Property Sizes

[peteherbst]

Just curious as to what size properties guys are typically hunting. Broad brush here but thought it would be interesting.

[Abishai]

I hunt my parent's place the most. It's 20 acres.

[rfickes87]

i tried to click all of the options but it wouldn't let me. size shouldn't mean anything. its all about where they don't get molested. that could be deep in a 20,000 acre piece or along a road or on a 20 acres piece that others overlook. or anything in between.

one piece i hunt is only 800 acres maybe but i can walk back 2 miles b/c its a long skinny shaped piece or public land.

[Dewey]

I rarely hunt anything less than 5,000 acres. A great majority is well over 10,000 acres but much of it is cattails and water. I like having lots of land to work with and most important the ability to get away from other hunters. I tried hunting smaller properties and hated all the hunting pressure I had to deal with. I tend to gravitate towards the nasty stuff. Water is a huge plus. In the northwoods I seek stuff that I can go for miles before hitting the next road along with nasty thick swamps and beaver ponds. Getting harder and harder to find land like this that holds quality bucks up there. My favorite place is in the UP. Ottawa National Forest is almost one million acres. About as wild as it gets around the midwest. Buck hunting up there is about as tough as it gets anywhere.

Some guys are content hunting the same 40 acre parcel day after day. I could never do that even if I was seeing good bucks every day. I love to have land to explore. Always looking for new sign and the next puzzle to solve. Extremely hard to be a mobile hunter unless you have a lot of acreage to work with.

[Hawthorne]

Not cut up with roads probably 3,000 acres might be the biggest chunk. Some areas I’m covering over 10,000 acres overall

[Noreast10pt]

I used to primarily hunt my uncle's 40 acres but now that I've moved to SD I've been hunting just public land.

The smallest piece is 42 acres and the largest I've been on is over 6,000.

[Jackson Marsh]

One property I hunt is quite large, another couple of properties I hunt are both around 2000 acres, but most of it is garbage.

[Kraftd]

For public I have ready access too, 1,500 acres is huge. Really wish we had some bigger parcels closer. All the private I hunt is sub-100 acres. Punlic varies from about 40 up to about 1,500.

[seazofcheeze]

In Michigan, I hunted mostly 40s, 80s, a few 160s, and a few public pieces that were over 1,000. In Montana there are so many 640+ pieces its ridiculous. I have seen more than a dozen 100,000+ acre pieces now...its actually overwhelming how much land there is.

[218er]

I hunt a few different 100-400 acre parcels, A 3k, and two different 30k properties. The larger the parcel the longer it takes to learn but it can be so much more peaceful.

[tundra]

I am like Dewey, here on the forum.... I have private total about 164 acres,,,, that is not enough to spit on,,,,, in reality I have killed some great deer on only 7 acres, of public land, etc,,,,,, the point is, hunting 164 acres, I might hunt that only about 5 times the whole season, because otherwise, too much pressure

I hunt thousands of acres of public land, and I rarely hunt the same place twice,,,,,,

[peteherbst]

Seems like many guys might be hunting he 100-1000 acre pieces closer to home?

[greenhorndave]

Seems like many guys might be hunting he 100-1000 acre pieces closer to home?

That would be a yes for me, but I've started targeting bigger places ala Dewey for similar reasons.

[Scratchman]

That's a tough one. My motto is "i gits in where i fit in". Just as long as i have a situation to myself. On Sunday I scouted a 20 land trust piece in the middle of cul de sacs. Yesterday i scouted a 12,000 acre piece. As long as i can find an overlooked spot. Im there.

[mauser06]

Definitely a broad brush...


Do you mean continuous acres? Or property size as in a 10k acre piece of public....or permission on a 50 acre farm...? Or....?


Here in Pennsylvania, I can't go super far without running into roads. But I hunt several pieces that are 5000+ acres. Some over 10k.

But I've hunted brush patches not more than an acre or 2...


I just got permission from a farmer that has 1200 acres. He said " I don't own much for woods". Doesn't matter to me because what you do own is absolutely nasty which is why it's not farmed...and everyone else that hunts your farms sits on the field edge. I will be keying in on some of those nasty hidey holes.