How many Years?

[venisonassassin]

I guess I'll kick this one back up there... I've hunted public since i've been old enough to hunt, that makes for 23 years now! I started out gun hunting up in Marinette county. Our group still goes there every year, but i've never done all that well there, I just never got out there to scout enough. I've been huntning hard on public here in SE wisconsin for the past 6 or 7...

[Singing Bridge]

good bump, v-a

For all practical purposes, we're at 70 percent on the poll for over 15 years on public. Awesome!

[ocontocnty]

Been hunting public land since I started hunting.(1974)
Got so used to being able to hunt wherever I feel like going that it seems to restrictive to hunt private. (I realize there are some awesome private lands)
I still go back and hunt near Grand Rapids, MN every gun season. In Wisconsin I hunt some in the Nicolet (25 miles from home) and some years I go up to Douglas county. I really like it there. Lotsa land-not a lot of hunters.
Have dabbled around the Ashland area too. Hunted by Lake Gogebic for a few years in the UP. (nice country)
I just kinda bum around to new areas. I don't get a lot of deer, but I sure have fun.

[Black Squirrel]

4 years for me now. I ve been able to hunt a couple of private land farms since I started. I like the challenge of the public land though. Plus, I don't have any private land marshes to hunt.

[UPbowhunter]

I grew up on public land in the U.P., but have lived and hunted public in Maine, Conn, New Jersey. I have allways been able to get away from most of the pressure with maps, and my legs. 27 years.

[Schultzy]

Whitetails- Off and on the last 24 years. Pressure Isn't to bad but once pheasant and duck hunting opens all bets are off.

Bear- 20 years. It started out with not a lot of pressure but the last 15 years has been terrible with hunting pressure!!

[robert richer]

Minong, Wisconsin.....not as much anymore.

[blackwolf]

44 years, low pressure areas

[JJWI]

My father in law introduced me to the Mead Wildlife area in central Wisconsin in 1995. And he was the one who really showed me the ropes of public land hunting. The Mead got heavy hunting pressure with all the duck hunters, small game and deer hunters. The main thing I learned is if you have a lot of sign (oak ridge or other stand out sign) you were at least 200 yards of were you should be. Because most of the time those areas were the deer went after dark. I remember set up on the edge of a hardwood ridge one night. There was a tag alder patch between the ridge and a Black Spruce swamp. I could hear those deer coming through the tags and staged just outside of the ridge. I stayed in the stand after dark, and as soon as the sun set, those deer just piled out of the swamp. Lesson learn that night. But you do learn that the older bucks don't like exposing themselves and don't walk through openings even in thicker cover. They seem to always find a route that keeps them in cover.

[Singing Bridge]

older bucks don't like exposing themselves and don't walk through openings even in thicker cover. They seem to always find a route that keeps them in cover.

Great point, JJ- the bucks that make a mistake and expose themselves normally aren't around very long on pressured public lands.

[NatureBoy]

6 years total - 3 years on public in KS and 3 here in MA so far.

[DEERSLAYER]

32 years on some of Michigan's heaviest pressured public land. I was late getting out one year and many people were arriving and waking up in camp. There must have been a group of guys every 20-30 yards for the mile I drove back. It looked like a small city. It was unreal!! It's not like you could go a couple miles in between two tracks either. It gets hammered.

This was during the week and now they are talking about having a Saturday opener? I can only imagine.

[NatureBoy]

Deerslayer, just wondering if you happen to know the Eberhart's. I love their stuff, and admire their success bowhunting on the kind of land you described above!

[Singing Bridge]

Nature, the last I knew John Eberhart lived about 10 miles from me, Ed Spinazzola of QDMA's property and food plots (Book and DVD) are in the same close direction, Greg Abbas of A-Way television on the pursuit channel is 10 miles away in a different direction, and Mike Avery of Outdoor Magazine (Sportsman Channel) is about 10 miles in yet another direction.

I must be the classic "underachiever"

[NatureBoy]

Bridge, that's cool you live so close to those guys (and hunt the same tough ground too!). Do you ever get a chance to hunt with them or sit down with them and share stories?