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How far are you guys driving to your pieces?

S

snooze

New Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2021
Messages
38
Location
New Jersey
Just wondering how far the average person drives to hunt their spots. Me personally, I have thousands of acres of public land a couple of minutes from my house in the pine barrens, but travel north an hour into urban country for the quality. I'll stick around local on Sundays for the most part since most of my good spots don't let you hunt Sundays.
 
45 minutes to a hour are 4 public destinations I hunt. I have 1 almost 2 hours but bc of the distance it doesn't get hunted much unless I stay overnight.
 

How Far Do You Travel To Hunt?

How far do you drive, if at all, to hunt your typical haunts? I am referring to your usual go-to areas, not necessarily the one-of-a-kind out of state hunts. (Unless you do it annually) Do you own property? Do you have a nearby lease? Do you drive to a cabin or haul a camper to hunt? I am...
saddlehunter.com

Some more info there ^
 
Most hunts are a 1-1/2 to 2 hour drive. The public land closer gets hit too hard. Sometimes I’ll hunt the closer stuff just to get in the woods.
 
I drive maybe an hour tops.
Work, home responsibilities, and just life keeps me and i think most hunters pretty close to home.
I hunt 99% public and do have to do alot more research on areas due to super heavy hunting pressure.
Competition is unreal especially with all of the new found tactics people find online.
I hunt areas with alot of ag so there is a pretty good amount of deer around.
Now narrowing down an individual buck i want to go after is another whole story.
Thats where you can kind of separate yourself from most other hunters.
 
I have some about 10 min from my house but its pressured and hasn't been productive for me. So I drive 25-30 min to the next closest parcel of public land that has less pressure and have been able to get on the deer and some nice bucks.
 
I moved last year from the suburbs outside of Detroit to the countryside about an hour and half north. Before I had one piece of public land nearby that was only 20 acres. Another piece was significantly better, but it's always hunted pretty hard. When I lived there I drove 2-3 hours to get to some good hunting land.

Now I live 5 minutes from a ton of public land. I've been keeping track of which parking lots and pieces of land seem to be used the most to help me identify where I want to focus. I also have quite a bit more public land in the surrounding areas too. I do still drive to those other spots, but now the drive time is cut in half since I moved closer. I've got this one spot that barely ever gets pressure and I consistently see deer most days I go there, even consecutive days. Last year a good buck walked right in front of me at about 10 yards, but took off and got out of range before I could knock an arrow!
 
I can hunt straight across the river if I want to. I can access something like 130k acres inside of 30 minutes. But I've started driving 2-3 hours up the road fairly routinely to get to better turf
 
Depends on how lucky I am on quota hunts.....45 minutes to 2-3hrs average if I had to guess...got lucky this year and it looks like hour or less this season
 
0-35 miles, most inside 10 miles. Before I retired it was 2 hours plus on most hunts.
 
My 2 primary spots are 2:15 and 2:45. There is a good bit of public nearby but some is draw only, one is a military base so you have to deal with checking in and out and being in a population center the close stuff has more people. Fortunate to have good hunting in any direction reasonably close.
 
My closest best bang for the buck (see what I did there?) is 40 min. There’s a couple tiny pieces about 15-20 min away but they’re not worth much. The 40 min pieces of land are extremely pressured and any bucks and buck sign is quite rare there, however I did get some good doe action a few times last year. There are thousands of acres of hill country public from me about 2.5-3 hours away I’ve been dying to try and gonna try and make that happen this year hopefully. Would love to get into the routine of making that trip a regular occurrence every year.
 
Westdesign03 said:
My closest best bang for the buck (see what I did there?) is 40 min. There’s a couple tiny pieces about 15-20 min away but they’re not worth much. The 40 min pieces of land are extremely pressured and any bucks and buck sign is quite rare there, however I did get some good doe action a few times last year. There are thousands of acres of hill country public from me about 2.5-3 hours away I’ve been dying to try and gonna try and make that happen this year hopefully. Would love to get into the routine of making that trip a regular occurrence every year.
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We have a good bit of mountain hunting available too but I have not figured it out yet either. I am really confident hunting rolling hills stuff and river bottoms but mountain deer intrigue me.
 
I can be on a few public properties in about an hour. None of them really get hit hard during early archery but get hammered during gun season. The closet public spot is mostly open CRP with some spots of immature trees. It's a reclaimed strip mining pit. I'm more inclined to try that area this year because it's proximity and I don't think it gets hunted as much. It mostly gets used for fishing. I'd probably set up on the ground with by crossbow. I’d like to get access to some private close to the house for evenings during the week. My wife has a couple of uncles that farm and I know at least one has some wooded area but his nephew hunted it the last time I asked. My brother has property three hours away. I know I can get on deer there. So it’s worth the drive when I can get up there. But it's usually at least an overnight deal.
 
Empostarr said:
I moved last year from the suburbs outside of Detroit to the countryside about an hour and half north. Before I had one piece of public land nearby that was only 20 acres. Another piece was significantly better, but it's always hunted pretty hard. When I lived there I drove 2-3 hours to get to some good hunting land.

Now I live 5 minutes from a ton of public land. I've been keeping track of which parking lots and pieces of land seem to be used the most to help me identify where I want to focus. I also have quite a bit more public land in the surrounding areas too. I do still drive to those other spots, but now the drive time is cut in half since I moved closer. I've got this one spot that barely ever gets pressure and I consistently see deer most days I go there, even consecutive days. Last year a good buck walked right in front of me at about 10 yards, but took off and got out of range before I could knock an arrow!
Click to expand...
Where are located hour n half north of the D?
 
The best spot i got is a 15 minute drive with a 15 minute walk and a 10 minute boat ride. The other 2 hunting spots are within 1.5 miles and 5-10 minute walks.
 
My closest spot is 30min. Currently my furthest spot is a little over an hour. This is why I love my area so much. I'm, on average, within an hour away from either good hunting or lake fishing.

Note: This would have been a great poll question. If you create one I'll come back and enter.
 
Closest spots are about 20 minutes and that's driving past some stuff that gets hammered. The core area I have been hunting the most the past couple years is 30-45. Have some spots I'll go occasionally to that are up to about 90 minutes. Fortunate to live in an area where I can access a couple million acres, pretty rare in the east.
 
I'm all over. I have spot 15 minutes to 2 hours away.
 
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