Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby keb » Mon Apr 08, 2013 2:45 am

X2, all I want is a f250 desiel 4x4 with a slide in camper. Tents suck.

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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby MOBIGBUCKS » Tue Apr 09, 2013 6:09 am

keb wrote:X2, all I want is a f250 desiel 4x4 with a slide in camper. Tents suck.

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Man, that aint no lie. I've spent way too many cold nights on the ground out in Kansas..LOL

Picked up a nice lightweight single axle hunting camper at the end of last season.
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby JoeRE » Wed Apr 10, 2013 3:35 am

It is pretty neat that so many people have the same opinion of public vs private on here. I started out hunting all private land as a kid. Over the years I have steadily transitioned from private to more and more public. I do believe I will be hunting just about 100% public within the next few years. I hate it when I see someone else on a private land I have permission to be on and I am wondering if they are trespassing....and knowing they are probably wondering the same thing about me. I think people actually have less respect for each other on most private land than on public land. The stuff I have seen guys pull on each other hunting the same property is disgusting. In farm country I hate the lack of any land ethic by many owners, destroying their land for generations to come. I hate the possessiveness and paranoia that comes with some of the management crowd's leasing hunting privileges or buying up land to only use one month a year, thinking you are killing "their" deer if you hang a stand within 100 yards of their obsessively posted property line, or pull over onto the road shoulder to watch one of "their" bucks in a food plot. Don't get me wrong, I deeply respect private land ownership as a whole but sometimes far more is lost than gained.
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby keb » Wed Apr 10, 2013 9:37 am

I agree every guy I have ever run into on public land has been very respectful and friendly. There is way to much drama on private land with multipule people having permisison, who dont know each other or are not on the same page.

To me its just not worth the headches anymore, to even ask, it has always turned into a circus.
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby MOBIGBUCKS » Wed Apr 10, 2013 2:46 pm

JoeRE wrote:It is pretty neat that so many people have the same opinion of public vs private on here. I started out hunting all private land as a kid. Over the years I have steadily transitioned from private to more and more public. I do believe I will be hunting just about 100% public within the next few years. I hate it when I see someone else on a private land I have permission to be on and I am wondering if they are trespassing....and knowing they are probably wondering the same thing about me. I think people actually have less respect for each other on most private land than on public land. The stuff I have seen guys pull on each other hunting the same property is disgusting. In farm country I hate the lack of any land ethic by many owners, destroying their land for generations to come. I hate the possessiveness and paranoia that comes with some of the management crowd's leasing hunting privileges or buying up land to only use one month a year, thinking you are killing "their" deer if you hang a stand within 100 yards of their obsessively posted property line, or pull over onto the road shoulder to watch one of "their" bucks in a food plot. Don't get me wrong, I deeply respect private land ownership as a whole but sometimes far more is lost than gained.



Well said Joe. I agree 100 percent
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby Lockdown » Wed Aug 14, 2019 5:39 am

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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby stash59 » Wed Aug 14, 2019 5:58 am

Agreed not all private acres are deer meccas. Positives and negatives for both types of land!! Just like alot of public acres are a waste of time to hunt. So can private acerage be.
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby greenhorndave » Wed Aug 14, 2019 6:04 am

I used to think private was a lot better and probably over-hunted a piece of private. A little bit different than JoeRE's experience on private, as this is a sportsman club lease and everyone is who uses it for deer (not that many in reality) usually communicate or give each other space.

That said, the neighboring properties have better bedding, so mostly a handful of does use it for bedding. The bucks travel through it, but mostly after dark apart from the rut.

Therefore, personally, I couldn't sit back and wait until things livened up during the rut. So to public it was. And I wound up seeing more and better deer.

All the stands left up on public were an annoyance to me at first, but I've since just noted them on maps and planned to look for sign around and away from them. It's really not a lot different in that respect from small private plots with a handful of people hunting it. Just part of the game.

Now I just look for the best places to hunt and it's usually on public.
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby MN_DeerHunter » Wed Aug 14, 2019 6:10 am

I totally agree with a lot of the comments here. When my in-laws bought 80 acres I thought I had hit the lotto, but when everybody in the family hunts and their friends also have permission to gun hunt it really what is the difference from public?

I also hate having to "check in" and then feeling the pressure to maintain the relationship just for a few hunts a year. Someday I would like to own a 40 or so with a small cabin but would like to have lots of public around to roam as well.
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby DhD » Wed Aug 14, 2019 12:35 pm

jonsimoneau wrote:I have taken most of my deer on public ground. But I eventually started getting into some private and though I am a slow learner I thought I would pass on a few if my findings for some of the younger guys that are constantly subjected to the ridiculous hunting shows on the tv these days.
Just because a piece of land is private ground does not make it better. The very best properties to hunt are always private but not all private is good. As an example. I have had sole permission to hunt two twenty acre parcels of private ground for years now. Not only have I never killed a big buck on either place...I have only seen one big buck between the two in years of hunting there. I hunt a lot but I try to hunt smart. I finally realized that whether the land is public or private deer need three things. Food water and cover with cover being the most important at least in the Midwest. And they need all three. A twenty acre piece of ground with no good bedding cover means that piece of ground will likely only be good during a magical few day window during the rut. It's that simple. It does not matter if you never step foot on the place. If there is no permanent bedding cover the deer will not live there. On the other hand a large chunk of public ground may be big enough that it contains all the ingredients deer need. Yes the pressure will be greater but if your buck relocates due to pressure you may have a chance to relocate him.
But if you have a small piece of private that the deer do not live on you are out of luck with the possible exception of the November rut.
Another example. The place I killed my first deer is near my home and is a 300 acre farm. Of that 300 acres there are 90 acres of woods. In the last twenty years no less than 21 people who live nearby have had permission to hunt there. So yes..it is private land but it sees as much or more pressure than a larger public land.
Take this into consideration before you waste a lot of time hunting a piece of privat ground just because it is " private".

