hunting public land is touchy. two years ago i hunted county forest land for the first time ever. i had like three people walk in on me after day light. Then at about 8 am i was getting ready to peg a doe when i heard a rifle crack off and she piled up. one of the guys that walked by earlier put his climber up not even 100 yards from my stand. i'd like to call him a dick, but i didn't know if he had been hunting that piece for years. maybe not, but thats what you will get with the public land. its touchy. since then i try to walk in at least a half mile, if not more, as most public hunters seem to be pretty lazy and park by the road. a lot of the public lands that i frequent have big bucks on them even being heavily hunted, they just head for the thick when the season opens up. i have also noticed that the deer movement drops off/ changes when phesant season opens up as well. like i said, public land is touchy.