Michael Perry displays the big 10-point buck that he harvested at Black Warrior WMA in late 2005. Photo by Anthony Campbell.

The 2005-06 season was one to remember for Michael Perry of Cullman County. He took 10 deer over the course of the season, including a 158-inch 10-pointer and a 140-inch 9-pointer. Most amazing of all, his deer came from public land that anyone can hunt!

Forty-one-year-old Michael Perry of Cullman County grew up squirrel hunting and trapping on Alabama’s wildlife management area system, and he’s never found a reason to hunt anywhere else. He now targets whitetails on those tracts and keeps a detailed calendar of when he takes deer in certain areas, so he knows the best times to hunt the different WMAs. He’s also meticulous about post-season scouting to find good areas to hunt for the next season.

During the 2005-06 season, his preparation, experience and knowledge all came together: While hunting the WMAs, he took an incredible 10 deer -- seven of them racked bucks. His harvest included a 158-inch, 10-pointer from Black Warrior WMA and a 140-inch 9-pointer from the Oakmulgee WMA.

“I’ve been hunting public lands with my dad since I was 8 or 9 years old,” Perry said. “I like the freedom that it gives you. You’ve got a lot of room on a WMA that covers thousands of acres.”

He now hunts four WMAs almost exclusively: Sam R. Murphy, n Lamar and Marion counties; Black Warrior, in Winston and Lawrence counties; Oakmulgee, in Bibb, Hale, Perry and Tuscaloosa counties; and Wolf Creek, in Walker and Fayette counties. Perry copes with a scheduling disadvantage that many of us don’t face: He works 12-hour swing shifts at his place of employment, which means he’s on four days and then off four days. Though it sounds like a deer hunter’s dream schedule, it requires that he work two weekends every month -- and most of the WMA gun hunts are held on weekends.

Still, when the WMA schedule comes out each year, Perry gets out a calendar, writes down the dates of the gun hunts and focuses plans for the ones he wants to make. He uses his old calendars from previous years also to check and see when he has harvested deer on each WMA.

His favorite area of the four he hunts is Black Warrior. “It’s the biggest and the toughest,” he said. “But it’s where I killed the big one and I also got my biggest deer with a bow there. You don’t see near as many deer on it as you do the others, but when you see one, it could be a real big one.”

He averages about five deer a year on public ground, so the 2005-06 season was, in his own words, “just unreal.” On some of his hunts, he killed deer on back-to-back days at the same WMA. There were also stretches when he killed a buck one weekend on one WMA and then got another the very next weekend at a different WMA.

Perry focuses on hunting thick woods -- places where you typically can’t see more than 50 yards. He calls them transition areas between bedding and feeding zones for the deer. He looks for places where the deer are likely to travel naturally. But he also plays the hunting pressure, counting on other hunters to move deer towards him.

“Some places I hunt are way off,” he said, with regard to the “beaten path.” “Others are not. I’ve got a tree I hunt at Sam R. Murphy that is only 100 yards off a gravel road. I’ve killed 14 deer out of that tree, including a good 9-point. The first antlered deer I ever killed -- a spike -- was taken from that tree. I go check on it every year before the season to make sure they haven’t cut it down.”

Years of trial and error have taught him the best times to hunt on the different WMAs, he said. Deer tend to rut earlier at Black Warrior than at most other places in the state, so it’s often where Perry starts. He opens the season bowhunting there and then hunts it until right before Christmas. “After Christmas, I won’t go there,” he said.

He likes to go to Oakmulgee and Sam R. Murphy from the week before Christmas through mid-January. “Wolf Creek gets really hot the last of the season,” he added.