Some experienced based input about public deer hunting from those that hunt mostly or always public land

[DMTJAGER]

For those that bow hunt mostly or exclusively public land when the land has great habitat and good deer numbers but receives considerable bow hunting pressure and intense gun hunting pressure is essentially flat has no terrane features that make for difficult to very difficult access and has good and or reasonable access to most areas is there a minimum acreage it has to be before you will invest considerable time and effort scouting it and later hunting it?
In other words what circumstances cause you to not bow hunt a public land area?

 

[raisins]

It depends upon what you want. If you are after a freezer filler and some fun, then go for it. I am at the point that I won't shoot anything smaller than a decent 8 point (or a huge 6 point). I like deer meat, but I hunt for the experience and challenge and meat is a distant third.

In my neck of the woods, you will only find decent bucks where you can be away from high pressure OR you have to bait them. That's the "big secret" of regularly successful bowhunters in WV (get a all hanger every year or almost): 90% of them are shooting deer over bait piles on private land.

There are multiple WMAs near me that exactly fit your description (regarding pressure), and I haven't hunted them in over 10 years. The areas have to get large enough to have remote areas or rugged enough to have areas where others don't go, or far enough away from people that they are overlooked. I currently mostly hunt the national forest because it is huge and in areas of lower population density. In my opinion, you are better off visiting a good area less often if in order to get there you have to drive further. If an area is large but has easy access and high hunter numbers, I still won't hunt it.

The crappy WMAs are 30 minutes away. Better hunting is 2 hours away. It is a better use of my time to drive and get to scout and hunt less often. Maybe I'm going it wrong, but I've never seen a mature buck during daylight on high pressure areas where someone wasn't baiting.

Edit: something else to consider: how much private land with rural homes border the public land? how many roads criss cross it with open areas? What I'm getting at is this helps you assess poaching pressure and ability of people to pull deer out of the public land and into their backyards using corn bait piles. This is also specific to local culture and LEO presence. WV is horrible with poaching in areas where it is easily done and gotten away with.

 

[DMTJAGER]

The public areas near my home I've never heard much about poaching I'm sure it happens but I don't hear of it hardly at all and the DNR LEO's are few but pretty active and aggressive. I've seen them in action more than a few times on public land and they are very professional but will not hesitate to slam your N**S in a door jam if you've got it coming. Also the people who live around the public land I know will call the DNR on you without hesitation if they even think your trespassing or are up to no good.

In my state there are very strict very kind of stupid anti-baiting laws. I can grow a 100 acre field of sugar beats, clover, soybeans or any plant that is solely and only for attracting deer to feed so I can shoot them, but bait piles, mineral or salt licks, or any food scent or attractant like Deercocane, or home brew like a combination of Jello, sugar, salt, molasses, peanut butter etc, essentially any transportable substances a deer can or might eat is absolutely illegal to be in your hunting area within 10 days of opening day including any affected soil no less. As I said considering I can plant unlimited food plots legally to attract and kill deer but can not bring in the same exact food to attract deer is IMHO kind of stupid.

All of the public land near my home is surrounded by and borders on by private farm land, and homes.

This past turkey youth season was walking out of the woods with my boys and a big ole tom with us and at the parking spot the DNR officer was very happy to see us and quite excitedly congratulated my son and wanted to hear his story of how he got his tom.
My boys and I couldn't help but notice a truck as we walked by it illegally parked over 50 yards past the no vehicles past this point sign and also it was still legal turkey hunting hours and only turkey hunters are allowed on this area during legal hunting times and there are signs located at every parking spot on the entire property as well as on every road that state this.
As we were standing talking with the DNR officer we all saw a group of four people three men and one woman walking up to the illegally parked truck.
The officer said excuse me and went up to the group and asked what they were doing in the woods and were they aware they had driven on a road they weren't supposed to? They replied they were mushroom hunting and as far as they were concerned they felt driving on the road was no big deal.
The officer explained to them they could not have possibly driven past and not seen both signs about no unauthorized vehicles and only turkey hunters until after 1pm and to this the guy replied he didn't think it was fair turkey hunters got special treatment over mushroom hunters and wasn't going to loose half a day of mushroom hunting to what he said was stupid "expiative" rules.
Yep out came the officers pen and citation book.

