Let's talk about those 'dirty words'...

[Captain*Kirk]

...."PUBLIC HUNTING".
Yep. That.
FWIW, I wouldn't be hunting at all if it weren't for PHL (public hunting land). Illinois has set it up so you really have to want it  bad  to get it.
Examples:

*Archery PHL hunters need to arrive at many designated PHL spots and wait your turn (first come, first served). There are a limited number of slots, so hunters begin lining up around 3am to see if they get in, or go home (you can imagine taking the day off from work, driving an hour or more to the PHL and being told they are full?)

*No tree stands are allowed overnight. This means carrying your stands, ladders, climbing sticks etc. in with you, and carrying them back out at night. So much for a scent-free sit. By the time one drags in his gear and sets it up, if you haven't spooked every deer within 3 miles, the remaining ones will smell you a mile away since you now smell like a rancid warthog.

*No screw-in steps, bow hangers, etc allowed.

* How nice to get set up and as the sun greets the morning, discover you're perched in a tree 15 yards from another guy, or worse yet, be set up and have the other guy fumbling in an hour after everything has finally settled down...

But, for some of us, this might be as good as it gets, so not knocking the whole system. It's better than not hunting at all. Just wondering how some of the rest of you deal with public hunting and if your state requirements are stifling to your hunt?

[Petrichor]

No lines here. Everything else is the same though. The rules are so complex they reference multiple different documents to check back and forth.  Clear as mud.

[SlowBowKing]

I’m new to all this, but from what I’ve seen here in Kentucky they don’t make it overly difficult.

That first come, first serve sounds like the worst. It’s like they want to discourage you from using this “public” land.

[Crittergetter]

I love hunting public land here in Texas. I actually said yesterday that I can’t wait to be hunting public land again (it’s been closed the last 2 weekends) just so I can get away from people!
 

[Trenton G.]

Doesn't sound very public if you have to jump through all those hoops in order to use it. Makes me appreciate the opportunities that I have a lot more!

[Ulysseys]

That sounds rough, are you ever successful?  I hunt picking land in PA and NJ and it’s no different than hunting private land as far as rules go.  I feel lucky now. 

[Roy from Pa]

Damn, I could never deal with that crap.

Pa is a great state to live in.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission owns and manages nearly 1.5 million acres of state game lands throughout the Commonwealth. The primary purpose of these lands is the management of habitat for wildlife and provide opportunities for lawful hunting and trapping.

[Tim Finley]

I'd move or lease some good hunting property !

[McDave]

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of square miles of public land available for hunting in California.  A fair-sized chunk of that is available for hunting deer or hogs simply by buying a hunting license and/or a deer or hog tag, without lines or any other requirements.  Of course, your chances of actually getting a deer or hog in those areas are pretty remote.  But every year people do manage to arrow some deer and hogs, so they keep coming back.  Other areas are subject to a lottery, and the chances there are much better.  There are a very few areas, like military bases or wildlife refuges, where people have to stand in line early in the morning, like you describe, but that is about 1% of the hunting that goes on in California.

[Chuck Jones]

My advice, as an Illinois Bowhunter, is to find a way to buy a piece of hunting ground. I drive 110 miles each way to hunt my 10 acre, and 12 acre hunting ground. I paid a low price per acre a few years ago, and have never regretted it. The cost was about the price of a new truck. I drive a 19 year old truck so I can afford the land. I keep a little trailer there, and try to stay and hunt 3 days at a time. The benefits are worth more than the sacrifice needed to buy the land.

For those that think 10 acres is too small to hunt; I’ve killed 10 deer off that property in 10 years, including 3 large bucks. I took a “nice” 8 pointer just this past weekend.

The land is out there if you want to look for it. I have great land neighbors who help with deer recovery and access. Save your down payment and go for it.

