how busy is your public land?

WhelanLad

WhelanLad

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So with the mentioned Public land Tags for these Hog deer, they are somewhat isolated to the eastern southern tip of aus coastal belt, an the areas only open for the month / season, being national parks n certain conservation areas etc, not usually open for hunting..

the more i do some hard to find research on them an the areas etc, its a secretive service and seldom spoken info however there is ballot areas an traditional spots people typically Go , i assume..
barring out private land completely, just public land, everything i have read indicates "so busy the deer go to ground, turn nocturnal , good luck finding one, " and i can understand, a few years ago there was 1,100 tags and 170 odd deer killed, m/f , month long period over easter....


im curious as to how busy your public land gets , particularly opening morning, even if its a week day, an how the pressure peters out the further you get from larger 'cities', or larger populations which sorta go to the closer to town spots. etc.

is it along the lines of If you are not out there, then Someone else is? an just taking the challenge as part of the parcel per say, keep vigilante and move or hunt elsehwere legal nearbby if spot A,B or C is taken, go on the fly? go further out intially?

love to hear about your opinion on public land hunting small periods in somewhat marginalized areas.. ? if that makes sense.

il try add a map of where we can all public land hunt for these deer tomorow.

cheers!

im still keen as. orange hat an all.
 
During moose/deer seasons, it gets pretty crazy around here... as in, people deciding that public land is actually theirs... tires are getting slashed and people getting threaten.
- Gaspésie is about 20,000 km2... Most of it public land... and with just a handful of game warden and LEO... there is only so much they can do.
 
It varies. Some public land is quite busy, meaning you’ll likely see someone if you are close to roads and trails. In other areas, you wouldnt likely see another person tor the rest of your life; which might not be that long.
 
Here in SW Ontario I often meet others on weekends during deer or rabbit season. Our public woodlots are often small (say 50 acres) so if I see a car/truck already there I usually go elsewhere. If I am in the forest and see someone in a treestand I usually just wave and then turn around and leave them be.

If rabbit/squirrel hunting I'll usually go on over and chat a bit, see if they want to "dog" the bush together, or we agree to walk in different directions. Luckily I have not had a bad interaction yet (knock wood) but 30 years ago near Parry Sound ON someone slashed one of my dad's tires on his car while hunting public (crown) land. Leaves a very bad feeling towards other hunters.
 
In my experience in Saskatchewan - community pastures, ranches with designated trails only, commercial forest in the North - once you are out of sight of a vehicle road or trail, or say 15 or 20 minutes walk away from it, "people sightings" drop way off. Is a concern in some places about leaving your vehicle or quad for the day and coming back to find it vandalized. A noticeable difference in the "quality" of hunter that you meet within 50 yards of a road, and 5 miles from a road - if the guy back there even wanted you to see him, in the first place...

Quite different in various places, though - a friend worked at a plant in Michigan - he said there were probably more people than deer in the bush on opening day - could see pop-ups and blinds in fields from the 4 lane highway as I drove from a city to the plant. I have no experience about "wood lots", but another friend in Florida quite excited to get permission to hunt on a 16 acre piece of bush. I was spoiled I guess - community pastures in West Central Sask that were 300 miles more or less to drive around the perimeter. Ranches in South West Sask that measured their size in sections. (square miles). South East Sask with permission from three landowners that amounted to several thousand contiguous acres. North West Alberta that was almost all public land for entire Wildlife Management Zones, once you got permission to cross private land to get there.
 
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Where I grew up, I could walk hundreds of km of trails and logging roads without bumping into another soul. It’s a 4 hour drive, but I still head up there a few times each fall. Locally, I hunt public land close to the largest city in Canada, but I must be going at the right times because I’ve never bumped into another hunter. Have seen trucks parked at trail entrances, but just move along to the next. Have bumped into walkers, mushroom pickers and dirt bikers.. but never another hunter.
 
Northern Alberta Crown land is very quiet. Yes there are busy little pockets of hunting pressure, but 99% is vacant of hunters. I hunt the forest fringe, 14 to 16 days every hunting season and hardly see a soul, or hear shots fired. Listening to nature all day is absolutely therapeutic, it can make an old guy fall asleep under a tree. LOL!!!
 
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Not terribly busy for the most part, you run into the odd person on the main roads but once you get on the secondary roads or start hoofing it I rarely see others.

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It can get pretty busy in some of the best deer hunting areas I know with logging roads and road hunters crossing a lot of the landscape, but the last two deer I got were about 150 yards off the road on deer trails the deer use to avoid the roads. This is within three hours of Vancouver, mind you. The farther away from the city the sparser the hunter population gets. Unless it is at Zippermouth Lake of course.

But as Butcherbill says, there is plenty of places you'll rarely see anyone.
 
