Hunting Public Land

When hunters usually think about hunting public land they think about high pressure and minimal deer. With outfitter prices and land leases at a high, for some of us, hunting public land is all we have available.  On the upside, public land can also prove to be a great spot to take a trophy animal.  If you can avoid the general riff raff, and use its disadvantages to your benefit it can help produce successful hunts. Here are five tips that we have found helpful when hunting public land.   

Get Out Early

Most public land areas make parking available in designated spots around the property.  In some cases, there may only be a limited amount of areas for someone to hunt when parking in a particular spot.  For example, if you parked where the only thing in sight was a square two acre wood lot, surrounded by CRP fields, then you know that more than one hunter is too many for this area.  If you get beat to this spot and see another truck there as you pull up you should know that the other hunter is most likely in those woods and respect his hunt by driving to another area.  To avoid these situations you must make sure you are always the first one to park and get out to your set, but understand even in this scenario other hunters may still come out, but you did your part to try and get the message across.

Post a Note

If you are in an area that offers a few different options for hunters, try leaving a note at the gate of your location.  A paper plate pinned on the fence next to the walk gate should grab most hunter’s attention.  Do your best at mapping the land and identifying the area in which you are hunting in hopes that they will respect your set.  If there is a trail or a two track that has break off trails further into the walk, you could place your note there.  Hoping they use a break off trail prior to yours this could mitigate the number of hunters that see your sign at the gate and actually know where you are hunting if this concerns you.

Know What Seasons are Open

Do your research before heading out on a hunting trip to see what other season are open.  Typically during deer season, other seasons such as duck, goose, pheasant, and partridge are open just to name a few.  If your stand is around any marshes, ponds, or next to a large CRP field, than odds are you will have a run in with bird hunters.  Bird hunters are always thought of negatively by bow hunters when brought up in conversation.  Use them to your advantage first by staying away from what looks like good bird country and second, hunting in an area that you feel they will push deer to.  If you can play it right with a little luck they will be sending deer to you all day.

Have Several Options

There are several variables that are unpredictable when it comes to hunting public land that you never face when hunting private land.  Hunting private land is challenging enough as it is.  Reviewing your scouting notes, trying to understand recent observations, watching the weather, and confirming the wind are just the basics.  Now when you are on public land add the unpredictable factors of other hunters, other seasons, state hired farmers, ATV's, and border patrol.  Two years ago I only had two sets and because I didn’t get out early enough both areas were occupied by other hunters.  This left me no choice but to sit on an open hillside and glass all night which equated to a loss of a hunt.  When you only have five days to get it, done every hunt is imperative.  Because you can never be certain what’s going to present itself that day, you need to have several back up sets.  The more sets you have and the better you get at human scouting, the less likely the chances of your hunt being affected by these unpredictable factors.  

Get to an Area Less Traveled

With all the unpredictable factors that have been mentioned, one of the best things to do to avoid these is getting to an area that no one really wants to go.  Many hunters are lazy, out of shape, and not willing to work hard for a hunt.  Most of them are going to hunt within a quarter mile of their vehicle.  Hauling a tree stand, steps, bow, and a pack adds up the weight and is not fun to carry for anyone.  Come into the season in tip top shape so that you go the extra mile and get it done.  Pack as light as you can, and get yourself away from any parking area.  Get to an area that only someone really dedicated would hang a set because odds are you won’t run into that person. 

Implementing these five tips to our hunting strategy has helped us produce more successful hunts. However, with all this said it’s important to understand that on public land there is no such thing as your spot or stand, it’s first come...and sometimes keep coming. Fuzz

Montana September 2011

My dad, brother, and I recently took a trip to Montana on a deer hunt.  The hunt posed many challenges and we fell short of successfully harvesting anything, but overall it was a great learning experience for my brother and I.

We arrived late in northern Montana on September 21st with our first day hunting being the 22nd.  That first morning we headed out to the unknown country in which we would be hunting until the morning of the 26th (short trip).  Only seeing this BLM land from topo maps, we didn’t know what to really expect.  When we arrived we noticed the land was very vast.  It didn’t take long until my dad said, “This looks like rifle country.”

The land consisted of rolling mountains/hill with thin aspens on the high grounds.  On the slopes of some mountain ranges there were cooleys filled with thickets, while the rest of the land consisted of CRP.  Our game plan the first day was just to try and educate ourselves of the lay of land while trying to spot and identify what kind of activity was taking place.  Our tags allowed us to either take a Mule Deer or Whitetail.  My brother Gabe and I had never hunted for mule deer before, only whitetails in Michigan and Kansas.  We needed to learn and learn quickly about their behavior.  That first day we stayed on high ground and glassed with only spotting one mule doe, but figured they liked to stay in or stay close to the thickets located in the cooleys on the face of the mountains. In the afternoon we transitioned to the low to easily cover more ground.  We felt this was the quickest way to educate ourselves. That night I went back to some different high ground over looking an alfalfa field.  I observed 27 mule deer and 3 whitetails at a distance feeding in an alfalfa field that consisted of 3 decent shooters.  Hoping that this was a pattern, I moved in there on the third day morning and night hunt resulting in only seeing one doe.  With that result, I concluded that these deer where not holding a pattern, which cost me another full day.  During this time, Gabe and my dad hunted a few miles away and spotted a mix of whitetails and mule deer in the distance.

