What is the most challenging part of hunting your home state

[Ack]

I won't generalize about the whole state, but in my area both the lack of quality buck numbers and dealing with the number of hunters on the public are very frustrating.

[Blink]

Extreme NC Heat, humidity and mosquitoes...

[IndyDawg]

Living in central Indiana, I'd say probably access. The state has quite a bit of public land, but most of it is in the southern half of the state. I drive about an hour to the nearest public land I can hunt (there is one piece about 20 minutes closer that gets absolutely swamped with hunters). If you live in the Northern half of the state, the public parcels are smaller and further apart. A lot of folks say the herd is declining in the state, but that doesn't really jive with my observations and harvest data from the last few years.

[csoult]

*PA*
Not complaining, but too may options. Near me there is more public land than you could ever hunt in a lifetime.
Pressure can be an issue sometimes

[Ranger Matthews]

My wife!

[218er]

My number one complaint in MN is there are 500k or so rifle hunters. It is difficult to get away from the pressure, young bucks get mowed down, but additionally it is borderline unsafe at times with clowns running around. My #2 is that I feel the MN DNR has a vested interest in people being unsuccessful. They only wish for people to have just enough success to continue buying licenses. I don’t get that attitude in several other states i’ve hunted.

[bucksnbows]

Michigan.

Just a lot of hunters with a lot of different views on hunting.

[Thesouthpaw]

In my part of WV, early season archery is very difficult on high mast years, because of the vast amount of oak trees that we have deer basically are on food from the time they stand up, until they lay back down. It definitely makes things challenging, because they may only move ten yards from there bed before laying down again with a full belly.
As the season progresses, things get a lot easier as deer begin to clean up the acorns. If you can find a oak tree that is dropping late, you'll be in the money every time.

[Wlog]

Deciding if I want to chase elk, bear, mule deer, or whitetail. Problems will only get worse next year with antelope thrown in.

Man that must be tough!

[Wlog]

The most challenging parts in my area...
For public land it’s that most of the tracts are relatively small with a lot of hunters. Even though Maryland doesn’t get a lot of recognition as a big buck state in comparison to the Midwest, for this region it does. There are a lot of times when I’m seeing NJ, PA and DE tags in the parking lots.

As far as private land goes it’s the haves and the have nots. The amount of money the private land gets leased for just out of most people’s budget unless they go in with a bunch of other people. If I have to get 10 guys together to lease a 400 acre farm that’s 350 acres of open crop field, what’s the point? The crazy part is that guys are doing it.

Other issues I run into is small public areas with very lightly hunted or no hunting land bordering it. DNR creating tons of hiking, biking and bird watching trails. I understand these are meant to be multi-use areas but the fact of the matter is, the land is being purchased and maintained with hunting license money. When a guy photographing birds can get just a free parking and access permit. I’m not really complaining it just is another thing to add to the human presence. It’s public land I get it.

[bowonly68]

In my home state of Louisiana there are several obstacles to consistently taking good bucks on public land. Here is my list that has formed over the last 46 years of hunting.
1) Large expanses of unbroken timber/cover that make it difficult to find and pattern good bucks
2) No buy in from the LDWF to manage for quality deer. There would also need to be a shift in hunter ideals/ethics to refrain from killing every deer that walks by.
3) Very long firearms seasons that are strategically scheduled during peak rut(this would equate to high hunting pressure as a result)
4) Low numbers of quality bucks as a whole. There are areas of the state that hold a higher percentage of good bucks but these are mainly concentrated on private and federal lands which are managed differently
5) Early season challenges include heat and mosquitoes.
6) A general lack of respect for the public lands and the resources contained within by a few hunters that make the public land experience less than desirable....e.g. poaching, littering, blatant disregard for regulations/laws and a lack of respect for fellow hunters.

[Joe Belly-High Rub]

What a great question. In NH and northern New England in general, I find a multitude of challenges:

- lowest density in the country

- highest % tree cover in the country (over 90% in NH) and a lot of thick, monatanus , mixed hardwoods and pine
Forest with little edge habitat. (Iowa is lowest in nation at around 7% tree cover). This in turn, means a few things:
• Bucks have a lot of spots to bed and virtually no competition for sites. And I've always thought this
contributes to less rubs and scrapes near their bedding.
• difference between the right tree and the almost right tree may be 20 yards, but in thick woods, that 20
yards might as well be 2 miles. So even gun hunters need to set-up almost perfectly to consistently ambush
mature deer with any consistency.
• a lot of mixed hardwoods means a lot of red oak in NH, so bucks can often feed right in their bed in hill
country or thick spots
• 90+% forest also means very little agriculture, which reinforces the low density and makes low mast years
devestating to the heard.
• hard to use trail cameras in an area with no fields or clear cuts

- very low buck to doe ratio, worse than state admits in my opinion

- almost year round tick problem now

- very low participation rate in bear and coyote hunting and almost no predator trapping to speak of

- explosion of posted signs during last 10 years as old yankee farmers die off and leave property to their children. Also, big cultural shift going on here, 30 years ago, you were considered an a-hole if you posted a big piece of raw land for no reason, now you are considered a saint if you do not.

- poor private land forestry management. A lot of people here seem to hire loggers without consulting foresters. Don't know if it's to save money, or just ignorance, or both.

Ahhh..., I feel better now. With all that said, I still love deer hunting more than any other pastime and have learned a ton from Dan and all the other expert killers on this site. Best forum on the entire area internet as far as I'm concerned.

[ZachDavis5313]

Here in eastern misouri, I would have to say low deer density in the areas within an hour of me. Couple that with the way our ridiculous conservation department thinks we need a spiderweb of gravel access trails all over everything and it makes it tough to get on decent deer. I have a very few coveted spots that you can truly consider remote. Everything else is purely the overlooked spots, usually a bench thats halfway down a big ridge where when youre on the access trail above it you cant see through the cedars and bluffs to even know its there without scouting. luckily no one in my area seems to do that, ive never run into anyone in the woods until turkey season. It doesnt help i live fairly close to a very populated county but most of those guys are 400 yards in on the edge of a crp field with bottles of tinks and rattle bags. Its getting better as the years go on for me, whether im getting better as a hunter or the deer numbers rebounding from 2012 and 2013 droughts is hard to say.

[stash59]

Choosing where to hunt!

Stay in the southern 2/3's, fight the crowds, but have classic marsh/swamp bedding scenario's. Which can hold mature bucks.

Go to the bluff/hill country of the SW part of the state. Never hunted there. Big racked bucks are common. But hunter numbers still fairly high, with not quite as much public.

Hit the northwoods. Low deer densities. Wolves!!! Racks often don't match body size. Better age class and buck doe ratios. But vast areas of public to freely roam. Also timber company lands. Places I can get that total feeling of solitude that I enjoy so much.

[PK_]

The lengths that the locals around here are willing to go to in order to hunt deer is unmatched anywhere I have been.

Guys will spend a year’s salary building a swamp buggy, airboat or track machine that’s capable of reaching areas that are otherwise inaccessible to humans.

There used to be a saying that if we learned that deer lived on the moon, the boys in palm beach would build a machine that would get you there...