Pressure - Your State

[Sugcain04]

I was just listening again to Wired To Hunt with John Eberhart, who I learned how to hunt public land from his books. John made his case for Michigan being extremely pressured compared to other states and it made me think about how pressured Louisiana is. The number of Bowhunters per square acre that John often refers too can not be used in LA because of our extremely long gun season. Most people don’t even have to bother bow hunting when they can gun hunt from November to the end of January with 3/3 buck to doe limit. It’s just wild that they allow us to kill three bucks with any weapon and zero antler restrictions. Have you ever met a coonass?!? They kill and eat everything!! Just curious about other states. Feel free to chime in and make the case for your state being the most pressured.

 

[shwacker]

FL has a 3 month gun season too, used to be unlimited bucks and does only one weekend in rifle and open does in archery. This year it’s going to 3 bucks and 2 does, still very limited time to harvest does, one weekend of fun I think so have to be a bow hunter to get them just about. And very limited does are allowed to be taken on wma, special draw. Pressure is high on public and I imagine a lot of similar type thick woods/swamps as LA. So yeah, FL deer hunting is tough too. I do it, but I travel to really have fun and enjoyable hunts OOS


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[EricS]

I wouldn’t say Georgia is the most pressured. Our pressure comes from the length of the season. Mid September to mid January is a long season. We have a pile of night hunters also both legal and illegal. We have a very generous limit of 2 bucks/10 does one of the bucks has to have 4 points 1 inch or longer on one side. I laugh at that because many of our 1.5 year old deer meet that criteria. There’s not many pieces of private that don’t get hunted and public gets hunted pretty hard. There’s not much pressure during bow season but with three months of rifle season it doesn’t matter. All in all it’s not the worst state to hunt in. There are a couple 180”+ bucks killed every year and just enough 130-160” bucks that I don’t plan out of state deer hunts. I may at some point but not there yet.

 

[Nutterbuster]

Alabama has no pressure to speak of. I just suck at hunting.

In reality, we have a long (October 15-February 10, with no off days) season, a deer a day limit (used to be 2 a day), and a small overall percentage of the state's acreage is public access. Also have an underfunded conservation department. Heck, we have an underfunded everything! We've been bottom 3rd poorest state since the Civil War.

Combine that with a fairly high percentage of the overall population that hunts at least occasionally, and it makes for some pretty busy woods, and a lot of dead deer.

But honestly, I don't have a problem getting away from pressure. It's the big woods areas, skewed buck/doe ratio, heat, thick underbrush, and just generally deer-favorsble conditions that make life hard. You know how folks say to hunt food, water, and thick cover?

Well, welcome to friggin Alabama, where you're never 50 yards away from all 3 of those things.

 

[flinginairos]

Bow season in WV is relatively low pressure in the areas I hunt. I do go out of my way to hunt undisturbed spots but I rarely see another hunter. Now when gun season rolls around....look out. We have a two week gun season, a week of doe season then a week of muzzleloader after that, then it's back to antlerless again til it closes. So basically you can chase them with a gun for a month straight. We can kill three bucks here so most guys will shoot the first legal buck they see (3" spikes) and then "trophy hunt" after that. I focus my time on the first two weeks of season when it's hot and the other hunters are sitting on the couch because of the "lull". Pays off every year

 

[EricS]

Alabama has no pressure to speak of. I just suck at hunting.

Well, welcome to friggin Alabama, where you're never 50 yards away from all 3 of those things.

You’re preaching to the choir. Midwest guys talk about how tough the hunting can before the corn gets picked. Things stay green here until Christmas. By then they pretty much stay put until dark.