[Captain*Kirk]

FWIW, I have found a 'loophole'. There is a newly designated PHL area not 5 miles from my house that requires entering a drawing. Each selected hunter chooses a one week (7 day) period (you get 3 choices or can throw yourself on the mercy of the court and let them select). Once awarded a spot, you can put your stand or blind up the day of, and may leave it there until the evening you are finished at sunset.
The bad news is, you are sharing PHL with hikers, bikers and dog walkers that are allowed to use the trails throughout the hunting season, so you have to go deep. (I walk in over a mile). But you are only sharing 900 acres with 9 other people per week, so it's way better than the earlier scenario. So far, I've drawn a permit 3 years out of 4. Haven't taken a deer out of this PHL yet, but I've been very, very close. Had a small doe (likely just lost her spots) grazing not 15 feet from me this season, but declined the shot...too small.

[nineworlds9]

That sounds like a nightmare in IL!  Sheesh.  The people need to take back the power.  The smallest public tract I hunt here in FL is around 2K acres, and most days its me solo in there or maybe 2-3 other guys max.  Private leases are so popular here the public land is true wilderness.

[Jhawk]

Obviously public is going to vary from state to state and they all have their own unique challenges.  I think they key to being successful on public ground trying to figure out how to be different than everyone else.  This may be finding an alternate access point and approach your spots differently.  Contact the neighboring land owner and ask for permission to use their land to access the public.  If they know you are not going to hunt their ground, they may be more open to using their land.  Maybe you need to walk in farther than everyone else.  Do as much online scouting as possible.  Scout the area and see how the hunters, hikers and dog walkers push the deer around the property.  More than likely the deer are not leaving the area, they are just using it differently. 

In my state of KS you can leave your stands up during the season.  It is frustrating to walk into any public spot and find stands hanging all over the place.  I personally hunt portable and carry all my gear in every hunt, including my private spots.  I learned from a buddy how to hunt effectively using a portable system and I only see advantages to using this type of set up.  Being portable allows you to change quickly and sometimes that may only be 20 yards.  This also allows you to be invisible to the other hunters. 

I used to live in Texas and there wasn’t any public ground around me.  I had to pay $1500 (that was cheap) for a lease and drive two hours to get there.  It was miserable.  Now that I live near my hunting ground, I can’t image driving 100 plus miles every time I wanted to hunt.  Be thankful for the public access that is available and once you figure it out you will not have to worry about your lease payment, someone paying more and taking your lease from you or any of the other things that come with leasing ground.

Don’t get me wrong, I would prefer to hunt private over public, but I often think I should spend all my time learning the public better.  Private ground is changing all the time and I don’t want to have all my eggs in that basket and have it taken from me

[Mark R]

I live in N. E. Illinois and can relate, PHL is usually very pressured, there's lottery's for places close but your maybe one in a thousand of getting picked and the hunting can still be in pressured area's with people still allowed to walk the path's. Alot of PHL has site specific rules so you better read them and obey, if not and caught you can lose hunting privileges for a year at least in most Il. PHL places. Also to hunt most PHL in IL. you have to sign in and out or register online for each area you want to hunt and report weather your successful or not by the end of hunting season besides registering within 24 hrs. to the DNR if successful, or lose your hunting privileges. I can drive two hours one way to be in better PHL the designated parking area's might be full on a weekend, no way of telling before hand, still in that area there's plenty places to hunt so better than nothing. Now across the street from me there's about five full sections of forest preserve but no hunting allowed, its full of deer some big one's, there only Predator is a motor vehicle, and every two years or so the FP has to go in and round them up and cull them to keep it from being over grazed. In some area's west of me the wild Turkeys if you can call them that run around the neighborhood. Good hunting land close by is gold in certain area's so be very thankful if you got it.

[Captain*Kirk]

I live in N. E. Illinois and can relate, PHL is usually very pressured, there's lottery's for places close but your maybe one in a thousand of getting picked and the hunting can still be in pressured area's with people still allowed to walk the path's. Alot of PHL has site specific rules so you better read them and obey, if not and caught you can lose hunting privileges for a year at least in most Il. PHL places. Also to hunt most PHL in IL. you have to sign in and out or register online for each area you want to hunt and report weather your successful or not by the end of hunting season besides registering within 24 hrs. to the DNR if successful, or lose your hunting privileges. I can drive two hours one way to be in better PHL the designated parking area's might be full on a weekend, no way of telling before hand, still in that area there's plenty places to hunt so better than nothing. Now across the street from me there's about five full sections of forest preserve but no hunting allowed, its full of deer some big one's, there only Predator is a motor vehicle, and every two years or so the FP has to go in and round them up and cull them to keep it from being over grazed. In some area's west of me the wild Turkeys if you can call them that run around the neighborhood. Good hunting land close by is gold in certain area's so be very thankful if you got it.

