Forestore

In my area there is a ton of stateland that gets hunted hard for rifle but not for bowhunting season. I am pretty new too hunting with a bow and I hunt private land for rifle that I cannot hunt for bow season so I am forced too hunt public land. Ive scouted for rifle but not for bowhunting and since bowhunting is pretty new for me and since its diffrent then during rifle season here since its not during the rut, I could use a few good tips. I am not worried about trophys, i am just looking too be successful. Thanks in advance for any info you can provide me.

kevin1

I'm new too , and I worried about changing to short range set ups . So I just practiced as many types of shots as possible at the new ranges, and payed more attention to shooting lane clearances .

Trapper_Hunter

Make sure you dont get too far or too closefrom where you think the deer are gonna be. TRIM shooting lanes.. but not a whole lot so you can keep cover Use the wind to your advantage... If all else fails throw some corn outlol

Pa Trophy Man

Play the wind

MasterBlaster

One word..... COVER.. You better have it if it is anything like the national forest I hunt in Texas. I am amazed when I watch these TV hunting shows and these guys are only 15 feet up and out in the broad open. I have learned in the 2 seasons that I have hunted public land that if you don’t go high enough(20 feetvery minimum, 30 feet is best) then you will be busted every time. It’s hard to find the perfect tree. Just make sure you have good back and front cover. In my experience hard hunted public deer come out looking up. Another thing don’t think you have to go 5 miles off the road to get a good spot. Some of the best spots I have had are right next to private land on little fingers of land.
Wear orange even if you don’t have to.

One more thing... Don’t be an idiot and walk around trying to still hunt. That will just pisses people off and IMO it’s darn near impossible to kill a white tail on public land like that. You also never know when a poacher might be out there with a rifle.

jerseyhunter

After you familiarized your self with the area and found a few good locations. Get there while still dark and the deer are out feeding and walk to your spots with a light looking for those bright eyes (the one in the trees not in the deer's head). This will give you an idea of the amount of pressure might be expected. Always have a few back-up trees. Nothing worse than to get there and find someone in close proximity without a contingency plan.

WV Hunter

Around where I live, the public land hunters rarely go deep. Obviously you need to do your homework and locate bedding and feeding areas, but if it was me I'd go as deep as you can and locate some where there isn't much pressure. I knew one guy that actually kept an old beat up 4wheeler about a mile and a half back in the woods. He would walk in real early, and get on his bike and drive for about an hour more back in. He killed some real nice deer, and never ever saw another hunter.

bullcan

Swamps are one of the best places to hunt, bow or gun, on public land. I live next to some hard hunted state land and I rarely see other hunters in the swamps. The harder it is to access a piece of public land, the better off you will be. I have a 12 foot canoe that I use to get in some places ( no scent trails left this way either and extremely quiet , also make s getting out your deer a breeze ). Don't dismiss easy to reach places either. I got a nice doe about 500 feet off a main road last year the 2nd week of our gun season. Bottom line is to do your homework, scout the deer and scout other hunters patterns and you can be succesful.

danowak

From my own experience, bowhunting requires more attention to detail than rifle hunting. One area is scent control. It is, in my opinion, much more important to diminish your scent when you have to be 30 yards away from a deer to take a shot (assuming you are competent enough with a bow to take a 30 yard shot), than if you can shoot from 150 to 200 yards. That means being more meticulous about washing clothes in scent control products and using them on your body, not spreading your scent on the ground near where you are hunting, etc. Think of every opportunity for you to pick up a foreign (to the woods) smell from when you get out of the shower to stepping into the woods (ie. eating, gassing up, smoking) and eliminate it.

Second area, in my opinion, is visual concealment. That means being sure that your clothes have not been washed in a detergent that contains UV brighteners (which appear to glow to a deer like a white tee shirt in a black light). Since I hunt in a cypress swamp, there is not a lot of cover up in the occasional pine tree thatI hang my stands in. I therefore have to pay a lot of attention to my background (ie. be the right height in the tree so that from where a deer would be looking up at me there is as much foliage in the background from the greatest range ofangles of sight). I also wear a leafy bug suit to help with that. With the right planning, I have had deer look right up at me from 30 yards away, with no cover in between me and him, and not get spooked.

The third area, in my opinion, is motion. Deer might not be able to see you if your camo is right and you have a good background, but they will spot you from a mile away if you move around a lot. You think you were keeping still rifle hunting? You have to keep 10 times as still bowhunting. I also agree with the comment about not still hunting on public land, especially if it is relatively well hunted.

danowak

Forgot one thing: go as deep into the woods as you can, and go into as heavy cover as you can. You won't run into many yahoos in there, but that's where the deer go to get away from them.