 

[DMTJAGER]

There are multiple WMAs near me that exactly fit your description (regarding pressure), and I haven't hunted them in over 10 years. The areas have to get large enough to have remote areas or rugged enough to have areas where others don't go, or far enough away from people that they are overlooked. I currently mostly hunt the national forest because it is huge and in areas of lower population density. In my opinion, you are better off visiting a good area less often if in order to get there you have to drive further. If an area is large but has easy access and high hunter numbers, I still won't hunt it.

I was thinking exactly the same thing.
All of the public gun property near my home is buck only for regular firearm season. You can only kill a doe bow hunting or during the later ML season and by then all the public land has gotten the living absolute expiative beaten out of it.

 

[Cotehex]

I usually go ahead and scout those areas. What I see in my neck of the woods is that in the late season these areas can shine if you can get on the current food source. Most hunters in my area have given up or tagged out by late season and the hunting pressure is minimal then.

 

[sureshotscott]

Why ask these questions and not provide location info???

 

[DMTJAGER]

Why ask these questions and not provide location info???

No offence but why would I need to supply a location? I'm simply asking the experienced based opinions of those who hunt mostly public land as I have quite limited public land deer hunting experience (as I have hunted private for 80-85% of my deer hunting life) what are the conditions under which they would choose to not hunt an otherwise promising looking tract of public land. Such conditions or circumstances I would think it would be reasonably safe to assume would apply to any tract of public land and I would need not ask about a specific tract of public land.
To be honest I would never ask people about their specific hunting areas be they public or private, on an open forum on the internet, I feel as I am essentially a stranger, that I am imposing far to much of a favor on them. If a person were to offer to suggest a tract of public land they had not yet named, I would then suggest we go to PM's at that point.

I have some comparatively small public hunting areas within manageable drive from my home and have always considered bow hunting deer on them for at least the last 12 years, but I also know they receive substantial bow hunting pressure. All of my public land deer hunting has always been done on very large (large for west of the Mississippi public land tracts that is a couple 100K acres VS several million) state or federal forests 5-6 hour rides from my home and never really had to deal with unacceptable levels of encroachment by other hunters. Unfortunately now I simply can not get the time off from work I once did even 5 years ago let alone 10 to make hunting anything over 3hrs drive one way from home workable. To put it bluntly I have so little free time now I need to use it as wisely as I can and I would like to if at all possible avoid wasting my limited free time scouting public land that will end up being an exercise in futility while bow hunting. I do not wish to be misunderstood I fully realize and accept the realities that are public land bow hunting I am just trying to give myself the best odds at as high a quality of a hunt as I can reasonably have a right to expect. My goals on public land would be extremely different as those I have when hunting private. When hunting public I am simply happy to see more deer walk past me in bow range than hunters.

My desire to try public land bow hunting is another reason I am wishing to give saddle hunting a try.

 

[sureshotscott]

No offence offense but why would I need to supply a location?

Maybe, just maybe, because providing vague location info like "southern Illinois" would help people understand your situation.

 

[Tony]

What are you looking for? Big buck or freezer meat? What makes me move in from an area is if there is maybe another guy/guys that hunt like me. If the land has deer, they will be leaving sign. Where are they? To your question how would I know I didn’t / did want to hunt an area until I scouted it? I’d scout it first. My experience has been that in all public lands these deer aren’t hiding behind every tree. There are usually only say a couple good spots on each 1000 acre public land. And if you can find them in a map, so can everyone else. Go into those spots scouting, and probably find some stands already set up. Back track those deer to where they are really living. You are probably going to find some old wooden stands of where old school real die hards did the same thing. Then go in there hunting during multiple times of the season. Maybe it gets hit real hard during muzzleloader or maybe the first weekend of bow. You arnt going to know until you actually hunt it and scout it.

You seem like an experienced hunter, so maybe go somewhere with less pressure but bigger less density deer. Not what I would tell someone new to hunting. If your new to hunting, you have to have deer interactions, bump them, bump them, and bump them some more. Screw it up, other people shoot the deer you bumped or set up wrong on.

 

[Jpdarby2]

I hunt the Sam Houston NF which is notorious for massive amounts of pressure due to its close proximity to Houston, TX. I scout during the off season mainly to be outside and for the opportunity to get a hog every now and then. It doesn't get nearly the pressure during archery season so I hunt hard during that time. However, once rifle season opens I'll only hunt Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. While the deer movement isn't as good as archery its exceptionally better than the weekend. Also I find the smaller sections of public tend to be over looked my most hunters. I personally focus on the smaller sections.