Public land hunting

[JCDEERMAN]

Let me add a bit to your LBL observations: What you experienced may have become more the norm.

You see, almost no where within LBL is any area farther than 1 mile from any road you can easily drive and park a car. Also, almost none of the terrain is very challenging to a young hunter in good shape. This may be very unlike many large public hunting areas such as the Cherokee National Forest, where roads can be many miles apart and the terrain particularly challenging.

Consequently, many LBL hunters tend to study maps, look for those most "remote" areas, (good luck at finding ANY more than 1.25 miles from a parkable road), then the majority of them make bee lines to those same areas. You will often find hunters coming in from 4 different directions, 4 different roads, all hunting within or nearly within eyesight of each other, yet they left behind thousands of acres virtually "unhunted".

In the case of your dad's experience, it may be the deer were not there the day before the quota hunt. It's just that the deer quickly gravitate to those areas they are least disturbed, and on those quota hunts, often, the most disturbed areas are those of the longest walks from from you choose to park.

That said, some of those more remote areas may in fact display more deer sign, have more deer much of the time or the year, than many areas very closer to roads. But as soon as the "scouters" and "hunters" begin scouting and hunting ANY areas, the deer simply "move over", often only choosing to spend much of each day a couple hundred yards from where they had, seeming to enjoy watching the parade of hunters.

The deer are often patterning the hunters more than the hunters are patterning the deer.

No doubt! For years we would go wayyyy back in the middle of an area......because that's what the older folks we were with did back in the 70's (whenever they first opened it) and had great success on some whoppers. We continued to do that for years. Like everything else, things evolve and in this case, hunters evolved. They were looking at maps on their phones and strategizing like we had been doing with paper maps. Hunting has just turned in that direction. I doubt I will ever go back to that place, as the management has totally screwed the place, but if I did, I would certainly be "e-scouting" areas close to roads and camps

 

[TheLBLman]

In terms of actually killing older deer, it is often more productive to
"hunt the hunters" instead of the deer.

The very best single public (and often private) land strategy may simply be to hunt where others are not.

 

[Andy S.]

The very best single public (and often private) land strategy may simply be to hunt where others are not.

More importantly IMO, is to hunt "where the deer are, where others are not, and have not been for some time". When I find these spots, it's usually money. I deer hunted a solid public land spot last year and the best thing about it was 95% of most hunters would not put in the work to get there, much less put in the work when the low was 28 degrees, the ground was frozen and a north wind at 5-10 mph. Those are the days I had the most action, of course, during prime time of the season.

 

[TheLBLman]

More importantly IMO, is to hunt "where the deer are, where others are not, and have not been for some time".

I don't disagree with that at all,
but will point out that in many situations, the deer are NOT there until AFTER the hunters turn out in mass, "pressuring" those same deer's usual hang-outs.

In places like LBL and many other WMA's with "quota" hunts, where the deer "hang-out" on those quota hunt days can be much more different places than where they are otherwise. In some circumstances, the better bets can be areas with little deer sign, as the areas with heavy deer sign may also most heavily attract the hunters.

 

[Ladys man]

Interesting report and great information. My observations and experience would certainly go a long with the 2 studies. When hunting public land, I always consider where other hunters will access and what area's they will hunt. On the WMAs I frequently hunt, I have lots of spots that I can go to and base a lot of that on what the recent hunting pressure has been and who seems to be focused on a particular area. If I find a stand or fresh sign of someone else hunting an area, I will move on or adjust my strategy based on how they are hunting an area and what impact their travel route to their stand may have on the deer. Sometime that has me walking a mile + or other times it has me hunting 50 yards from one of the main WMA roads, both have resulted in bucks going on the wall. When it comes to public land hunting the added variable of another hunter has to be considered and taken into account when you want to consistently be successful. When hunting out West or down in the Everglades, simply going further seems to increase my game sightings and ultimately my success; however, in Tennessee and a lot of the smaller WMA's(<5000acres) patterning the other hunters and finding areas they won't go tends to lead to a lot of success.

I was going to say the same thing, I have found ppl far back so I'm within sight of the truck with deer around me, but not always the case. Mostly having to hike in deep.