RE: Public land Treestand suggestions>>>>
my family and I hunt on private land, but we had a real bad problem with trespassers sneaking on when we weren't there and stealing stands and climbing sticks. We started locking the stands on the tree with a pad lock, and using screw in tree stand steps. the trick is to take the bottom four steps in and out with you. that way unless someone has screw in steps with them, they wont be able to climb up to your stand to steal it, and even if they do there is a chain around the stand with a pad lock. This seemed to solve the problem of stuff disappearing (although we still have to throw ppl off all the time). I think most ppl who would steal stands are lazy by nature, and only tend to steal things if they can get to it easily. You did say you were going to be hunting public land so i would make sure screw in steps are allowed, they dont cause any lasting damage to the tree but i would still double check the regs.