Monday, April 6, 2009
10 Tips for Deer hunting on Public land
If you have been following my blog you know by now that I hunt public land quite often. I thought it would be nice to share some of the tips I have learned over the years. So here are 10 tips for deer hunting on Public land.1. Make sure you wear more then enough blaze orange. You are hunting with lots of other people. You don’t know how others hunt or how safe they are. Stay safe, wear lots and lots of blaze orange.
2. Make sure you have at the very least two areas scoped out for your stand. On opening morning or any morning for that matter any one can sit any where, so when you get to your spot their may be another hunter sitting there.
3. On opening morning make sure to get out extra early to avoid the down side of tip two. This way if you are the fist one there it is more likely the other hunter will leave.
4. If you can, wait in your Tree Stand until at least 10:30am or so, lots of people get cold or bored and get out of their stands. This means they will be pushing deer all around and increase your chances of getting a shot at one.
5. Human scent is all around, so the deer don’t know where to go. If you are scentless you will have a better chance of seeing deer.
6. There are a lot of people to talk to when hunting on public land. Use this to your advantage ask them where they are seeing or not seeing deer, how they have had luck, and/or where they have their stands (so you can avoid those areas). For instance last season it was really cold, windy, and the deer didn’t want to move. Just by asking we found out that lots of guys were having luck walking around and kicking deer up.
7. If you party hunt make sure to set a time and place to meet. This way some one won’t sneak up on you and you can avoid any chance of a tragedy.
8. Know where every one in your party is hunting, so you don’t disturb their hunt when you get out of your tree early to take a walk.
9. Don’t leave your stand up even if it is chained to the tree. I forgot the key to my tree stand after opening weekend last year, and had to leave my stand out in the tree. My brother went to go get it the next evening or so and someone had stolen it.
10. Just be as careful as you can, and be considerate of other hunters. I also want to stress the blaze orange again you can never be too safe.
Other Tips
11 Tips How to get Hunting Gear on a Limited Budget
Ten Steps for a successful Whitetail scouting trip
10 tips for Picking the Best Place for your stand and setting it up for success
11 Tips To help you lure a deer in to shooting range
How to get to your deer stand with out getting noticed (in the dark)
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8 comments:
Ben those are very good tips and a lot of truth to them. I also have spent the majority of the last 19 years hunting public land and you are right on the money with your tips.
Ben,
Good observations for public land hunting.
Regards,
Albert
The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles
The Range Reviews: Tactical
Proud Member of Outdoor Bloggers Summit
Great tips Ben. I'm all for anything that helps people be safer.
Good tips. 4 and 6 through 10 are good on private land, too.
4. We see quite a few deer on our farms after 10:00 am. Often while cleaning the deer we shot earlier.
6. Neighbors will see deer on your place when you aren't there and let you know if there is a big one to look for.
7 & 8. We know where everyone is planning on hunting. We also carry Motorolla two-way radios so we can stay in touch. We can sometimes give each other a "heads up" if a deer goes by that we can't get a shot at but seems to be heading for someone else.
9. We have permanent ground and tree blinds. We bring chairs to sit in so when we aren't there there is no place to sit. The intention is to make it less convenient for trespassers. We also take the ladder to the elevated blind with us and padlock the door to the blind so any trespassers will have to bring their own ladder and chair and cut the lock off or climb through the window. We still sometimes have trespassers but at least they don't use the elevated blind.
10. We don't use blaze orange on our farms but you do have to be careful. There is a risk attached to every bullet you send downrange.
Nice blog. Followed you here from Twitter. Especially like the "taking the long way home" post. I have always done that. You're never really lost as long as you can get back home "in time."
This I "must read" post, thanks for sharing this. Hunter must be aware of this when hunting in public hunting lands.
Iowa is a must place you have to visit. It provides you a lot of fishing and hunting opportunities.
Almost all of the outdoor enthusiasts
across the country come to Iowa each year for searching bountiful species.
Ben - I just completed 3 posts on public land hunting/fishing - curious to hear your thoughts.
http://rivermud.blogspot.com/2010/09/getting-most-out-of-public-land-water.html
Thank you for the great post, It is really a big help. thanks for sharing nice blog.
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