Public land deer hunters

I know a lot of you guys are deer hunters and many of us hunt public land.
I'm doing a 6-part video series on how to beat the hunting pressure in public land deer hunting, the first part dropped this morning. I'll be doing one video a day for six days. Have a look if you're interested.

Will be fun to see his other pointers!

Loved it. Ehd aka blue tongue hit my farm/county deer heard hard last season. So for the first time in years I traveled to hunt even out of state. All on public land. Now when I say to hunt it was only taking my boys 7&9 I did not hunt. I studied maps mad plans on how to get deep. Was going to access by canoe down in ky. Until I thought about loading and un loading my 17" canoe from the top of my excursion by myself. Slick steep mud banks before daylight with young boys.. let's say I went with plan B..

Years back I always went deep on public ground when taking my daughter. At times walking 2 miles. When we would come out I would see deer tracks in our tracks going in 30' from the truck.. knowing this and going in blind having not been on that property in 7 years. My plan was go in the evening before youth gun set up the ground blind and x bow hunt that evening very close to the parking lot. Literally 250 yards from the truck. That way it would give us a chance to see what was moving and be set up for the next morning if nothing looked promising we would move that afternoon.. as luck would have it that field was cut corn and really covered with deer scat. That evening xbow hunting we saw 5 does. Nothing close enough. The next morning 40 min after daylight 15 min after another hunter walked back from the parking lot to retreave his deer cart my 7 year old dropped his first doe at 96 yards cutting her heart in half with his sisters supresed 7mm08. That evening I moved the blind 45 yards west and my 9 year old shot his 6th and 7th deer with a supresed 300 blackout AR. one at 56 yards dropped heart spilt long ways the other at 28 yards made it 35 yards.

Yes just does but shot by kids out of state on public land 250 yards from the crowded parking lot. We watched many hunters that were walking in deep walk out empty handed . Yet Some were also successful. One young man shot a dandy 130" 8 pointer. I love youth hunts.

Point is your 100% correct going deep is not alway best.

Hard to "go deep" when the biggest public land around here is 40-80 acres.

Great points so far. Here is the list of topics for the 6 videos, some of the things that have been brought up have been addressed in these videos.

1) Hunt the edges
2) Out of the way and overlooked small properties
3) Cross a barrier
4) Hunt off-peak times'
5) Let the hunting pressure move deer to you
6) Off-beat tactics and curveballs

That's a good list.

My formula for successfully hunting public land:

Hunt deep, deeper the better, get away from the knuckleheads. Access by water if possible is best.

Get to your stand early, by water if possible.

Conduct mini drives that are well planned and executed.

Do your homework thoroughly. Scout preseason for sign.

Critique each hunt and record. Eventually patterns will develop.

Keep your mouth shut.

Good advice, after seeing this post, I know you're going to love the videos I did.

Thanks!

What`s up with that deers leg in the picture?Best thing I did last year was hunted from the boat.Well I mean I used the boat to get to where I wanted to hunt.

We hunt from the boat with bow or cross bow. It's like taking candy from a baby.

Not sure what you're talking about that buck looked healthy as could be I took a bunch of photos of him.

That buck was standing in the old drive of an abandoned farmhouse. Got about 20 good pics of him before he took off, here's a couple.

My bad.I thought it looked like something was messed up in the first picture.

Noticed your location is East Central Wisconsin, that can't be to far from the "Central" Woods. Great opportunity in that area

The best piece of advise here is "Keep your mouth shut"

A little nugget that I have figured out on some public areas that I hunt, set up in the parking lots if at all possible. Heck, sit in the bed of your pickup if it's legal. As silly as it may sound, I have seen a ton of deer around parking lots with a pickup parked there and no one around. Or maybe make sure at least one person has walked into an area and then set up.

I listen to John Eberharts podcasts and a few other public land hunters on YouTube . Really changed my way of hunting

Here's day 2.

Walk through the multiflora ride thicket people walk around.

#3 tomorrow covers crossing barriers other people aren't willing to cross.

Good advice.

#3 just upoloaded. Cross barriers to get away from the crowds.

There are thousands of acres of land to hunt in Missouri gun season if you want to hunt Tues-Thursday. I really like the point of hunting during non-peak times like weekends.
I grew up in KC and hunted public land the first 20 years I could hunt. Dad would always take off all week and go back down to hunt by himself when I was back in school during the week. He most always harvested another deer and said no one was ever around.

I've hunted a lot of public land in Missouri. The state is blessed with an amazing amount due mostly to the sales tax that goes to the outdoors. The public properties along the Iowa border get a lot of hunting pressure during November though.