public ground?

[dblmainbeam]

Just wondering how hard the public ground gets pushed in your area during 1st and second shotgun seasons?Do you think its worth going somewhere different where the publics are alot bigger for late season muzzleloader. Maybe not as much pressure during the gun seasons.
Up here in north iowa the tracts are small and they get pushed really hard. I thought the idea was good for shed hunting but I came up empty handed the couple of times I went.

 

[Scott]

Public ground seems to take a dive after shotgun. I always move to my private spots for late ML.

 

[hillrunner]

I went to southern Iowa for late muzzy last year. We hunted strictly public ground. I will never do that again. We had about a half inch of fresh snow on the ground and had an extremely hard time finding so much as a track.The pieces of ground were huge, bigger pieces than Ive ever hunted before, but they were surrounded by private ground which all seemed to be heavily posted.I would strongly suggest finding private ground before headin south to big buck country, for late muzzy at least.

 

[16point]

i seen a buck yesterday a guy got out by ames off public ground 150 inch ten point split g3 nice deer shot weds afternoon he was walkin in to the ground about two hundred yards from his truck he said

 

[CamoMan]

We were pheasant hunting on a couple of public areas in southern Iowa today, and I was amazed at what I saw. One area didn't have a single boot track in it, and the deer tracks reflected it. One reason is probably how far you would need to drag the deer if you got one. I do know a couple people hunt this for late ML season, and see tons of does and a few bruiser bucks. The farther from the road, the better !

 

[SCOFFIN]

I'm kicking myself for saying this, but I almost exclusively hunt public ground and find that those hard to reach area's do hold deer. Most people aren't willing to put in the effort to walk a mile to get to a spot, or willing to drag out a deer that far from the truck. While private ground may be easier to hunt, there are a lot of quality deer on public grounds, but you have to be willing to work for them.

I've had the spot I hunt all to my self all bow season. Seen some very nice bucks. They do seem to disappear as soon as the first shotgun season rolls around (which was a week too early this year). Get a good pair of walking boots and a deer cart and go find them.