In between our second day hunts we headed back in the afternoon into the small town that we were staying to get some supplies and hang some stands on the Milk River.  While in town “The Crush” RV drove by us.  It was kind of cool seeing it and knowing that Lee and Tiffany were hunting out there near us during the same time.  When we got to the river we found a couple of good areas when scouting it and decided to hang three stands to hunt the following morning.  On day three of the hunt the temperature was approaching 96 degrees.  This made for a slow morning hunt on the river which made us head back to the hills for the evening hunt. Due to the temperature reaching 101 degrees at night, it was even slower than the morning.  The frustrating thing about it was when we would get back to the truck at night and drive out of the property our headlights would hit multiple big bucks, both muley and whitetail.  Seeing them just rubbed it in, but also let us know they were out there.

On the fourth day, our final full day, we headed back to the high hills and glassed the different thickets in the cooleys.  I spotted a mule deer working the edge of a thicket about a mile and a half away.  We kept eyes on him until we saw him bed.  Once he bedded we made our way to his home.  Blowing a stalked the day before due to no wind, we noticed that the deer worked straight up from the cooley to high ground for safety.  Because of this, we decided the best possible strategy was to try and push him to one of us. With that in mind, Gabe got down the light wind and worked above the cooley while I waited for him to get in position.  Once he positioned himself on top of the ridge above where the deer was bedded he was about 100 yards out.  I then started my slow walk right to where the deer was bedded with a slight angle in hopes of pushing him Gabe’s way.  I got about 150 yards out when the buck rose from his bed and jumped out of the thicket and stopped on a wide open spine.  He stared at me while I tried to signal to Gabe where he was.  I didn’t realize this at the time but Gabe had another spine in his line of sight that prevented him from seeing the buck.  After a 10 second stare off with this buck he bound away and was heading right towards Gabe.  When I looked at Gabe he was glassing me to see what the update was.  I was excitedly trying to signal he’s coming and draw your bow.  Well it was too late and the buck was heading right towards him until they both finally noticed each other at 40 yards.  The buck then redirected his escape and Gabe never got the bow drawn.  It was a plan that almost worked perfect.

           The increasing temperatures made the final night a bust.  It reached 102 degrees that day which was one of the worst feeling hunts I have ever been on.  For the week our coldest night hunt was 87 degrees and averaged 94 degrees.  On our way out that night we again saw several nice bucks feeding in the fields an hour after dark.  These temperatures where keeping the big boys nocturnal.

On our final morning hunt we spotted a pretty nice muley buck in a thicket with 3 does feeding around him.  We observed them for 15 minutes while coming up with a game plan. We knew this was going to be the last hunt and this had to be it.  The wind finally had picked up on this morning and we felt we had a great shot at a true sneak approach.  Even with that, one of us was still going to take the high ground incase of a spooked deer.  Gabe decided he was going to take the high ground on the northeast side (1 o’clock) of the buck, and I was going to come in on the west side (9 o’clock) of him.  The wind was coming out of the east (3 o’clock).  We made our way down the mountain that we were glassing from when we first spotted the deer and regrouped at the bottom after I took a nice spill down the last 10 feet.  Once Gabe confirmed I wasn’t going to cry we stuck to plan and moved on.  I then gave him a 5 minute head start to gain ground and get on top of the mountain that the buck was bedded.  I then started to slowly work across the middle of the mountain.  I made my way over the first spine and was coming up over the second one when I spotted the buck and noticed he had gotten out of his bed and began feeding in the cooley.  He was moving very slow but was working right towards me at 9 o’clock.  This would have been perfect but there was a huge problem, which was that Gabe had no idea he was out feeding and he was probably going to be busted by him.  I had two wishes, the buck either hurried my way before Gabe came up over the top or Gabe was deep enough on the other side that the buck didn’t hear or smell him.  Unfortunately, the buck picked him off working the top and bolted out of the coolie in our opposite direction at 3’oclock.

When the stalk came to an end we realized the trip was over; we were coming home empty handed.  It was kind of funny though, because we were both pretty excited when recapping our hunts on the walk out.  In 4 ½ days of  DIY hunting on public land, going after an animal and entering an environment neither of us have ever experienced before, we felt a whole new level of confidence.  We overcame record high temps, nocturnal deer, no wind, and hundreds of cows just to name a few.  Even with all that, we were still able to get very close a few times, just never got that little bit of luck needed to seal the deal and make this successful hunt just a little more successful.  It will be interesting to watch “The Crush” next year and see how ol Lee and Tiff faired.  

Can’t wait to see this land again in November, watch out!  Fuzz