Georgia Public Land Hunting

[MD Piney]

Just wondering how Georgia public land hunting was near Elberton? What is the word on hunting in the Richard B. Russell State Park? Finding very little information on hunting within its website. All I can dig up is the fact that you can hunting on the SP outside recreational areas.

Any information would be appreciated.

Piney

[Mr. Longbeard]

[bb122]

I'd be interested in finding out also. I just found out that I was moving from TX to Statesboro, GA.

Any hunting info on that area would be greatly appreciated.

[MD Piney]

Just got back from a trip to the area mentioned in my earlier post and it appears there are WMAs where one can hunt, but you need a permit beyond your normal license to hunt there. The Army Corp of Engineers maintains the land around most lakes so I will look into what info they can provide. Appears Lake Russell has a +/- 50yd land buffer around it similar to our Liberty/Prettyboy reservoir. So lake front really isn't lake front and you might be able to slip into some small areas if you havea access. From what I could dig up the deer are average size at best, but the piece of land I looked at had a decent rub so we'll have to see.

From what I could tell bass fishing was the big thing down there... no wonder no one posted a reply! That or those average deer aren't so average...

[dog1]

bb122,

I know you said you would be moving to the Savannah, Ga area, one area not too far from there is the Altamaha WMA. One of the best kept secrets in Ga. It's flat land swamps, lots of water and affected by the tides.

A couple of years ago I talked to the manager (he's retired now and don't know the name of the new man, but he was real helpful) of this WMA about places to hunt, he recommended bringing a boat to get away from other hunters. A friend and I went down that August to look around, we camped where this man recommended. We found deer, turkey, and hog signs every where, even found a couple of sheds.

During this scouting trip we took our fishing gear and while fishing one afternoon, two gentlemen came by in their boat and stoped to talk for a while. Would you believe, one of them was 85 yrs old and the other was 81. The 85 man was a retired Ga state employee, he ran a WMA for yrs prior to retiring. Both of these gentlemen still hunted and fished. Anyway, we invited them to pull their boat in the shade next to ours and they talked to us about the area for an hour and a half. They said this area was excellent for hunting and fishing, and gave us a bunch of ideas about the area and how to get away from others.

To make a long story short, we never did get back down there to hunt, as you know, a 1000 things has kept us from going and I do plan to go back and hunt this area one day.

Also something about your hunting and fishing license in Ga. You might want to consider buying a Sportsman license if you are going be living here for a while. It has just about every license you would need including WMA stamp which is $20 and gets you on all the WMA's in Ga. It dosen't of course have a Fed. Duck stamp.

If you don't like gators' and snakes, you won't like this place. As I said, it flat land swamps, and they are every where. When we was there, we just acted like they was furniture and walked around them.

dog1