Mark, you sound like you live and hunt very close to me. So you know the drill, then. It's not like the old days where you could walk the train tracks right-of-way and nobody would bat an eyelash.
Bottom line; like the game we hunt, us hunters need to adapt to survive.

[Mark R]

Walking the tracks, when I was a kid no more than a 15 min. drive we had a spot we could walk and hunt all day, now they replaced the woods and fields with suburban sprawl no hunting allowed, I think the Deer know this because I see just as many now as before.

[OkKeith]

On Public hunting land in Oklahoma...

- No stands or blinds left overnight
I wouldn't want to leave a couple hundred dollars worth of gear overnight on property I don't control anyway. Agency staff would be spending all their time trying to run down missing gear. Besides, what recourse do you have if when you get to your stand, someone else is in it? It's public land after all. SOLUTION... hunt on the ground, it can be just as effective. Especially where most folks hunt from stands.

- No screw-in steps etc.
I don't have a problem with this either. It's a bad idea for hunters to constantly poke holes in all the trees. I don't like screw-in anything to be honest. SOLUTION... Again, hunt on the ground. If you must climb, there are minimally destructive methods like strap on climbing sticks and rails.

- Public land is... well, public.
The farther you walk the fewer you see. SOLUTION... Hunt when you can of course. Try off days that others might not be in there for or just go farther than everyone else.

- First come, first served.
For Oklahoma's public lands that have deer we don't have this situation. There isn't any mention of how many acres are in the public access area. My thought is that it is a way to try and control the hunting pressure on limited acres. If there wasn't a limit on the number of hunters it would get pretty hammered I expect. The quality of the hunt would also be effected if there was a dude in EVERY tree. This situation is managed in Oklahoma by draw hunts. We do have some waterfowl hunting areas that are accessed based on who gets there first. You go by the boat ramp and claim a token off the board that corresponds to a specifically numbered blind. If all the tokens are gone, all the blinds are full.

So that no one thinks I am being hypocritical I guess I should state that I do hunt both private and public lands. I also put in for draw hunts to areas that can only be accessed (at least during deer season) through the lottery system.

Here in Oklahoma most of the highly contested public hunting is adjacent to urban areas. Very handy but also very coveted. I have found that the way to be successful on public land is to scout heavily, look for that "special" spot that may not be obvious or easy to get to and be very mobile. I almost exclusively use my lightweight hunting stool and ghillie suit in these areas. Its basically a "wearable" blind and I can be on the move in an instant. It is a light weight set-up that allows me to move fast and often as well as play the wind to my advantage.

Honestly, I don't really need to hunt public land. I have plenty of opportunities to hunt private but its there for my use and I want to take advantage of it. It's a tough challenge but that makes the success on it more rewarding.

OkKeith

[Captain*Kirk]

- No stands or blinds left overnight
I wouldn't want to leave a couple hundred dollars worth of gear overnight on property I don't control anyway. Agency staff would be spending all their time trying to run down missing gear. Besides, what recourse do you have if when you get to your stand, someone else is in it? It's public land after all. SOLUTION... hunt on the ground, it can be just as effective. Especially where most folks hunt from stands.

This is the route I've gone, Keith. My stool slides over my shoulder with a carrying strap and I walk in/out with it each time. I believe I'm the only hunter in that particular area not using a stand...and hunting with a trad bow as well.

[Bluefeather]

Here in Mo. there is very little bow hunting pressure on any of the public land that I hunt.Gun season is a totally different thing.The only regs that I can think of is no screw in steps and no permanent stands. There are 2 areas within 20 miles of my house that are between two and three thousand acres each and they get very little bowhunting pressure,especially after the gun season.

[Possum Head]

Mississippi is blessed with more than 50 WMAs and many Federal refuges. I live within 20 minutes of two WMAs. My bike and canoe afford opportunities to escape nimrods and since I’ve decided to go the extra mile I hunt in solitude and it’s blissful 😃