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Public Land Timing

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Zim1

New Member
After hunting public land numerous times and dates throughout Illinois and Iowa, I have come to the conclusion for most areas it's better to bowhunt early, prior to the pheasant and coon season opener in early November, rather than bowhunting prime rut. This has simply been because in my observations once the pheasant gunners push all the grass with gun blasts and barking dogs I've simple seen the bigger bucks evaporate, and go nocturnal. Trail cams confirm this.

Yes we've had some good rut hunts, but my best have been in early November. This year here at the Illinois publec we hunt, we heard of many big bucks getting taken by nonresidents the last week of October, and our November hunts sucked. Once again many good trailcams but all nocturnal.

For me this has been 15 years of hunting public and making these observations and hearing others. My job allows me some flexibility and I am thinking of burning my 4 Iowa points this year and concentrating my vacations days all prior to the pheasant opener. Can anyone give me their opinion of this? I know there are prime rut days to follow, but just sayin.

Keep in mind, this refers to public land only.
 
I have hunted public land all over this state and have not had one issue with pheasant hunters or coon hunters that I know if. The rut is always smoking around November 3rd to the 12th regardless of where I hunt. It doesn't matter if I am hunting southern, eastern, north eastern, North Central or Central, these are always the best dates. It does start to pick up around Halloween. Most the places I hunt though are big timber. Nobody pheasants hunts them. Not sure how bad the coon hunters hit them but see plenty of deer to keep you busy.

I think the biggest factor that puts pressure on the deer is everyone takes their vacation during or around this time frame. Typically the second week of November will be jam packed with NRs on the state land. I have seen some amazing deer the week of thanksgiving when the public lands are empty.
 
I used to hunt public and agree with Zim1. If you hunt public that is bird hunted it definitely makes a difference. Mature bucks are not going to stick around where there are a bunch of humans and dogs walking around or in the vicinity of their bedrooms carrying and shooting guns.
 
Alot of areas, especially state game with a lot of timber, don't have hardly any pheasants and hardly any pheasant hunters.
 
I expect the difference here definitely depends on habitat. The places I've spent the most time at were Sedan Bottoms & Rathbun area in Iowa & JEPC in Illinois. These places feature a lot of big grasslands and lots of pheasant hunting. Big deer can be seen in regularity hanging out in the open grass up until the bird opener.

I have seen many other puplic lands in Iowa that seem to be all timber/no pheasant grasses, like Stephens Forest in zone 5 & others in zone 6. I definitely need to scout more of these type places for after the bird opener. I'm done hunting in places like Sedan after that. Hell last time I hunted there I was set up in my tree when 4 guys rolled up to a parking area and started skeet shooting for practice in the lot!

As for coon, I don't think you realize how bad that can be unless you camp at the sites like I do. Good lord we couldn't even sleep at night from all the spotlights & barking. But it all happened during the night and you'd never know if you weren't there. They pounded every stand of timber in Sedan and the other public we hunted.
 
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That makes sense now. I only hunted sedan once and there was a bunch of bird hunters. Seen some descent bucks. I would definitely check out the big timbers. Little pressure can be hard to hunt though.
 
Well I have some business in NE Missouri, so finally made it out to scout some big timber today, and will scout more on my return next weekend. I have found good funnels are few and far between in the timber. The ones I located had trees that had been hunted recently. Been using my Sportsman's Atlas and it's not been accurate in some instances.

I've been kind of surprised by my observations. Some timber has few rubs. One I hiked today had tons of rubs but 90% of them were on very thin wispy trees. Did find one with 90% big rubs. I'll be hunting there a lot.

Most frustrating thing with the big timber is the big rubs seem to be spread out with very few concentrations.

I'm going to upload the public land program on my GPS for next weekend. Many public land boundary lines were not even marked.
 
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Zim- Don't forget to take in account the fall harvest. If you have a bunch of row crops around your public spots it might not be a good idea to go too early. We all know what a big field of standing corn can do for deer hunting. Just a thought.
 
I can't speak for the coon hunting but I really don't think there are many, if any, pheasant hunters that target the majority of Southern Iowa public land. It could be different for the northern half of the state where pheasant numbers are better (not great, but better).
 
In the area that I hunt public land I see the most deer either early in October or late november. I feel that Its mostly attributed to elevated hunting pressure that starts late Oct & goes to mid Nov. But my best chances to see a buck are still during the rut period. It just seems like other hunters in thr area usually get the deer off any sort of pattern.
 
Ya, the Public area I hunt is way better in October than November when the pressure increases. It's a huge chunk of timber with a river nearby. I've generally seen my bigger deer roaming in October than I've seen chasing does in November. Not much for pheasant hunting going on around there. Just seems that once the crops are out for a couple weeks, the deer go deep and don't come back out for much.
 
I havnt seen pheasant hunters on the public ground in our area for a couple years. It used to be lined with trucks on opening day but with the bird numbers being as low as they are i dont know too many people that still pheasant hunt.
 
I have more problems with fall turkey hunters than anything. 1st weekend in Nov a group of 4 guys walk the woods for 3 days. Talk about messin things up...........
 
I'm kind of interested in trying the big Timber regardless because I enjoy hunting that type habitat. I'm locating enough good looking spots I can rotate well to avoid over pressuring. Nothing can be worse than the way, way over hunted Illinois public I've been to lately. Really sick of being outnumbered 3 to 1 by TN, LA, AL, GA & MI Plates. I may start in late October so I can hit some of my old places in the grass. But no way after that. Been there done that! :(
 
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I'll be returning Saturday and Sunday to scout more. Was surprised I didn't find any sheds yet.
 
One of the draw backs I have found about public land is when you find that sweet spot you can pretty much be assured your not the only one that has found it.
 
Yes, but some of these spots in Stephens I've driven by empty paking lots time and again. No possible way can be as crappy as Illinois. I am extremely good at having a plan B, C, D, E & F lined up if someone is in a spot I like. Conditioned by Illinois experiences.
 
Sounds like you got a good handle on it, that's one thing about public land it comes with a whole new set of challenges. But I guess that's what makes taking a decent deer on public land just a touch sweeter. Best of luck to you.
 
I have been hunting public ground 10 years and could count on one hand how many times I have ran into someone anywhere remotely close to where I wanted to hunt.

Turkey hunting and shotgun is a different story though.
 
I was hunting one morning last year and had a guy pull up and he was heading to the same place I was going. But I normally don't run into anyone else mainly cause I hunt only through the week. But I have found what I felt was a good spot and go back and there is a tree stand in same area. But that is just public hunting, the one thing that does cross my mind is when you see a good buck in a area you have no idea if he has been taking or not. Where as private ground you have a good idea of what has been taking off of it.
 
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