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I see more people than game, when you live in one of the most densely populated provinces in the country it's hard to get some alone time in the bush. Jealous of you western and northerners.
 
scruffee said:
The forest fringe of Saskatchewan get crazy busy during moose and elk season... Otherwise it's not too bad.
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Its a funny thing. I’ve had more run ins with pissed off guys when goose hunting. Now with geese, you gotta go where they are. So a good pea field around a lake community or town gets a lot of attention. Im super anal about getting to the field very early. Sometimes I park my truck and trailer at midnight and sleep for 3 hours, then start setting up. My hunting buddies love that! LOL

Only once had an actual issue with big game hunting. Guy said he was from Saskatoon, I was local. He told me this was his spot. I told him we were on crownland and I know of 3 other groups hunting in here. So play nice, or good luck with dealing with us locals. We came to an agreement. Shook hands and went our ways. I ran into him again while I was cleaning out an elk.
-“Murrey!!! Any luck?” As I pull out an elks innards. Never forget that.
 
shoota said:
I see more people than game, when you live in one of the most densely populated provinces in the country it's hard to get some alone time in the bush. Jealous of you western and northerners.
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It's a boreal desert where I hunt in northern Alberta. I see all kinds of wildlife from chipmunks to moose. Lynx is also a common sighting, but yet there are tons of snowshoe hares; probably because they're over populated. Whitetails are the most common big game, and they are coming back in population from several hard years of Old Man Winter. My son and I never shoot does and this has also helped with their return. Many long lonely days in that big bush country, silence is almost deafening.
 
track said:
It's a boreal desert where I hunt in northern Alberta. I see all kinds of wildlife from chipmunks to moose. Lynx is also a common sighting, but yet there are tons of snowshoe hares; probably because they're over populated. Whitetails are the most common big game, and they are coming back in population from several hard years of Old Man Winter. My son and I never shoot does and this has also helped with their return. Many long lonely days in that big bush country, silence is almost deafening.
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Go ahead rub it in some more :p
 
shoota said:
Go ahead rub it in some more :p
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lel, thinkin the same thing down ere...

Its timely this thread got some attns, i almost wanna make another thread about , somethng related to " how deterred do you get from other huntin folks about a certain deer and or a certain 'region/area' , especially when it comes to something a little different Species wise an behaviour etc....
ya know even more 'exotic' animals, example say the Sheep- or maybe some island deer? where nature is plentiful an at times can be biting you or whatever.....

Cos ive been hearing so much wack #### about little sort of "deterrants" i call em, that describe the area/animal/hunt somewhat more difficult for whatever the reason is- mostly heard 'poached areas' , 'hunting pressure in season', 'the mosquitos', 'the thick bush', ive also heard 'ha good luck there' 'oh ya wont see one' ...etc..


i have sort of been replyin with, oh yeah, you wuld be a nufty to think it was going to be easy , an if i see one its succesful by the sounds....' ..
but ive also been doin my 'homework' to a degree,, mentally prepared for the type of bush im to encounter an how to go about that, use methods succesfully mentioned for decades, an not expect to much and take it all in stride, per say... whats to freakin lose yeah?

i just struggle with seeing You guys, Kiwis and other Countries all sorta get along inthe hunting world an not hand out spots, but talk openly enough about things.

i do wonder though, are these guys who are so deterring, simply missing the point and certainly not reading the surroundings..

anyway, rant over. what say you on that?
 
The public land I hunt is almost all draw only hunting for big game with the exception of white-tail being open in some WMU's and Elk in others. Having draw only hunting certainly limits the number of other hunters you see out there but in the spot I got my mule deer buck last fall I did run into motor bikers, 4x4ers, folks out snow shoeing and one guy target shooting. I think the target shooter was actually another hunter but was bored and just had to empty a few mags that morning.
 
It varies; some popular spots with easy access and good visibility get lots of traffic. On the other hand, thick timber can be next to a road and see nobody.

Generally pressure goes down once out of sight of a road or trail passable to a vehicle. It drops again a 20 minute walk from a road, and goes down to nearly nothing an hour from a road.
 
shoota said:
Go ahead rub it in some more :p
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Canada is a large geographic country and most provinces are vast. There are many remote places in each province that has been untouched or disturbed, you just have to find it. When or if you do locate it, then the work begins, not just finding animals, locating the big boys. We create our own destinies, fortunes are found on how hard we work to achieve those goals.
 
I live 15 minutes from a city of a bit over 80,000, it gets really busy on the roads and trails. But if you lace your boots up and go you rarely see anybody else. Generally the further you get from a major centre the less people you run into, but there are exceptions. There’s some fairly remote open season areas that get absolutely pounded for a few days each fall, the roads almost need traffic lights and ATV’s running around all over. But again, get even a few hundred meters off the road and you hardly see anybody. But moose are heavy......
 
It's unusual for me to see any other people when I hunt crown land in the Northern Saskatchewan forest reserve. On community pastures and wildlife habitat lands, we may bump into one or two other hunters during a days hunt, but not always. I just avoid "popular" spots near any of the bigger towns, and usually avoid opening day, and that cuts out the competition.
 
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