What is the most challenging part of hunting your home state

[Bowhuntercoop]

Mine would be our 3 months long gun season. On the coast the season open August 15th and you can legally run dogs for deer. It’s crazy. I stick to the central and western part of the state which come in early sept. The liberal bag limits and extremely long gun season make it rough to get on mature deer here.

[Archivist13]

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.

I'm just on the other side of the Chesapeake and I can tell you it's the same here. Only the privileged can afford to hunt private land and the public land is small and more catered toward horseback riding and hiking "really exercise walking". Also everybody that owns private baits in order to keep the deer on their property. Every intersection during the fall has Amish or farmers selling deer corn.

[Bman409]

Here in WV the most challenging aspect, in my opinion, is just to find a nice buck to target. I have killed quite a few 3.5 yr old 120s but seem to be stuck in a rut on sticking one any bigger. There’s a few nice ones around, don’t get me wrong, but it takes a lot of time and effort to find them. Luckily I’m on the river and close to Ohio where finding a nicer buck to target is a little more realistic

I was looking at the Boone and Crockett by state listings recently and was surprised that so few bucks come out of WVA.. I would think with the rural areas and mountains you would have monster bucks down there.. why do you think its so hard to find bick bucks?? Habitat?? Lack of Ag?

[Bman409]

In western NY, I'd say the biggest problem is its difficult to get permission on private land.. and lack of public land.. in the Adirondacks and southern part of the state there is a ton of public land. .in Northwestern NY, almost none.

That said, I do have some permisson on land near my house and we do have big bucks.. I have plenty of them on my trail cameras.. the terrain is hard to hunt... Very flat (this lake plains area), mixture of mature hardwoods and scrub brush... overgrown fields.. not very many pinch points at all..

Almost anyone can get a doe or young buck.. getting a mature buck here is very difficult because they could be almost anywhere.. you have large 1 mile by 1 mile areas that are almost purely thicket.. stuff like that

[802bowhunter]

Theres one shooter buck for every 10,000 acres
Mostly open hardwoods considering its all maple syrup country.

We cant bait
We cant spot light
Our bow season is 4 weeks long
Lowest deer density in the country.,, list keeps going.

If u can kill in new enlgand u can kill anywhwre

[Stingray713]

In Central Va the general firearms season starts right around the peak of the rut. And General Firearms season means dogs hitting the woods in full force, pushing most rut activity deep into thick cover and cover of darkness.

[Swamp Stache]

In Minnesota I would say gun season during the rut and cross tagging bucks.

[Matt Gill]

Here in WV the most challenging aspect, in my opinion, is just to find a nice buck to target. I have killed quite a few 3.5 yr old 120s but seem to be stuck in a rut on sticking one any bigger. There’s a few nice ones around, don’t get me wrong, but it takes a lot of time and effort to find them. Luckily I’m on the river and close to Ohio where finding a nicer buck to target is a little more realistic

I was looking at the Boone and Crockett by state listings recently and was surprised that so few bucks come out of WVA.. I would think with the rural areas and mountains you would have monster bucks down there.. why do you think its so hard to find bick bucks?? Habitat?? Lack of Ag?

I think there are multiple factors! The biggest being the 3 buck per year, per hunter policy. I doubt most do kill all 3, but it’s possible. Rifle season here the 2.5 and 3.5 yr olds do not make it long if they’re dumb. Yes we have a definite lack of ag land but if you look up the top 10 West Virginia bucks killed last year I believe 8 of the top 10 came from one of the four southern bow only counties where deer can reach maturity and a hunter can only kill one buck per year. Those 4 counties have no ag, just old reclaimed mining land. Right across the river 20 mins from my house in Ohio it is absolutely amazing the difference in the caliber of deer where there is more ag and a one buck per year policy. After saying all that though, I’m not really all for WV cutting back to only one buck. I think a good place to start would be two a year, second one meeting some sort of antler restrictions. There’s a few nice bucks here in good ol WV but they’re hard to find, and harder to kill. Hope this answered you’re question!!

[moondoondude]

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.

I'm just on the other side of the Chesapeake and I can tell you it's the same here. Only the privileged can afford to hunt private land and the public land is small and more catered toward horseback riding and hiking "really exercise walking". Also everybody that owns private baits in order to keep the deer on their property. Every intersection during the fall has Amish or farmers selling deer corn.

Thanks for summing it up. Not to mention, the parcel sizes on the western shore are relatively small compared to elsewhere in the country. It's tough to find a parcel to hunt alone - I seem to be rubbing shoulders with not only guys hunting a parcel with me, but the neighbors stacked on the property lines. Public would be alright but so much of public hunting land over here is blasted with recreational use.

[Hillcountrydevil]

Theres one shooter buck for every 10,000 acres
Mostly open hardwoods considering its all maple syrup country.

We cant bait
We cant spot light
Our bow season is 4 weeks long
Lowest deer density in the country.,, list keeps going.

If u can kill in new enlgand u can kill anywhwre

Nice to see another Vt hunter on here, Just joined the other day. You nailed it, Short season and lack of good deer habitat. My family in Pa complain about low deer numbers in the big woods there, I just laugh in their face...

After watching hill county bedding I have been able to get a few smaller buck. I hope this is the year I catch up with a big old Vt buck.

[EllieTheChubb]

Northern Maine low deer density.
Southern Maine access.

[802bowhunter]

Theres one shooter buck for every 10,000 acres
Mostly open hardwoods considering its all maple syrup country.

We cant bait
We cant spot light
Our bow season is 4 weeks long
Lowest deer density in the country.,, list keeps going.

If u can kill in new enlgand u can kill anywhwre

Nice to see another Vt hunter on here, Just joined the other day. You nailed it, Short season and lack of good deer habitat. My family in Pa complain about low deer numbers in the big woods there, I just laugh in their face...

After watching hill county bedding I have been able to get a few smaller buck. I hope this is the year I catch up with a big old Vt buck.

Where u at in vt?

[Tufrthnails]

For me I think a massive part of the difficulty of being successful hunting deer in FL on Public land is the lack of open WMAs. Hear me out though I'm not for slamming 700-800 hunters everyday on a WMA especially really small ones, but the quota permit on a large portion of "good" WMAs are 2 or 3 day hunts and most of the really good ones only have 4 or less of those hunts in an entire season. Considering you don't even know what quota hunt you draw until mid summer at the earliest pre-scouting is insanely difficult in our terrain during the summer.

[ThePreBanMan]

Access, pressure, low deer density on public...

[jrain904]

Florida

The toughest part is access to land that you can hunt for the entire season. Most of our public land is regulated under a lottery quota system and you can only hunt for 3 days. There are a couple of lands open for the entire season but you must be ok with driving about 2 hours to do so or you need to be able to shell out 3k plus to get on a private lease. Besides that its just the terrain and what seems to be low deer density. Much of our land is planted pines with THICK palmettos, the rest of it is either flooded swamp or ridiculously thick overgrowth. With experience and scouting one can find the deer though and I am proud to say that I have shot a deer during the three day quota in 3 of the last 4 years. Also we have all sorts of nasty critters down here such as venomous snakes, gators (which I have come across in the dark), bears, scorpions (yes I have been stung), mosquitos, pigs, and panthers as well as crazy heat/humidity. Honestly, though, the critters and heat don't bother me much its just the lack of time I can spend in the field which is why I have started going out of state to hunt once a year (WV).