out to our spots. We were truck #2 so we got out to our spend with plenty of time to get a nice nap in before walking to our stands. It rained ALL day Friday so I set up my pop up blind by where I hung my stand. It finally stopped raining about 5pm so I took the blind down and crawled up in my stand the rest of the afternoon.

Saturday I sat in the stand from daylight to 11am. The discharge old ammunition on certain days at 11 and you know when they do it. It'll shake the ground! Me and dad met at the truck and listened to the OU game and took a good nap. We got back out in the woods around 2pm.

All I had seen from my area was one tom turkey so Sunday morning I set up the blind across a creek from my dad where he had been seeing deer. We hunted til 11am then it was time to take down our stands and get out. I never saw any deer while hunting but I saw plenty driving in and out of our spot and also saw several bucks. My dad saw 11 does and an 8-pt from his stand but was never able to get a shot at one.

It was a great few days and I can't wait to get drawn in again. I feel like I learned a lot of stuff that will help me out for next time. I'll definitely be more prepared knowing what I know now.

The big deer stay up where there's no hunting! They limit what they set off due to weather. Cloudy days small charges and clear days they will rattle the limbs! Have heard them set them off all the way over to Lehigh! Nephew use to work security at MMA.