fellas2

You don't have to spend a lot of money to get access to private land but you may have to invest more time. I pay big $$ for a lease in Illinois. That is just how it works for an out of stater out there, period.

In Pa however, I still get to hunt very good quality land near my home on the 2B 2D border simply by investing the timeto develop relationships with people who own the land. It's a year round effort but it's worth it. Maybe you've tried and not been successful at getting permission. Me too but persitence eventually pays off. What I see all to often is guys simply looking from their truck for a patch without signs or with old signs and parking and going into te woods. Many who do bother to ask don't approach the landowner till a week or so before the season. Then they don't bother to stop by and thank the landowner or offer some of their game. I do all those things and have plenty of places to hunt in return. I often even have landowners recomend me to their neighbors.

As for the ANF, what part are you hunting? My camp is on the border near Tionesta and our gang still has very good successs there. I will say that we have had to move around a bit in recent years but we still see deer in decent numbers there.