Archive for July, 2015

DIY Public Hunting: Keep a lot of Options Open

Sunday, July 26th, 2015

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Choosing a place to hunt can be a daunting task when you make the decision to try public hunting in another state, especially if you’re driving a long distance.

You can spend winter, spring and summer researching places to go. If you’ve never been to a place it’s going to be a shot in the dark. Although the aerial photos appear to show everything you’ve been looking for they don’t tell you if there are deer there and if the bucks are the quality of animals you want to pursue.

When you make the decision to try new areas you must start off by choosing a state. Look at the numbers on the DNR pages and eliminate regions of the state based on the amount of public land open to hunting. While you can focus on a tiny piece of public land that you feel might be getting overlooked the entire plan can fall through when you arrive and find out every local hunter in the county is hunting there. If there are no other options available within a reasonable distance you will spend a minimum of two days trying to locate another place to hunt.

By eliminating areas without a number of tracts of public land within two hours driving distance you can get rid of any potential problems that might arise when you get to your primary spot and the hunting isn’t what you expected it to be.

It doesn’t matter whether you locate a bunch of small tracts of public land or a few large ones, just make sure they’re all within driving distance of one another. This will allow you to hunt a number of places during the week without getting locked down in one place and burning it out. It doesn’t take much to wear your welcome thin with the local deer herd if you’re returning to the same place day after day.

You might find one place that is a couple hundred yards off the road and another one that is a few miles from the nearest road. It doesn’t matter where you go as long as you can avoid human pressure and find fresh sign. Fresh sign doesn’t lie. It will lead you to the water and at that point it’s your job to get yourself a drink.

 

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