I was fortunate enough to kill my buck on public land this year. Any deer killed on public land is a challenging and rewarding experience. If you’re like me and do not have exclusive access to prime deer property, finding land to hunt is our first priority. While public land is a good option, it is certainly not the only option. Whether it be private permission or public land, I’m always looking for the absolute best spot.
I’ve already detailed how I go about gaining permission on private land, so I won’t reiterate that process here. Each year, I aim to scout 6-10 new properties to see if they’re worth pursuing and hold my target deer. Out of those 6-10, 1-3 will get soaker cameras put out for a season to see if they move into the category of ‘absolute best spot’. Those will be the spots I monitor in-season to actually go hunt.
I find these properties in many ways, including map scouting or just driving around. Again, could be public, could be private. For example, when driving on my way to pick up my daughter, I saw this buck standing by the side of the road fighting a smaller buck to keep a hot doe. Once I got home, I immediately jumped on the maps to determine the closest properties enrolled in the hunter access program. Those properties will be among my spring scouting spots.
This past year, I had 3 cameras out this year to soak. All three were on public land. None of those cameras showed pictures worth progressing that spot into the category of ‘absolute best’. One of the properties is a parcel that I am going to continue to scout this year as a nice target deer was on camera, albeit infrequently and at night. That tells me I need to get closer to bedding, and I need to find where the bedding actually is. That will also be one of my spring scouting goals this year.
I say this to say that when it comes to finding property, I rule out significantly more spots than I keep on my list. For every property I actually hunt, I’ve probably eliminated 10 other properties that I’ve scouted and determined they weren’t ideal. That’s one of the main strategies a basic hunter uses to overcome the in-season time deficit. Instead of spending time in-season in a stand to determine a spot is not worth sitting, I spread that time out scouting and running cameras into the late winter and spring.
Even though I’d rather move a spot into the category of ‘absolute best’, I am content to know I at least won’t waste time at these spots. Regarding the one public land spot that showed promise from my soaker cameras, the other major problem was the sheer amount of hunting pressure this spot held. I saw more hunters on this spot than I saw target deer, and by a wide margin. I use trail cameras to monitor hunter pressure as much as deer activity, especially on public ground.
Here’s what I find interesting. The public land area where I killed my buck this year is near a main highway. I killed that deer 300 yards from the road on a main access trail into the public. This is a small public parcel and you can’t go more than 200 yards farther until you hit a swamp. This is also not the first target deer I’ve killed in this spot. All of the public land axioms would tell a hunter not to even look at this spot because the assumed pressure would be too high.
And that’s what I used to my advantage. After my scouting, I knew this spot held target deer. I just had to figure out how to hunt it. I monitored hunter pressure with my trail cameras. This spot gets a lot of gun hunting pressure but relatively less in archery. I knew another guy had a stand a few hundred yards up paralleling the swamp. I also knew that he only hunted certain evenings of the week. I had him patterned just as much as the deer. So when the opportunity arose for a morning hunt, I knew I would be clear.
The point to all of this is that knowing your target deer is in the spot trumps all other information. Most public land ‘rules’ would state that you need to get past all of the other hunters to be successful. In many cases that’s true, and I have public land spots where I hike 1.5 miles or more to get in. But for a basic hunter, don’t overlook spots to which you have access just because you don’t think the hunting will be good. You don’t know until you find out for yourself.