dr. bullseye

The title pretty much says it all. I may be moving to Indianapolis this summer for atleast 3 or 4 years and wanted to know what the scoop is on deer hunting there. I understand that there isn't a rifle season, but wasn't sure on what kind of restrictions they have on MLs. I've never shot one before, but would be willing to get into it in order to hunt them in IN. Is most hunting land public, or to have any success do you need to hunt on private land? Are there areas of the state that hold all the deer or is it pretty well distributed? Is there a lottery system, or can you just buy tags/license over the counter? Thanks for helping a newbie out.

BGHUNTER00

Bullseye,

Deer hunting here in IN is great. There are many oppurtunities on public hunting areas, but with that comes large numbers of hunters in many places. The key is to get in with a landowner to hunt public property which annually produce trophy whitetails.Leasing property to hunt isbeginning to grow and grow each year. Your problem will be that you will have to travel some distance to findprivate property to hunt due to the fact that it will be leased or already hunted being so close to Indy.

As far as muzzleloaders go the only restriction is that it has to be at least a .45 ca, (I think) scopes, sabots, pelletized powder are all legal.We also have a muzzleloader only season after the rut. All tags are over the counter for every season. There are certain state parks and millitary properties that have special draws and only allow a certain number of hunters on each day. You can find all that info in our DNR hunting regulation booklet published annually.

Archery season is the way to go. With an archery tag you can realistically hunt the entire season on that tag alone.Deer are obviously more predominant in the country/rural areas, but I have seen some dandies in what we call urban zones which are very close to populated areas. If you talk to enough people and knock on enough doors there are still plenty oflandowners that will allow you to hunt for free. Good luck and be sure tolet everyone know you are a Boilermaker fan and not a fan of that "other"team down south.

TROPHYHUNTER25

indiana is one of the best undiscovered deer haven. you could hunt the hoosier national forest. I live in northern indiana and the public land gets hammered in shotgun season, bow and muzzeloader not so much. in 91' my freind shot a 23 point that grossed 204'' on public land

Parrot Head

YOu might check out hoosierhunting.com and huntingindiana.com

SE part of the state and NE hold the most deer. Last Year I saw 383 deer in 521 hours of hunting. While hunting the SE part of thestate. Finding private land might be a tough.

whitetaildave24

I can only add one other commment to this discussion. Boiler-who.Hoosiers all the way. The hunting in our state is getting better and better all the time in my opinion. We do have a rule where you can only kill one buck throughout the entire hunting season, that includes bow, gun, muzzleloader seasons. I think you will find plenty of opportunities throughout the state to hunt. I work in Indy, but drive an hour to get there from the south and there is plenty of places to hunt within an hour or so of Indy. Hope you enjoy being a Hoosier.

dr. bullseye

Hey, thanks for all the help. If we do end up moving there, I will be an employee of IU and so I don't think that I'll have much of a choice as to which school I adopt.

Can you hunt ML's during shotgun season, or only during the specified ML season? I guess I'm just trying to decide if I should get a rifled barrel for my shotgun, or buy a ML.

Parrot Head

SO what will you be doing for IU?

kevin1

Yes, you can use a ML during the general firearms season as well as the ML season. For all you want to know about our hunting regs go here:
In. Dept. of Natural Resources

Indiana has some great hunting opportunities, and not all of the public land is crowded, especially during archery and ML seasons. You can use the topo map feature of TerraServer and other satellite sites to locate all of the public land with ease, and access to private land is usually just a matter of networking with other hunters who live locally.

dr. bullseye

I graduate from medical school in June and hope to be doing my residency in Emergency Medicine in Indianapolis. I've ranked the different programs, and submitted my list and I'll find out where I'll be going in about 2 weeks. Indy is my first choice, followed by Charlotte, NC and Pittsburgh. Wherever I end up, I'm sure that the hunting will be better than where I am now (stuck in SoCal).

spartanhunter19

Deer hunting here in Indiana is pretty good. I do most all of my hunting on public land and I see plenty of deer during early archery before shotgun season opens. After that it can be tough but you can still see them. The public land I hunt is about an hour and a half north of Indy.