You can say these things about any bad deer management state in the country. Ya it is not impossible to luck out and find a secluded honey hole. It’s just that if you think if you go to the most remote nasty thick spot on some remote WA and that will make everything good you are sorely mistaken. Statewide mismanagement degrades even the most remote places. 30 years of hunting 12 states including IL, KS, IA, IN has more than proven that to me. The more liberal the state, the more hunters are in those remote places or already hunting adjacent private. Any year I have solved the IL puzzle, the next year there’s a guy there and it’s time to start searching again. Been there done that. Iowa is the last man standing. Nothing even remotely close.
hate to tell you this but its a every changing world, and hunters can move into a new spot every yr, that is the deal on public lands, NO place is YOUIR'S and your's alone
urban expansion is IMO the larger killer of hunting, than any use of a rifle over a shotgun ever will be
farm lands are being LOST, habitat is being lost, wildlife is NOT every where like it once was, due to FOOD, they need to eat 365-24-7, and most public lands do NOT offer that great of food
the main reason why food plots have taken off so well, and WHY private lands tend to be so much better to hunt, the OWNER spend time and money making them better and they then pull, deer off of public POORER quality lands
there are many states that have huge seasons and deer bag limits and use rifles and herd deer numbers have held there own(look at Alabama as one)
your blaming a weapon as a the issue, and its NOT the weapon being used, its the quality of the land the deer have to live on! and how there loosing more and more of it every yr !
you don't like a rifle being used, DON"T use one
DON"T like the crappy public lands and folks showing up
BUY your own land, or GO find and get access to better private lands that have better QUALITY control over, and you will find, ANY weapon being used to NOT be the factor on deer numbers, but its FOOD< cover, water, ALL YR round that matters more!