The park gets divided into three unequal sections, and the hunters get divided into the sections for the first day. A picking order is established and as sections fill up you may not get to hunt in the section you wanted to. Second day go where you want.
Jordan Selsor
5 year old buck +
I put in for management hunts in Mo every yr. Havnt got drawn in a few yrs though. MO has some great public land but I have always been lucky enough to have access to private
biglakeba$$
5 year old buck +
Elm Creek is only a slug hunt, correct?
Love that second week. Some deer moving around again and not many hunters out. Mix in a little snow and hopefully not too cold of temps.
sandbur
5 year old buck +
dogghr
5 year old buck +
I am lucky to live in a state that has millions of acres of public land. In addition to that, there are large tracts of timber and coal company owned land that is accessible with permission. So yes, I hunt it a lot and love it. Many of the areas are bow only and some areas have APR restrictions. Tough land to hunt but trophy status rivals many midwestern states. My favorite hunting is " still " hunting with any weapon and these large tracts make that much easier than on smaller private tracts. In addition, no motorized vehicles, some areas are even aircraft and cell service dead zones. A wilderness experience thats cheap and easy to access. Even during rifle season, skip the first 3 days, and you can walk miles w/o seeing or hearing another person. Best have your back in shape cause it can be a long drag. And if you are gonna shoot, it's going to be a buck worth taking. I love my land, but hopefully can do these hunts for a long time yet.
Jason
5 year old buck +
i've given up gun hunting on public land. i still bow hunt though. if mfl in wi counts as public then i do a lot of it. i've shot 3 bucks the last 4 years on mfl. pissed one land owner off though - shot a nice 9 point and a doe while he was by me w/ his kid gun hunting (and a nice 8 earlier in the year bow hunting on his land ;)). saw him walk in but didn't know where he setup. i've never shot 2 bucks in one year before in my almost 30 years of hunting, just fyi. since then he gives me a hard time when he sees me on his land. hell, i didn't enroll the land in the program he did (actually his mom). he tried to kick me off one gun season. not worth the hassle. for 2 years now, i've been deleting the buck pictures off his trail camera though. haha. he thinks he's got all does :). kind of dirty but i get a kick out of it. besides, his camera is over a bait pile which is illegal in this part of wi.
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West Branch
5 year old buck +
We have always had a large chunk of private land and the only hunting I have done away from our farm is pheasants in SC MN and ND and that has only been a few times. And we hunted private as much as public doing that.
We have about 80 acres of public land that we hunt regularly that we pretty much have blocked off, neighbors could hunt it if they took a long walk through the swamp so nobody does. Sometimes the third weekend of rifle season I would walk north of our farm into the big swamps and try some still hunting, usually with a second person. The public land close by is 100s of acres with limited pressure and gets into the 1000s of acres a couple miles north. Things would be very thick and we would jump a deer or two but if it was more than 30 yards away you couldn't even tell if it was a buck or doe. We would grouse hunt those public areas some too, but overall not really public land hunting compared to some stories I hear!
We have about 80 acres of public land that we hunt regularly that we pretty much have blocked off, neighbors could hunt it if they took a long walk through the swamp so nobody does. Sometimes the third weekend of rifle season I would walk north of our farm into the big swamps and try some still hunting, usually with a second person. The public land close by is 100s of acres with limited pressure and gets into the 1000s of acres a couple miles north. Things would be very thick and we would jump a deer or two but if it was more than 30 yards away you couldn't even tell if it was a buck or doe. We would grouse hunt those public areas some too, but overall not really public land hunting compared to some stories I hear!
Da U.P. 'eh
5 year old buck +
We hunt our private land in Michigan and we hunt public land in northern Wisconsin for the gun season there. On the public land that we hunt we seldom see anyone but our group of hunters and have a great time. Our success in northern WI is way down from what it was 8 or 10 years ago but we have a positive experience and it is quite safe.
