Hunting Public Land

J

joshua9578

New member
I had started a thread a couple days ago asking on tips for finding a farmer and developing a relationship to hunt on his property. One point made was why not hunt public land. My response was that from everyone I know who hunts has said nothing but bad things about hunting public land. They say you don't know who your hunting next to, there is disputes over who is hunting where, alot of the people shouldn't be out there because they dont know what they're doing, people walking right through where youve been sitting all morning, etc. Has anyone here hunted public land? If so, have you had similar experiences or was it a good hunt? By the way I have never tried hunting public land, I have just heard these horror stories and figured I shouldn't test the waters. Thansk guys.
 
Kind of a different story out here in the west. I'd bet almost half the entire state of WA is public. Plus, land is too damned expensive to buy it. When I lived in MO? Different story. I got so ****** off the last year I hunted on Pulblic land, I was ready to give up hunting, it was so bad. Then I found out how cheap land was and bought a little chunk of my own about 15 years ago. Still go back there every year.
 
If you have large public lands you will find the vast majority of hunters are in a small area of easier to hunt or walk to. I go to the "back side" where little to no roads exist and hop the fence and go in to the deepest nastiest thick and swampy area deer trails take me to. Not much chance of having to share my spot with the lazy hunters!
Brent
 
I've hunted for whitetail on public land in northwest Minnesota for the last eight or nine years. I have had good and bad experiences.

You will run into other respectful easy going friendly hunters like myself and occasionally you will cross paths with a rude loud disrespectful hunter who will confront you while you are in "his" permanent stand that he built several years before, who isn't wearing any blaze orange clothing (During Firearms season), is cursing at you and spitting on the ground beneath you.

My response to this guy was,
"Sorry but I've been here since 5am and it's noon right now. The early bird gets the worm". He probably thought it rude of me to say such a remark to and not leave "his" stand.

When I see that another hunter is in a stand that I planned to hunt in I slowly back out of the area not to disturb his/her hunt.

Other hunters will stop at our camp and we will communicate where we plan to hunt that day and we stop at other's camps and do the same.

If you are going to hunt on public land please be respectful of other hunters.
Basically follow the golden rule of life.
 
Some of the best bucks around here are found on public land. Also, my two biggest bucks came from public land. For archery, I'm not a fan of public land for obvious reasons. But for gun, I love it. Around 10am when all the lazy hunters get up to go back to camp, the fun begins.

One time, I was caught off guard by another hunter, really scared the crap out of me. I was on the backside of a ridge watching a small creek way deep in the woods. A small 6 pointer was walking the creek and I decided to let him go. As soon as he turned around the ridge just out of my sight....BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Not even 75 yards from me was another hunter on the front side of the ridge. I about fell out of my seat. Figuring my day was done, I walked over and gave him a hand with the 6 pointer.

I went back to grab my seat and decided to sit down for a few minutes to catch my breath. 15 minutes later a nice mature 8 pointer appears out of no where, I about fell out of my chair again! I kept thinking, you gotta be kidding me. I took aim, and let one go...He went 148" :)
 
The same stand that I mentioned in my last post I took a nice ten point buck last season. I agree that public land is just as good as private land to hunt for big bucks.

Just get out in the field at the crack of dawn and hunt until dusk.
It does seem that the deer know when hunters leave the woods for lunch time.

Pack a lunch, heat warmers (if it is cold), extra ammo, and be patient.
Beef jerky, apples, and candy are my favorite grub to bring out into the field.
 
A couple of the posts seem to be saying that mid day is a good time to hunt. Should I be staying in my spot longer than just the morning? I might just make another thread about this:confused:
 
You might want to hunt through mid day. Alot of times hunters (myself included) decide that daylight to 11 AM is all the hunting they want for the morning and they head out of the woods to eat lunch and to regroup. Once they start heading out of the woods they jump deer and get them to moving in different directions.
 
thanks guys, i have thought about hunting public land before and figured if i did i was going to go so darn far into the woods it would be a miracle if i ran into someone else, haha. i will look into some local parks around the area and see if i can get some information to help me out. its good to finally here success stories about hunting public land.
on the topic of hunting the afternoon, i love it. the friends i do go out with always make fun of me for always looking like a hockey goalie when i head out to my stand, but who is comfortable enough in 10 degree windy weather to take a nap? ME:D! if they stay in their stand past ten its a miracle. everytime they'll text me and say theyre getting down to warm up, get something to eat, or move spots, so i get down and start walking through the field or woods and end up spookin deer. i tell them when i get back to the truck and they always have some excuse. "oh yeah i seen that deer it was nothing special or something to cover their butt from missing a good deer. anyways, this is why i want to hunt on my own, so that i can stay in the stand as long as i want, and if i miss a good deer its my fault, not because i had to follow the wants of the group. stay in your stand a little longer, pack your lunch and put on another sweatshirt if needed, itll be worth it.
 
