In February, he goes squirrel hunting on the WMAs just to scout and find new places for next season. “A lot of bucks are still making scrapes in February,” he noted.

He also visits the WMAs to turkey hunt in March and April. “I haven’t killed the first turkey on any of the WMAs,” he mused. “I get to looking for shed antlers and deer sign and sort of forget about the turkeys.”

What’s his take on the deer population on his WMAs? “Sam R. Murphy is overpopulated,” he stated. “Wolf Creek has quite a few too. Oakmulgee also has real good numbers.”

THE INCREDIBLE SEASON
Michael Perry’s incredible 2005-06 season started at Wolf Creek on Oct. 28. “I shot a 4-point with my bow,” he described. “It was cold that night, so I left it and went back with my wife the next morning. I shot a doe and killed it and then tracked down my buck from the night before.”

Perry’s wife, Kathy, is a frequent hunting partner, and he was proud to have her with him when he broke the ice that season.

His next deer was a doe he got at Sam R. Murphy on the morning of Nov. 20. He harvested her at about 10:50 in the morning. That late-morning harvest highlights another of Perry’s tricks: On most hunts, he sits all day, or until he kills a deer.

The season was going pretty good so far, but it was about to get really interesting. At Black Warrior WMA on the morning of Dec. 2, Perry killed a 185-pound 10-pointer that scored 158 2/8 Boone and Crockett Club points. “I knew there was a big deer using the area,” he recalled. “He left big tracks. There were also some rubs and scrapes when I’d gone in there before bow season.”

Perry had actually found the deer’s home territory the previous turkey season. There were two trails that came off a ridge going towards a greenfield. “I went in three days before the hunt and carried my stand halfway in,” he said. “I came in from the backside to keep from spooking the deer on the walk in and it took me an hour and 15 minutes to get in there.”

The long hike in the dark paid off: At 7:20 in the morning, a trio of does came trotting by. “The buck was way off behind them, about 60 yards to one side of the trail they were on,” Perry said.

The buck paused in the thicket. Perry put the cross hairs of his scope on the white patch on the deer’s neck, squeezed the trigger -- and missed! “He took off running, and I shot again and hit him in the spine, and put him down,” Perry said.

A third shot finished off the brute. “I hit two out of the three shots,” the hunter recalled.

Though he knew the general area where he got the buck, Perry had not hunted that particular tree until that day.

Just as Perry is a unique hunter, he hunts with a unique gun -- his grandfather’s 1958 model Spanish Mauser 98 in .30-06.

“My dad was hunting on the edge of a pine thicket nearby and helped me get the buck out,” Perry said. “We had to drag him at least a mile and a half. It took us six hours to get him out. I was worn out and I had to work that night.”

Perry often hunts with his dad, Ray, and was certainly glad to have him along that day.

Three weeks later, on Dec. 23, Perry got his public land streak rolling again by harvesting a doe with his rifle at Sam R. Murphy. His harvest total for the season had now reached five -- 3 does and 2 bucks.