Very discouraged on the Public Land.

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GRFox
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby GRFox » Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:20 am

Thanks for the advice guys!


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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby GRUD » Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:26 am

Its not how you start the season but how you finish.

My first time out last weekend was a bust. I hiked way back to a remote swamp where I know of a high spot with a tree where bucks bed. I saw sign and tracks but no deer. I noticed someone either drove an argo or something similar and made a path right through the cat tails including the bedding area. Probably ruined the spot for the year.
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby Brandon » Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:50 am

GR, i feel your pain... ive been on public 80% of my hunting 'career'.

check out this CT buck shot this week:
http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/big-bu ... onnecticut

yesterday I bumped a nice buck off a point, I should have know better. Im sure its the bucK i was after that I had pinned in the marsh... but flood tide, high tide, rain, ect meant his holdout was under water. I walked an hour... bumped the buck, then walked an hour out... all in 80 degree heat. what was i thinking?? I couldnt hunt today or I woulda set up for an AM dump. Ill stay out for a month or until some of this water gets out of here and back to normal.

heres a topo to show how I screwed it up... look up 'good set bad set' topic of mine to see the 'plan'. public is tough, thats for sure.

Image

red is where he was,
orange are the islands where he "should" be.
blue dot where my sets
blue line was the wind direction.

just like hill country i guess... he bedded with the wind at his back... he could see down the hill... and his escape was down that hill and into the marsh or somewehre else.
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby gjs4 » Sat Sep 24, 2011 8:54 am

Found some fair (at best) p land here in wNY but only for late season ml after the orange army gets into football

Tough go brother- but when you get out of the NE it is like having a phd in buckology

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GRFox
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby GRFox » Sat Sep 24, 2011 10:55 am

Brandon wrote:GR, i feel your pain... ive been on public 80% of my hunting 'career'.

check out this CT buck shot this week:
http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/big-bu ... onnecticut

yesterday I bumped a nice buck off a point, I should have know better. Im sure its the bucK i was after that I had pinned in the marsh... but flood tide, high tide, rain, ect meant his holdout was under water. I walked an hour... bumped the buck, then walked an hour out... all in 80 degree heat. what was i thinking?? I couldnt hunt today or I woulda set up for an AM dump. Ill stay out for a month or until some of this water gets out of here and back to normal.

heres a topo to show how I screwed it up... look up 'good set bad set' topic of mine to see the 'plan'. public is tough, thats for sure.

Image

red is where he was,
orange are the islands where he "should" be.
blue dot where my sets
blue line was the wind direction.

just like hill country i guess... he bedded with the wind at his back... he could see down the hill... and his escape was down that hill and into the marsh or somewehre else.


Yea that buck is the talk of the tri-state area this past week. Believe it or not, Southern NY and CT have a lot of big Boone Class deer. They are just very pressured and tough to kill.
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby Uncle Lou » Sun Sep 25, 2011 10:45 pm

keep the faith GR. And wow that CT buck is a brute, love seeing bucks like that from obscure places
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby headgear » Mon Sep 26, 2011 10:22 am

Early season public land can be hard on a hunter. A lot of people (bowhunters, small game, duck hunters, general public or nature lovers) are hitting the woods this time of year and a little pressure can change things fast. Food sources are also changing rapidly so patterns can be tough to come by.

I also feel all the great buck sign we find during spring scouting can be misleading during the early season. The bucks might not be bedding way back in the nasty stuff until the leaves are down and the pressure is up. I messed up once last year and once this year going in too far too soon but I learned from those mistakes and stumbled on 2 early season buck beds. These beds might be good any time of the year but I bumped bucks out of them early season and will have a better idea of how to hunt these areas in the future.
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby bowhunter15 » Tue Sep 27, 2011 4:21 pm

My first two years hunting public I probably averaged 2 deer sightings each season. Then I started learning how to actually hunt and it got much better, but there's still many, many days when I go out and see squat despite being in the "right" location.