 

[eddiegomes83]

FL has a 3 month gun season too, used to be unlimited bucks and does only one weekend in rifle and open does in archery. This year it’s going to 3 bucks and 2 does, still very limited time to harvest does, one weekend of fun I think so have to be a bow hunter to get them just about. And very limited does are allowed to be taken on wma, special draw. Pressure is high on public and I imagine a lot of similar type thick woods/swamps as LA. So yeah, FL deer hunting is tough too. I do it, but I travel to really have fun and enjoyable hunts OOS


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Can be 5 bucks and no does too....rule only states that only 2 of the 5 tags can be does but doesn't claim they cant be bucks

 

[Gator]

You’re preaching to the choir. Midwest guys talk about how tough the hunting can before the corn gets picked. Things stay green here until Christmas. By then they pretty much stay put until dark.

Anybody from the Midwest says anything about hard hunting just quit listening you are wasting your time. Ha


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[shwacker]

Can be 5 bucks and no does too....rule only states that only 2 of the 5 tags can be does but doesn't claim they cant be bucks

Thanks for the clarification, I need to familiarize myself better with new rules before season starts


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[Silvio]

I was just listening again to Wired To Hunt with John Eberhart, who I learned how to hunt public land from his books. John made his case for Michigan being extremely pressured compared to other states and it made me think about how pressured Louisiana is. The number of Bowhunters per square acre that John often refers too can not be used in LA because of our extremely long gun season. Most people don’t even have to bother bow hunting when they can gun hunt from November to the end of January with 3/3 buck to doe limit. It’s just wild that they allow us to kill three bucks with any weapon and zero antler restrictions. Have you ever met a coonass?!? They kill and eat everything!! Just curious about other states. Feel free to chime in and make the case for your state being the most pressured.

That's an understatement, Michigan is the most pressured deer hunting state bar non. Its a shame the Michigan DNR/NRC have divided hunters against each other... very sad
May The Magic of The Whitetail Forever Enrich Your Life

 

[elk yinzer]

According to QDMA stats PA leads the nation in hunter density. Having hunted a good swath of PA I can attest the hunter density in some parts of SW/Western PA are insane even compared to Central PA so I would argue those areas are probably among the most pressured in the world. Still some really pressured areas can produce some nice bucks when they find the little pockets to avoid the pressure and get old. The good thing is our rifle season only lasts 2 weeks and I've witnessed bucks survive the entire rifle season hiding in pockets of cover barely large enough to conceal a cottontail.

 

[skell]

You’re preaching to the choir. Midwest guys talk about how tough the hunting can before the corn gets picked.

Anybody from the Midwest says anything about hard hunting just quit listening you are wasting your time. Ha

 

[peteherbst]

I want to say everyone believes their pressure is the worst because that’s what they experience the most. IMHO, that’s what makes hunting public ground fun. If it was easy, we wouldn’t be here.

With that being said, Southern Wisconsin is the heaviest pressured.

 

[Silvio]

I want to say everyone believes their pressure is the worst because that’s what they experience the most. IMHO, that’s what makes hunting public ground fun. If it was easy, we wouldn’t be here.

With that being said, Southern Wisconsin is the heaviest pressured.

Well, when you hunt in other states with no pressure you will see a dramatic difference in deer behavoir and age structure. States that produce high deer densities are mismanaging populations for license sales instead of herd health.
May The Magic of The Whitetail Forever Enrich Your Life

 

[Allegheny Tom]

According to QDMA stats PA leads the nation in hunter density. Having hunted a good swath of PA I can attest the hunter density in some parts of SW/Western PA are insane even compared to Central PA so I would argue those areas are probably among the most pressured in the world. Still some really pressured areas can produce some nice bucks when they find the little pockets to avoid the pressure and get old. The good thing is our rifle season only lasts 2 weeks and I've witnessed bucks survive the entire rifle season hiding in pockets of cover barely large enough to conceal a cottontail.

