I have been drawn for a deer hunt on the ATOKA WMA. I was just curious if anyone has an idea on this area. I have not been to this particular are. What is the terain like and so on. And of course...any directions to a honey hole could be useful.....LOL
I drove around Atoka a few weekends ago scouting some predator locations for later on in the year, and seen a lot of deer tracks, and one deer out around 1600 hrs, a small buck if I remember correctly. It's easy to find right off Hwy 69 between Kiowa and Atoka, right by Stringtown prison, big sign on the east side of hwy. A fair sized lake right behind the office building, and there are some nice sized open fields along with some fairly open bottoms with hardwoods. You can pick up a map that shows the roads in a mailbox in front of the office, which is right off hwy 69 at main entrance; they are generally copied pieces of paper, but will give you the general idea of the road system. If I was deer hunting, I would probably use the road that runs behind the lake; it will take you a couple miles back in there, you might want four wheel drive if it's been raining much. That's about all I can report, hope it's of use.
What have you been drawn with? Rifle..?
You can probably find this on a map of the place, it's the North West corner.
The last time I hunted Atoka was in '96, so things might have changed. I found some scrapes at the end of the road that runs along a ridge, I marked it on a map. The only problem with hunting there is it's easy access and everyone else probably found them too. So I backed off across the valley to the other ridge hoping to catch some deer that other people would push. The first day I hunted along the North Fence on top of the hill where I marked the map. There were a few places in the fence the deer were using to cut thru. There were some deer that were running the top of that ridge as well so it seemed like a decent spot. Shots could be all the way across the valley so you could shoot a long ways if you wanted to. I ended up seeing a few does that day, but didn't shoot. The next morning I hunted the same spot. Then in the afternoon on the second day, I went to the west and north a bit to the red line. In the trees there is the remnants of a long rock wall that can't be seen from the air. I climbed up on it and still-hunted for a while and ended up shooting a nice little buck that was probably pushed out by other hunters.
Terrain is rocky and very hilly. For somebody out of shape like me, it takes a while to climb up those hills. Killed a rattlesnake there as well so be careful. Hope this helps.
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The last time I hunted Atoka was in '96, so things might have changed. I found some scrapes at the end of the road that runs along a ridge, I marked it on a map. The only problem with hunting there is it's easy access and everyone else probably found them too. So I backed off across the valley to the other ridge hoping to catch some deer that other people would push. The first day I hunted along the North Fence on top of the hill where I marked the map. There were a few places in the fence the deer were using to cut thru. There were some deer that were running the top of that ridge as well so it seemed like a decent spot. Shots could be all the way across the valley so you could shoot a long ways if you wanted to. I ended up seeing a few does that day, but didn't shoot. The next morning I hunted the same spot. Then in the afternoon on the second day, I went to the west and north a bit to the red line. In the trees there is the remnants of a long rock wall that can't be seen from the air. I climbed up on it and still-hunted for a while and ended up shooting a nice little buck that was probably pushed out by other hunters.
Terrain is rocky and very hilly. For somebody out of shape like me, it takes a while to climb up those hills. Killed a rattlesnake there as well so be careful. Hope this helps.
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