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Poll - Distance from parking area you hunt

What choice below best describes the your typical season in regards to walking distance?

  • All of my walks are quarter mile or less.

    Votes: 6 4.0%

  • Most of my walks 1/4mile or less, a handful are up to 1/2 mile, never really get near a mile out.

    Votes: 22 14.7%

  • A few short walks, Many 1/2 mile walks, a few walks approaching a mile or more.

    Votes: 68 45.3%

  • Rarely hunt within 1/2 mile of parking, typically around a mile or more deep.

    Votes: 36 24.0%

  • Almost all of my hunts are 1 mile+ from closet parking/access.

    Votes: 18 12.0%
  • Total voters
    150
I usually hunt about 3 internet miles away from the truck. Which is about 800 yards.

Furreal, I find also distance off-trail is more impactful. Lots of guys will hike way back in if there is a logging road or hiking trail. A quarter-mile of bushwhacking pretty much guarantees solitude.
 
GCTerpfan said:
Most of the public I hunt is smaller parcels, hiking a mile usually put you at the next access or road. Like someone mentioned above, I'm finding that guy's in my area will walk a long ways on an old logging road but won't walk a hundred yards up or down a steep hill or through thick brush.

First day of Maryland rifle this past year I convinced my dad to hike in with me about a mile. I told him we wouldn't see anybody else back there. The mile hike put us right next to the PA line. 20 min before daylight we watched five guys walk across the line from PA and set up all around us. One of them did jump up a buck that my father ended up shooting so I guess it worked out.
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I came here to say the same thing. I hunt a few spots of public that are a few thousand acres but there are logging trails running between it all. If you walk in too far in you end up running into another hunter coming in from another side. For me it all comes down to scouting and hunting on sign, that could be 30 yards off a logging road or 1/2 mile.
 
Hunting a National Guard base it depends what is open but you can't walk more than 3/4 mile before you hit another training area. This means 90% of my hunting is pretty easy access with the occasional steep hill to go down or go up. I killed a buck this year 200 yards from the truck but in an area where nobody hunts because its so easily overlooked. When I head upstate to Potter, Pa. a little different so my answer is multiple selections.
 
This season I hunted an area where I can hear Lowe’s workers shooting the bull on their smoke breaks and I also hunt areas that are almost 2 miles deep in public.
Go where the deer are
 
Bwhana said:
All but one of my biggest bucks have been taken within bow distance of a major road or parking area. It started many years ago when we arrived at 3 separate locations on a permit hunt gameland that we had scouted only to find trucks already parked in each spot (all were there before legal time because we were spot on the time). Instead of hunting, we rode the entire property that day and mapped trucks and then drew circles around where we knew or thought they would be setup. We then speed scouted the gaps, found great sign and I took a decent 8pt the next morning that made it into a couple of local publications (@KelvinM12 was hunting the opposite side of the drainage and saw him fall). From then on, pretty much the same recipe for success. I took a nice 12 pt from that exact tree a couple of years later too. Please folks, keep going deep, you all know that's where the big boys hide!
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And yet we have studies showing hunting pressure driving bucks to deeper less accessible spots too.

I wouldn’t change a thing, with the success you’re having. Certainly folks should consider your scenario. Just, the opposite can be true as well.
 
I'm all over the map when it comes to walking distance.
One spot in a well used state park I'm almost a mile from the parking lot but less than 100 yards off a county road. At a different state park I hunt, I'm less than 300 yards from the lot and only 50 yards off a hiking trail. Then there's another spot I hunt that the walk in is over a mile and there's nothing past it but more woods and swamps for miles and miles.
What do all these areas have in common? Plenty of deer sign and little to no human sign.
I let the sign determine where I hunt and I'm capable and prepared to walk as far (or as close) as I have to to find it.
 
