what does "Big Woods" mean to you?

[Josh_S]

It is a broad term with no true definition, probably having a different meaning to different people. What does "Big Woods" mean to you?

[bigwoodshuntn]

Generally I think of county forest or national forest in Wisconsin. That is about the only chunks of woods that I consider "big". I suppose there is state forests also.

I can find a lot of public hunting owned by the DNR or MFL type of thing but usually it is smaller chunks butting up to private with fields around and then I don't look at is as big woods if broken up by fields.

Several thousand acres I suppose is what I would consider big, and that is almost all woods... no crop fields.

[matt1336]

It's when I get nervous if I get lost....like I might need to set up camp for the night if I take a wrong turn. In Wisconsin I hunt price county forest land and some of the national forest land

[Dewey]

As far as the midwest goes here in WI basically anything north of Highway 8. I also consider the UP and northern MN as bigwoods as well. Ontario goes without saying as that is true bigwoods with huge roadless tracts. A guy could walk for days up there and never hit a road.

[Hawthorne]

They've tried farming every area of Michigan at one time. The soil in the north was to sandy and not good for crops. Those areas are now big woods. The northern lower and the up is what I consider big woods. Still a few ag fields here and there but for the most part very little in those areas.

[UntouchableNess]

Being from Iowa, anything over 90 acres is "big woods".

Someone mentioned getting lost. I hunted Chequamegon National Forest back in 1991. I walked and walked and walked, looked up and there was my truck.

Not being used to hunting large tracks, always take the GPS when hunting out of state.

[Jonny]

Lower deer densities, areas the loggers couldn't hit, more public land, and really easy to get lost.

Deweys hwy 8 guideline is pretty accurate. There is some big woods south of it but nowhere near as much north of it. I hunt big woods in central Wisconsin that is much farther south than 8. They just never logged it for crops, so that makes it big woods.

[PAHUNTER570]

I hunt a 3000 acre chunk of public that is all woods and all the land around it is woods. I couldn't tell you where the nearest field is. In NEPA I would say 80% of the public land is like this. All hardwoods and mountain laurel swamps. Any public that has fields is usually stocked with pheasants and sounds like a war zone when phesant season rolls in.

[BassBoysLLP]

It's when I get nervous if I get lost....like I might need to set up camp for the night if I take a wrong turn. In Wisconsin I hunt price county forest land and some of the national forest land

Same here. If it's big enough to spend the night under poor circumstances, it's big woods.

[BassBoysLLP]

As far as the midwest goes here in WI basically anything north of Highway 8. I also consider the UP and northern MN as bigwoods as well. Ontario goes without saying as that is true bigwoods with huge roadless tracts. A guy could walk for days up there and never hit a road.

I agree that Canada is the only true big woods.

[Hawthorne]

Gives general areas of big woods.

[Dewey]

Looks about right to me.

[BassBoysLLP]

Now we're talking. Well played Hawthorne

[headgear]

Nice map Hawth, I spend all my time in the dark green. True bigwoods are kind of endless, no start, no end, not much for property lines that mean anything.

[cedarsavage]

I like the map, I would've thought more of the northern lower was 80-100. Where I live now is 80-100, kinda desolate, probably big woods by anyone's definition. I don't think big woods necessarily has to be low deer numbers; everyone is southern Michigan used to come up here to hunt because numbers were higher. I have a subjective definition: large tracts of unbroken timber. It's a poor definition because my definition of large tracts of timber is way different in the up than it was when I lived in lower Michigan. If you look at google earth and see a big continuous sea of green for miles that's big woods.