Typically I find that opening weekend is good but it drops off exponentially after that. Then gets good again once pre-rut starts up or a secluded oak starts dropping, etc. It can definitely be frustrating, especially when you put a lot of tough miles to get to a set and get skunked. But life goes on, you keep at it, and eventually it pays off.
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby hoyt » Thu Sep 29, 2011 10:49 pm

It took me a few yrs to figure out how to hunt open public land. The thing that helped me the most was to release that most of the sign I was hunting over was done at night. Once I found the best sanctuaries where the deer would feel safe enough to bed and started hunting close to them so I could catch them coming and going while still daylight my success improved drastically.
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby headgear » Fri Sep 30, 2011 3:36 am

The other thing to remember about public land is the deer sightings will be very low, especially if you are hunting mature bucks. There are public land locations I could setup on where I know I would see deer, but they are not the mature bucks I am after. To get on a public land mature buck will really test you, more than likely you will see a whole lot of nothing but then it will happen and it will all be worth the wait. Now you just have to make the best of your limited opportunites.
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby fishlips » Mon Oct 03, 2011 1:25 pm

hunted some public land today during the Packer game thinking there wouldn't be anyone out there. Wrong. Within twenty minutes of setting up I heard someone shooting a 22. I thought no big deal, they shouldn't come anywhere near me based on where I was set up. Wrong again. Within 20 minutes of setting up, I had someone under the stand. Oh well. Goes to show my spot wasn't as sneaky as I thought it was.

On a bad note, I busted one of my straps on my lone wolf climbing sticks. They worked great up until today, but this was only the third time I have used them. I hope they are covered by warranty.
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby fishlips » Mon Oct 03, 2011 1:29 pm

Ooops. Hit post before I should have. Have you guys had it where a person will come through when you are set up? Do you normally just pick up once that happens? I picked up this afternoon because i knew the guy was going to come back through and he walked close to the bedding area I was trying to set up on.

I am guessing I will try the spot again, but it will be later in the year when no one will be out there (hopefully).
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby swamp-assassin » Mon Oct 03, 2011 1:49 pm

fishlips wrote:Ooops. Hit post before I should have. Have you guys had it where a person will come through when you are set up? Do you normally just pick up once that happens? I picked up this afternoon because i knew the guy was going to come back through and he walked close to the bedding area I was trying to set up on.

I am guessing I will try the spot again, but it will be later in the year when no one will be out there (hopefully).


depending on where i am and where the person is going, i usually sit it out..sometimes they bump deer toward you.
most of the time im sitting in a spot that no one will go into..seems like they like to hunt the wooded sections of the public land and ignore the really nasty stuff ...where the mature bucks are. the last area i hunted, i was in one of three trees in the area that you could get a stand in, and a climber wouldnt work...glad dan and the others talked me into the alpha and sticks..and unless you had a lone wolf stand, youd be hard pressed to want to get any other stand into one of those three trees.

headgear wrote:The other thing to remember about public land is the deer sightings will be very low, especially if you are hunting mature bucks. There are public land locations I could setup on where I know I would see deer, but they are not the mature bucks I am after. To get on a public land mature buck will really test you, more than likely you will see a whole lot of nothing but then it will happen and it will all be worth the wait. Now you just have to make the best of your limited opportunites.


so if i havent seen a deer all season am i doing something right? :lol:
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby Zap » Mon Oct 03, 2011 1:59 pm

I took a buddy to one of my best public spots yesterday.

I cut out a cedar there last season, my first sit last season I had three doe groups walk past and saw two good bucks in the distance. That was early Oct.
Hunted it twice later on and it had dried up.

We pack in and there is a stand in my cedar. :shock:

Turned around and left, went to hunt some private spot.

The thing is I have permission to hunt/cross some private to get to that spot, any other way in and you walk right thru the bedding area.... :?
No one else has permission there that I know of.

Public is definately a challange, good luck with it, fellas.
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Re: Very discouraged on the Public Land.

Unread postby headgear » Mon Oct 03, 2011 2:52 pm

swamp-assassin wrote:so if i havent seen a deer all season am i doing something right? :lol:


:D You got me there. If I ever figure out early season public land bucks I will let you know.


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