RE: Why do you hunt public land?
I lost my lease when I joined the Army. I hunt it because it is a 60,000 acre tract at one, and roughly 43,000 acre tract at the other, less than an hour from my house. There is a good deal of hunting pressure, but with that much land, and the fact that it is mainly swamp, makes it easy to get away from other hunters.
As long as I stay away from the open gun days, I've never had someone walk up on my stand.