I posted this in the regional forum but thought I should post here as well. I am going to Maryland for the early muzzleloader season sika. I have never been hunting Sikas before and was looking for some info. I have been looking on google earth to find some locations to hunt. Questions are: what areas of fishing bay do people hunt, Do people hunt down by Elliott or more north or on the west side of the bay. Also would it be better to hunt assateague island than fishing bay? with a general hunting liscense can you hunt sika and whitetail? and are there any butcher shops around to freeze meat or get dry ice? I will be staying in Cambridge. I will be going down a day early to scout, just looking for some general areas to check out.

I've hunted Sika on Chincoteague NWR in VA which basically is the southern end of Assateague. What I found was that if you're seeing whitetails you're not deep enough in the wet thick stuff. Sika get right down in the reeds and the nasty stuff. If you're not wet and muddy then you're hunting the wrong place.

Sika aren't very big so I used to just bone them out and put them in a cooler full of ice. A big stag may go 70 lbs live weight and a mature cow maybe 50. Since I always found them in the thick stuff I used a 12 gauge and buckshot since they were in stuff where the shots were moving. Kind of like jump shooting cottontails.