Originally Posted by
Gordonrs
Last year was my first year out. I went with a few buddies on opening day (public land) and I didn’t see any deer (well except for the ones in the back of other people’s trucks). I really didn’t expect to, being the first time and all. But shots were ringing all around us, it seemed like everyone was seeing them but me.
Sounds like public land all right. It can make for hard hunting. When I hunted on public land as a kid, people would shoot at anything. There was no consideration of whether it was a buck, doe, fawn...it was strictly an "If it's brown, it's down" type scenario. If someone whacked a button buck, they would react as if it were a 10pt. Not the kind of hunting scene I enjoy very much.
My suggestion would be, no joke, find a hunting buddy with land or get in on some kind of lease. Join the local sportsmans' club and meet some people. Perhaps you've already tried this.
As far as drives go, I will only participate if it's highly organized and on private land. Even then I'm not crazy about them.