Hunting public land is the “in” thing to do now, with popularity rising out of necessity (decrease in private access), the draw of its challenging nature, and the meteoric rise of YouTube channels and exposure they have brought (thanks Hunting Public!). Yes, shooting a deer on public land is quite an accomplishment, but this craze is resulting in many areas becoming over-pressured, making finding deer and especially mature bucks extremely difficult. I’ve primarily hunted public land since 2010 with better than average success, especially since those early years where I learned from some brutally hard rookie mistakes (hunt-busting blunders I see all too often from other hunters). So, if you want better success hunting public land for whitetails, here are a few of the big mistakes I’ve learned that you absolutely need to avoid.
1. Competing Over Hunting Spots
The big variable that is so hard to account for in public land hunting is other hunters, who can mess up your best laid plans at any moment. This can be very frustrating, and on top of that, some locations are better than others, and this scarcity creates intense competition over a few prime spots within a public land area. Although some areas are indeed better than others ( like obvious funnels on GPS maps, or a very visible buck many are glassing from a road), unless you are the lucky first person to hunt a location this competition quickly makes these spots dead – deer ghost towns. So, if you’re seeing a bunch of guys in one spot at the parking lot, a cowpath-like trail going into a section, or trail cameras present in a particular “hot spot,” it’s best to just avoid these as they are already ruined once you see this. Avoid the draw to compete over a spot, and reframe the scarcity mentality in your mind. There are other good spots undiscovered, and those are the ones you need to find.
2. Hunting Where Hunter Sign Is
Similar to #1, this one takes the idea of competition a bit further. Let’s say you’re scouting a new area and start seeing some good deer sign. You’ve put forth a bit of effort e-scouting, hiking back ½ a mile or more off the road, and now you’re into it good – rubs and scrapes that are just tore up. It just looks like the hotspot to be, but then you notice something – hunter sign. This can be subtle, but should never be ignored. Maybe it’s a fresh treestand (from the current season), boot tracks, a trail camera that was well-hidden, or fresh cleat marks where someone climbed and hunted a tree.
Whatever these are they indicate it has been hunted recently, and it’s important to know that once you see this, the jig is up. Don’t rationalize that the spot may still be good (an emotional tendency when we see deer sign and also have invested time and energy in a spot already), because most likely the deer sign was made before the hunter sign, and odds are it’s already been blown out by another hunter. If this is the case, you should cut your losses, as the deer making that sign has likely turned nocturnal or moved on. So should you.
3. Assuming “Deep” is Big Buck Heaven
This past season I met two hunters in a public land parking lot making a ton of racket as they prepped for their morning hunt. When I inquired where they were headed, they braggadociously said “way back, in that swamp,” and I could tell by the way they said it that they took great pride in the idea of “going deep.” This is typical nowadays, and due to press the last 15-20 years (largely in magazines and now podcasts), the secret spots of yesterday have been exposed. Once exposed, by definition they aren’t a secret anymore, and those islands and deep swamp hangouts are destination locations for every hunter. I call this the Disneyland Mentality, and it results in every hunter heading to the same spots (way deep). And with the invention of apps that show you these “secret spots” easily on a GPS map, they are now very apparent to everyone.
I’m not sure how the guys I encountered faired that morning, but from how they acted in the parking lot, I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere close to them (noisy and non-conscientious habits tend to translate to hunting ones). So, I typically avoid these spots, even if they look incredible on that app. Remember, if you see it, so does everyone else. Overlooked is key now, not deep. I took two public land bucks this year (A Michigan – 10 point, and a Missouri – 8 point) and both of these were in fairly easy to access areas. The Michigan location literally had 8-10 trucks on the other side of the road, all accessing the same Disneyland location in the middle of that section (from 2 sides so they were oblivious to half of the other hunters accessing it). I’m confident they were having little luck and running into each other as they all competed. Meanwhile, I was seeing several Pope and Young class bucks across the road in an overlooked area.
The Missouri buck was taken just 1 hour into my first hunt (evening), and the access was just 200 yards from a well-used campground during the late season (after the big gun season push). It was one of dozens of areas I e-scouted and had pinned, but it became evident this spot was very overlooked and probably was for most of the season. This made it a prime location to hold the remaining pressured deer, including another shooter I saw from the road that morning. Going deep may actually be the dream location, but steer clear of this assumption unless it proves so.
4. Hunting Bad Sign
One of the biggest tricks hunters fall for when they are scouting different locations is hunting bad sign – particularly old sign. This happens because many hunters don’t know what fresh sign looks like, or think it is fresh when it actually isn’t. This leads to hunters setting up on a scrape or rub line, and spending precious days waiting to no avail only to wonder “what happened?” This occurs a lot, and worst yet, is repeated many times due to lack of understanding. So, unless sign is very fresh – deer are currently there to the point you feel they are watching you, you’re wasting your time. This is where trail cameras give you a reality check, but you also need to get proficient at determining what fresh sign actually looks like. If that poop ain’t steamin and the tracks aren’t fresh off the hoof, keep looking.
5. Hunting in the Open
Unless trail camera or visual observation tell you a deer is showing up in daylight, you shouldn’t hunt open locations. An open location is somewhere you can easily walk, and easily see more than 10 yards. Only young deer will typically show in these locations in daylight, or in very low pressure areas, which typically is not public land. From my experience, deer on pressured public land do not expose themselves or leave heavy cover, even when transitioning to or from food in twilight hours. To have success, you need to think from the deer’s perspective, and what would keep you alive, not your human perspective of what would be best for you to shoot them.
Another part of hunting in the “open” is regarding your setup – are you visible where you hunt (tree or ground)? Do you stick out like a sore thumb (skylined), or not have LOTS of cover surrounding you to break up your form? On pressured public land I’ve observed deer literally looking up and scanning trees to try to find hunters because they are “trained” by all the arrow and bullet projectiles that have been launched at them. (I avoid popup blinds altogether, as most public lands won’t allow you to leave it long enough for deer to get used to it, and you’re basically telling deer “avoid this area, a hunter is here”). On public land you need very good concealment of some sort, and should get as high as possible if in a stand or saddle.
This year I shot that mature Michigan 10 point (mentioned earlier) ten feet off the ground, which was painfully low to me. However, I had extremely good cover being nestled in an overgrown oak tree – so much cover I only had a few openings to weave an arrow through. Due to this, nothing picked me off, even with dozens of deer coming within bow range. But with less cover I would have been at least 20 feet up, or more.
There are many more things to avoid when public land hunting, but if you can steer clear of these five big hunt-busters, your success rates will climb faster than a coon hounded by a bluetick.