This^^^.
My area of SW PA is stupid, ridiculous with pressure. Not quite suburban and not as rural as it used to be. There are tons of back yards and small acreage properties that get pounded. Take a drive sometime and observe the ladder stands, ground blinds, 3D targets and archery bales/blocks that can be seen just from the road. Its crazy. And then there are the locals that I know that hunt with no visible evidence in their yards that they hunt.
Then there's the parking spots along the roads. Seems like every tiny piece of cover in this part of PA gets hunted.
Now, head to the North central part of the state and pressure is much lighter. No matter what state, pressure depends on where within that state that you hunt.

 

[Bourdeau]

New York is right up there ....15 hunters per square mile for rifle season..... but offers a huge amount of state land to hunt on(12% of total land) compared to states with much less. Bow Hunting on the other hand is way lower (don't tell anyone) at 5.1 hunters per square mile. The bow season is only 24 days -half as long as the rifle 44 days. During rifle season most NY hunting areas have no antler restrictions as long as it's a buck with 3" antlers , so that ole "brown is down" mentality is still very popular. I rarely see other bow hunters where I hunt in the northern zone (much tougher hunting) most bow hunters head to the southern zone to hunt near agricultural areas with much higher deer populations. I have an advantage that bow season comes before rifle season and even though the deer are pretty well educated by seeing many hunters in their lifetime it's not impossible to hunt them!

 

[Murph4028]

Here in NC I usually almost have the entire 55,000 acres to myself during bow season. Once muzzleloader hits the parking lots start filling up and when gun season hits good luck it's insane. Especially with the dog hunters hootin and hollerin and their dogs yelping all morning long. I can be a mile away and it's still loud. I hate it but that's public land for you. I try to center my strategy for the season around this. For example during bow season I'll hunt the bedding areas and other locations that are closer to the parking lot between 1/4 mile to 3/4 of a mile out. When gun season hits that's when I usually start going deep where most others don't go. When I lived in Indiana there were a lot of hunters but it wasn't as bad without the dogs

 

[VA saddlehunter]

@Murph4028 you beat me to it about NC pressure, I hunt NE NC and SE VA and with a long rifle season, and dogs everywhere the pressure here is terrible, the club I'm in in VA is actually a dog club, but bit it is good land close to home,and alot of it, but once gun season starts it's on everyday. I pretty much have the same strategy, I hunt close to good cutover bedding areas and once the guns season starts I try to hunt deep in the swamps or overlooked areas, ( I'm bow hunting the whole season also) most are too lazy to go deep in the woods so at least I have that going for me.

 

[Exhumis]

Where I hunt in Northern VA I wouldn't call it pressured. There's a WMA west of me that gets some action but I hunt private parcels that are mostly on/around farm land. We have a very generous season, our urban archery starts in September which rolls into early archery in October. Guns/muzzy after that in November, then back to late archery until March. 3 antlered, 3 antler less. A couple properties I hunt the farmers have kill permits as the deer are a "pest" so I could conceivably hunt year round, but I don't.
My hunting partner and I concentrate on archery as we have zero competition. Once guns rolls around I pack it in for a few weeks cuz a lot of the hunters around me hunt over corn piles. Lost three nice 8 pointers that way last season. Found their carcasses dumped on the side of the road right next to a proptery I hunt. All three had been capped and that's it. Called a friend who works for fish and game just to cya. Pissed me off, what a waste. Anyway, not too much pressure where I hunt

 

[Gator]

@Murph4028 you beat me to it about NC pressure, I hunt NE NC and SE VA and with a long rifle season, and dogs everywhere the pressure here is terrible, the club I'm in in VA is actually a dog club, but bit the bullet because it is good land close to home,and alot of it, but once gun season starts it's on everyday. I pretty much have the same strategy, I hunt close to good cutover bedding areas and once the guns season starts I try to hunt deep in the swamps or overlooked areas, ( I'm bow hunting the whole season also) at least one thing with the dog hunters, most are too lazy to go deep in the woods so at least I have that going for me.

Dogs is why I sold my farm in central VA. Can’t stand that crap. I won’t shoot a deer in front of dogs period so I basically hunt from early Oct until week two of Nov


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