Lots of spots around here the private land gets more pressure than the public. I literally have hundreds of acres to bow hunt that are public. Once in a blue moon I will see another bow hunter. The only way you can tell the difference from public and private groundaround here are the postings. Last I heard deer cant read.

The public land in our area consistantly holds some of the biggest deer in the area. Several reasons for this IMO. The terrain offers everything the deer need, the size of the land is HUGE, but very few people actuallyhunt it. The reason I often hear is "Everyone and their brother hunts the public land. Don't even waste your time going out there."[&:]

10 years ago that was true, but now if you go during the week, the lots are empty. Just a few vehicles on the weekends in early season. Most of those are gone by early November. I don't hunt there becuase I have private ground that is closer to home.

Room to move around is my number one reason.... Some of the public landI regularly huntis over 2 hours one way.....

Our public land here is pressured relatively hard during bow and slammed during gun.... But we have some decent size chunks with some fairly rugged terrain at some of the places I hunt and even these pressured deer can get a few years on them.

Thereis sort of a fraternity amongst public land hunters as well......[/align][/align]

Why do people hunt public land???? Well I can't possibly list all the reasons without overloading the server. Take NY, just the Adirondack park alone is 4000 square miles, that's 2/3rds the size of South Carolina. It's bigger thanYellowstone andYosemite combined. That doesn't even take into consideration the Catskills, and all the land in the Southern Tier and Western NY that's public land. Why do we hunt it, because there are a lot of critters there. Everyone here hunts. Well at least enough do that most private land is hunted by the landowners, relatives, business friends etc. It's there to hunt, it's free and some of it is might rough country. WE don't have food plots, feeders aren't allowed and we call it HUNTING. All this doesn't even take into consideration all the 100-1000 acre tracts scattered all over the state. Oh I forgot, there are also county and town smaller public land acreages around. I have several within a half hour drive of the house. That's why we go there. You think those numbers are staggering, talk to someone from Alaska. Just why do you think they hunt public land.

Cause there is are no fences!

Because there are millions of acres of public land here in Idaho. A lot of it is rugged and remote but that makes it even better. You want to see big woods, come hunt the forests of Idaho. 95% of the land I hunt is public or timber company grounds that are accessible by the public.

OK.......SO I hear a few of ya hinting at the difficulty inherent with hunting these tracts. Is that the case (no 1) and (no 2) does the amount of pressure said land receives have a negative affect towards the aforementioned "stigma"....and (no 3) does the fact that you CHOOSE to hunt this land take away from the same?

I think it's cool and all.....and wouldn't discount doing it. It's just that it would be a major pain in the ass to hunt public land, here.

Shed....I remember you telling us last year of some tresassers you had (either stole your cameras....or you had them on camera). How can this pan out on public land?

Cause I can!!!

I've hunted public land here and you could honestly not see a deer for weeks. I mean there are deer there, just not very many and they are few and far between. To be honest, if I hunt public land it's during rifle season, with a rifle. I know it's not most people's cup of tea, but it's tough enough to even see a deer, much less kill one with a bow. Honestly though, if I had some "good" land here to hunt, I wouldn't set foot on public land. My odds go down greatly when I decide to hunt public land. The piece of private land I have to hunt is worthless after the leaves fall off the trees, because of the houses nearby.

Maybe this can shed (no pun intended) some light on this question. I still have my trail cam. Perhaps I'm just lucky. As closeas hewas I don't see how he could have missed it.