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My dad, Uncle, and several cousins, all fairly hardcore hunters, share the same hundred acre piece of river ground. Way more pressure than any public I hunt on. No thanks.
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby DhD » Wed Aug 14, 2019 12:39 pm

headgear wrote:I have some great hard to reach public land that buts up to some pressured private land. Sure hunting this private land would be cool because it hold nice bucks but many of them bed on the public ground and that is where I chase them. The guys hunting private have ladder stands all over so right there you know they overhunt them. I jump around and hit the best bedding areas and I have a huge advantage over the private landers in these situations. A rut rifle season is kind of the great equalizer here, I'm sure they bag some nice ones every year but there alwasy seem to be one or two nice bucks in the area that slip through the cracks so I will alwasy have something decent to hunt. In a way them bagging a few nice bucks is a good thing, it keeps them hunting the same old stands and leaves all the bedding to me. 8-)


Don't get me started on rut rifle season. I honestly believe it's the reason a state like Nebraska (right next to Iowa and Kansas) doesn't have anywhere near the big bucks those states do. Are there any "trophy states" where they have rifle season in the rut?
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby DhD » Wed Aug 14, 2019 12:46 pm

keb wrote:X2, all I want is a f250 desiel 4x4 with a slide in camper. Tents suck.

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Yes please!
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby Wlog » Wed Aug 14, 2019 1:01 pm

Lockdown wrote:BUMP



Nice Bump! This thread is a blast from the past! A lot of guys I don’t see around anymore. :cry:

Private land definitely has plenty of drawbacks. Most of the people I know who say public land is no good don’t hunt public land. They are just parroting an old opinion of someone else.
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby Uncle Lou » Wed Aug 14, 2019 1:07 pm

Wlog wrote:
Lockdown wrote:BUMP



Nice Bump! This thread is a blast from the past! A lot of guys I don’t see around anymore. :cry:

Private land definitely has plenty of drawbacks. Most of the people I know who say public land is no good don’t hunt public land. They are just parroting an old opinion of someone else.


What a buzz kill Wes. I had blast from the past in my head, and you beat me to it. Carry on
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Re: Private vs. public. It's not always that simple!

Unread postby elk yinzer » Wed Aug 14, 2019 1:42 pm

Another solid bump. I'll always appreciate how threads on the Beast get bumped. Most forums don't do that and retreads of people starting the same topics repeatedly make places stale quicker than homemade bread.

It's a complicated comparison. I've seen a few different sides of it.

I grew up hunting both public and private. But....they were equally pressured, little difference really. Back then (way back around the turn of the century) the area of Western PA I hunted there was lots of private that was sort of "quasi public" in that the landowner openly let locals hunt by word of mouth or easy permission. Properties are small, but I'd say almost a majority of properties were that way. Stories from my dad's generation all properties were that way a couple decades before.

That category in the span of about 10 years essentially ceased to exist. In one way it was kind of a shame, but also I think people treated those properties and other hunters worse than actual managed public land. This one such property our family did quite well there. Well, even trying our best to keep success quiet, several hunters, knowing some of the deer we killed, tried to but in and gain sole access. Then when that didn't work tried sabotage. The era of greed struck full bore.

The next phase in my life striking out on my own, I lived in two large cities, DC and Pittsburgh. There I've seen some of the worst public land hunting in the nation. I'm talking 10,000 acre tracts where you work your tail off to kill a basket rack. Pure insanity. You can have success, but it's not close to home. You really have to put some windshield time in to find decent public land there. I feel for city people that try to hunt, access just sucks. You can forget about after work hunts and better get used to really early alarms and long drives. Private there, did some of that also.
Some guys are making urban hunting try to seem cool. Ok, first you generally have to belong to some sort of exclusive group that negotiates access to peoples backyards basically. Or take on that task on your own or a combo of both. Fun stuff. Then endless hassles dealing with this that and everything else. Dogs barking, leafblowers, weirdos. Have at it, not for me.

Finally, I live in a more rural area now and the pressure on public is night and day. I really can't complain about what I have now. Absolutely no reason to go knocking on doors. I can find hunting pressure for sure, but I can completely escape it also. Rural public is where its at for my style of hunting. I have more land to explore than I can cover in a lifetime and that is just the way I like it.

When I was younger I did dream of owning land but with age, I honestly have zero desire to for hunting purposes. It takes a lot of land to have space for a group of guys to hunt, and to me there's no joy in hunting unless you can share it with family and close friends. You can certainly manage a couple hundred acres very effectively but it's not my cup of tea.
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