An access gate across the White’s Gap road into Sleepy Creek Wildlife Management Area is open and will remain open during West Virginia’s deer season, officials with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources confirmed with The Morgan Messenger on Friday. Buck firearms season opens on Monday, November 21.
The DNR previously had said all access gates into Sleepy Creek WMA — the Eastern Panhandle’s largest public hunting land — would stay closed during the hunting season, and hunters would have to access the public land on foot only. Delegate George Miller (R-Morgan) earlier this week said the state told him the access gates would be open for hunting season. Many hunters in Morgan and Berkeley County use the dirt and gravel access roads across Sleepy Creek WMAto reach hunting spots and to retrieve game.
Chelsey Faller, District 2 wildlife biologist, said on Friday that White’s Gap access gate was repaired last summer and is now open to the top of the mountain where hunters can park in a clearing.
“This area will continue to be improved in the coming months to accommodate more vehicles in a well-constructed gravel parking lot. The gates on the rest of Sleepy Creek WMA have not been opened,” said Faller.
Other gates into the wildlife management area are situated along Hampshire Grade Road and Back Creek Valley.