Deer Creek Wildlife Area--Yankeetown Rd.

Deer Creek Wildlife Area--Yankeetown Rd.

Deer Creek Wildlife Area Mount Sterling, Ohio 43143

Deer Creek Wildlife Area Official Website
Deer Creek Wildlife Area map
Deer Creek Lake webpage
Deer Creek State Park website

About this Location

There are two parking areas along Yankeetown Road in the wildlife area. The parking area on the north side of the road serves the shooting range. The parking area on the south side of the road provides access to Deer Creek.

From the entrance to the parking lot on the south side of the road, there are views of the surrounding fields. West from the end of the parking lot, there is a short footpath leading to Deer Creek. South of the parking lot is a mowed path that leads through varying ages of trees.

About Deer Creek Wildlife Area

See all hotspots at Deer Creek Wildlife Area

The 4,220-acre wildlife area is in central Ohio, four miles south of Mount Sterling on OH-207 and adjacent to the 1,277-acre Deer Creek Lake. It can be reached from the east and west by US-22 and OH-56, and from the north and south by US-62 and OH-3, OH-104, and OH-207.

The topography is flat to slightly rolling. The soils are mostly well drained and of medium to high productivity. Approximately 1,000 acres of row crops and small grains are under cultivation annually. Controlled burning and native warm season grass plantings have also been introduced as part of the wildlife management program.

About 25 percent of the wildlife area consists of second growth hardwoods and brush in advanced stages of succession. The timber stand is mainly on the east side of Deer Creek It includes oak, hickory, elm, black walnut, ash, maple, locust, sycamore, and cottonwood. Index of Ohio’s trees from the Division of Forestry. The uncropped remainder of the area is in permanent meadow, reverting fields, wildlife food plots, and prairie grasses.

Deer Creek Lake construction began in 1965 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and was completed in 1968. Of the 7,575 acres, 6,875 are leased to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for fish, wildlife, and general recreation purposes. Deer Creek State Park lies to the south and east of the lake and provides camping, picnicking, and boat launching facilities for the hunter and angler. Public hunting is permitted on some of the undeveloped 3,165 acres controlled by the Division of Parks and Recreation, and on all property controlled by the Division of Wildlife.

Wildlife management plans provide for the maintenance and protection of existing woodlands, establishment of field sizes and crop rotations beneficial to wildlife, improvement of open fields for wildlife nesting, and the establishment of annual food patches for general wildlife use. Permanent wildlife cover has been provided through the planting of native prairie grasses such as switchgrass, big blue stem, and Indiangrass.

Restrooms at Deer Creek State Park.

There is a handicapped accessible bird viewing blind at the Dick Road Wetland.

Content from Deer Creek Wildlife Area Official Website, Cory “Chia” Chiappone, and Ohio Ornithological Society