The statewide wildlife management area archery deer season opens Tuesday, Sept. 15, and the properties within an easy drive of Charleston are all part of the opener.
Inside the Francis Marion National Forest, the Hellhole, Northampton, Wambaw, Waterhorn, and Santee hunt units all move to archery status Sept. 15 and stay open through Oct. 10 before still-gun windows begin. The Seewee Special Use Area inside Wambaw is archery-only for a longer stretch, running through Jan. 1, with no dogs allowed on the property at any point in that window.
Bonneau Ferry’s Side B in Berkeley County opens for archery on the same date, but only for a two-week window that closes Sept. 30 before the property flips into its lottery still-gun schedule. Santee Coastal Reserve, on the northern edge of Charleston County, runs archery from Sept. 15 all the way through Jan. 1, though hunting is limited to the mainland portion of the property.
A current state hunting license, big game permit, and WMA permit are all required to be on any of these tracts on opening day. Sunday hunting is prohibited on WMAs unless a specific property carves out an exception, and the Francis Marion Hunt Unit only opens its Sunday allowance from Oct. 15 onward for species that are otherwise in season.
Every deer taken on any of these WMAs has to be tagged at the point of kill before it moves and reported through SC Game Check by midnight that same day. Reporting can be done through the Go Outdoors SC app, on the state’s Go Outdoors South Carolina web portal, by phone at 1-833-472-4263, or by texting the word Harvest to the same number.
For hunters new to WMA rules, the combined statewide WMA limit for all seasons and methods is two deer per day and five total for the season, with a cap of two antlered bucks. Antlered deer must have visible antlers of at least two inches above the hairline to count as antlered; anything shorter counts as antlerless and needs an antlerless tag.
Buckshot is off the table on WMA still-gun hunts, and the still-gun and archery calendars do not overlap during scheduled dog-drive weekends inside the Francis Marion Hunt Unit.
