I hunt public land,
8 years ago I could go out opening day of muzzle loader (thursday) on Pat river park, and see almost no one out there, in 3 years had 1 hunter walk by at mid day, there where hunter out there, but they where hard core hunters. Then Basspro opened, they had pallets of "bubble packed" muzzle loaders for $69.00, these kits had everything in them and claimed to be sighted in. That year I got to Howard chapel rd (Pat Rive park) at 5:00AM, it looked like opeing day of shot gun ! I hiked in and got in My climber, Had guys walking in on Me even at 8:00Am, had one guy walk in carrying the "bubble pak and a ladder stand still in the cardboard box at 7:30 AM. He was ripping open the boxes "building the stand" and try to figure out how to load the gun. Ever since then early muzzle loader has become a zoo in MD.

Same thing seems to be happening with Bow season, I have seen a doubling of "Bow hunter" signing in on public land the last 2 years.
But I am not seeing seasoned hunters, ALOT of guys signing in at 6:00 pm walking around the woods, smoking, talking on the phone, THEN signing out by 7:30pm ??? A few years back the bow hunter seemed to be the "hardcore of the hardcore", now I am seeing a lot of "slob" hunters with bows.

I was in Basspro 2 days before bow season and they where selling bow packages "all set up" as fast as the guy could hand them over the counter !
one guy was pushing 2 carts loaded with sacks of corn, a crossbow, camo, blind, boots, etc.

This year it took the deer 2 days to go completely nocturnal on the public land.

Slack