I've only ever hunted pheasant on public land, so I haven't had any bad experiences, especially since there is a rather large piece by my small town that hardly anyone knows about.
 
I was invited to hunt on a ranch, because my brother was the local preacher. That led to other invites from farmers and orchardists.
So there ya are.

There's public land and then there's public land. The further you go from populated areas and big roads the less the competition.
 
As a former ...

Ohioan, the northern Ohio Public area and SE Mich area are hard hit. BUT wait till the later in the season and you ahve them to yourself.

What type hunting? Maybe I can help ,further.
 
whitetail, any specific recs on public land in NW ohio? i would like to stay out of michigan if i can, out of state license is a big investment, haha.
 
There is almost always someone willing to work harder than you. No matter where you go on public land there will usually be someone with the same idea.

That being said, I have hunted only public land for my whole life and have had very good hunts. There are jerks out there but they are generally the ones who don't want to put the hard work in.

Go make your hunt and enjoy yourself. You may run into someone just when you think you are all alone, but as long as you are enjoying being out, it won't matter.

GAR
 
I have hunted public land a few times, very few actually, as I just started this season. I have always hunted clubs or leases it's just not in the budget at the moment. As some others posted, you can pretty much forget hunting private land of any real acreage for free unless you know someone, even then it's doubtful.

It's been a good experience so far, I haven't seen any other hunters in the woods. I try to be aware of where I have seen vehicles parked so as to avoid walking up on someone. I haven't been lucky enough to have an opportunity to shoot yet, but just thinking about not knowing where anyone else might be makes me plan possible shots accordingly. I would say hunting public land makes me much more alert and aware of my surroundings, and a safer hunter in general. I'm a stickler for my orange, it's required anyway, and I always use a flashlight in low-light conditions, even if I don't quite need it yet, sometimes just pointed straight down or even just turned on pointed up in it's belt case. I also find that I call shooting light over sooner than I would on private land. Just pays to be safe when you don't know exactly who you're out there with or where they are....
 
I am not sure what your seasons are but here in tx the key is to stay out of the public land the first weekend while all of the idiots are out there being jerks and then the rest of the season is pretty sane...so you should be able to hunt and still have a small chance of getting something.

Hunting public land is not all bad....if you enjoy the old ways and are not opposed to walking away with nothing but the enjoement of the experience and hopefully what you learned along the way then it is great. There is a chance to get a decent Buck....I know because one of my shoulder mounts...and I have 3 came off public land. Also the first nice buck I ever shot was on public land so you can do it you just need to understand what you are up against and what you need to do to position yourself for optimum success.
 
I learned hunting on public land and I agree with what was said above: be willing to go where others are too lazy to try to go.

If you stand hunt, I highly recommend climbers and pack them in-take them out with you. My group of friends and I built ladders every summer out of electrical conduit and we seemed to lose several every season from someone who thought they wanted it more than us; to the point of packing in bolt cutters to cut the chain and lock we placed on them. Very frustrating to walk 45 mins to your tree in the dark, only to find no stand. Like was mentioned above, someone is always willing to go farther than you.

The best hunting I had was early season. FL had lottery drawings for the week prior to each opener which was broken into 3 segments. I always got drawn for the ones I wanted and these limited hunts cut down the numbers drastically. But, I never went back until well into the season to avoid the morons.

Use every bit of information to help you understand the land. With things like Google and Terraserver, and the state Atlas and Gazeteers, its easy to determine likely locations, get the coordinates for them, then use a GPS to get out there and scout it.

Good luck.
 
have had good and bad experiences hunting public land would just try out a few places and see how it goes for you, while most of the public land is often crowded with hunters there is some areas you may find that are not hunted much.
 
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