Bdwilliams said:
I walk about three miles before I find sign half a mile from the car... Or I walk a mile to hunt a spot 400 yards from a different parking lot.
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I hunted a spot of public in MI where I crawled through stuff to get to. Hunted that spot several times, until one day a 4wd truck pulled up next to me and two hunters pulled about 4 ladder stands out of the bed to put up.

They never had a clue I was there, and I still have no clue from where or how they got that truck in there. Shot a buck from that spot the next time out and then shifted my hunts to another county.

Never ever saw a hunter in the woods in the new area, and the hunting was great.
 
just so we’re clear, I’m not asking these questions to preside over an argument whether huntjng close or far is superior. I like hearing everyone’s opinions.

but the purpose of the exercise is to get a general sense of how far MOST PEOPLE walk on MOST OF THEIR HUNTS.
 
slonstdy said:
I'm all over the map when it comes to walking distance.
One spot in a well used state park I'm almost a mile from the parking lot but less than 100 yards off a county road. At a different state park I hunt, I'm less than 300 yards from the lot and only 50 yards off a hiking trail. Then there's another spot I hunt that the walk in is over a mile and there's nothing past it but more woods and swamps for miles and miles.
What do all these areas have in common? Plenty of deer sign and little to no human sign.
I let the sign determine where I hunt and I'm capable and prepared to walk as far (or as close) as I have to to find it.
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I enjoy land like this. Last time I got to the big woods, I had does walking by me in the parking lot. And saw plenty more deer on the way in. And I just pushed right past them. Because deeper is where I like to be.
 
Depends on if I can match the normal.
One spot I hunt, there is a house across the street. The deer are use to hearing trucks and people early in the morning. So the noise i make is normal at 5am. I am only 75 yards from my truck. Another spot I hunt is 20 yards off the road. But I park 1/3 of a mile away, walk down the road into my spot. If I parked too close to this spot it would not be normal. These are places other hunters do not hunt.
 
I never worried about how far it is. I am fortunate enough to have an E-bike for hunting. So I just go where I need to hunt.
 
Typically I don't see deer being pushed deeper or into thick cover until rifle season. There doesn't appear to be a huge bow hunting crowd on the public I hunt. Come end of November / beginning December its time to change tactics and locations. After 18 days of the public land getting straight pounded by rifle / black powder hunters you got to go deep into thick cover to find them during shooting hours, cause they wont be coming out until dark.
 
kyler1945 said:
just so we’re clear, I’m not asking these questions to preside over an argument whether huntjng close or far is superior. I like hearing everyone’s opinions.

but the purpose of the exercise is to get a general sense of how far MOST PEOPLE walk on MOST OF THEIR HUNTS.
Click to expand...

Of course, but naturally conversation will follow.

I always go well beyond a mile as the crow flies on big public, and know one day that won't be true anymore, so I enjoy it no matter how it stacks up for location quality.

But, I've had less time there due to various factors as of late and have hunted locally, where that sort of distance isn't available. And have had chances at great bucks.

But I miss the big woods.
 
Most of my hunts are a mile plus. Sure their are little pockets of good hunting close to the parking lots sometimes. I will add that I try to make my mile hikes through something not just on a trail. Seems to keep more people out that way.
 
Most of the public land I hunt is crisscrossed with roads and two tracks. Realistically I could almost always drive to within a 1/2 mile of where ever I wanted to hunt. That said, I typically am hunting remote from home staying in a camper. Its my choice to leave the truck at the camper while I'm off hunting so I often walk quite a bit further than I have to. The plus side to this is that if I am successful after a long hike in I can typically walk back to camp and get the truck to drive around closer to where I shot him to pick him up.

My typical walk is usually between 1/3 and 2/3 of a mile but I also have been know to hunt as far as 1.25 miles out or within sight of the camper. It all depends on what the situation/conditions dictate.
 
Depends on the property. There is one place I hunt. I literally pull into the guys drive way and climb a tree 25 yards away and he has huge deer there. Another property I walk for 30-45 minutes before I even think about looking for sign.
 
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