TLRanger":j2dfh6l7 said:
. . . . . I cannot find any place "several miles" from a legal road. The best I can come up with it about 1.5 miles from a road and that is a rare place.
Some of my very best places are within sight of a road.
Agree with you, TLRanger.
There are very, very few "spots" within LBL that are not within even 3/4 mile of a road you can easily drive with a Toyota Corolla.
This is even true for Area 15, which tends to have the most "spots" over a mile from any road.
IMO, at LBL there are actually more "spots" less hunted within 200 yards of a road than there are "spots" less hunted over a mile from a road. There are many reasons for this, which include many avid hunters studying maps (many seeking the longest walks from a road), as well as most hunters not wanting to listen to and watch cars drive by (never mind the deer don't pay any attention to those cars). Road noise is typically more annoying to us hunters than it is to the deer.
Although counter-intuitive, the deer are commonly going to be where there is the least deer sign, simply because the hunters scouting "run" those deer off to the areas the hunters tend not to go, often because of a lack of deer sign, but more often simply because the hunters were paying more attention to a map or distance walked rather than realizing how quickly deer (particularly older deer) gravitate to the least disturbed areas (particularly during a 24-48 hour period when so many hunters are "scouting", then "hunting" the next day). Many of these "least disturbed" areas are within 300 yards of popular parking areas, but seldom perpendicular off the road or simply down alongside those easy walking trails.
In times past, I cannot tell you how many times I've parked at a trailhead along with 4 or 5 other trucks, and every one of us ended up walking over a mile to some seemingly "remote" area, all ending up within sight of each other, plus encountering other hunters coming from the opposite direction from a different road. At the same time, hundreds of acres between the parked trucks and these "remote" spots were void of hunters.
MOST LBL deer hunters seem to do one of two things:
They either seek relatively
long walks (over 3/4 mile)
perpendicular to the road they're parked, or more
moderate walks 1/4 to 1/3 mile
perpendicular to the road they're parked. This often leaves 1/2 mile or more between acceptable parking locations where no one is going in, and no one is hunting within 1/4 mile of that road. Hunters will typically follow a trail off the road, then go a short distance off that trail, but leaving relatively vast areas (particularly closer to those roads) comparatively unhunted.
1/4 mile x 1/4 mile = 160 acres
There are lots of 160 acre "spots" seldom hunted close to roads, and lots of the most remote 160 acre spots very heavily hunted at LBL.
By the way, a few years ago I observed the largest antlered non-typical buck I've ever seen regularly bedding within 150 yards of a very popular hunter parking spot. This buck simply listened and watched the hunters parade by back and forth as he lay bedded in a relatively small patch of thick cover (mostly briars) where no one wanted to walk, as it "seemed" too close to the parking area to hunt, and no tree large enough for a stand. Eventually, at least three different hunters
SHOULD have killed him, but it's my belief he died of natural causes and was at least 8 1/2 when that happened. For much of his mature years, he simply roamed at night, then stayed mostly bedded during the day, which is exactly what most older deer do, although they will move around a bit during daylight within their immediate bedding area (often a completely different area from one day to the next).
:mrgreen:
