The Good And The Bad Of Public Land Hunting

© Othmar Vohringer

Does of you that read Whitetail Deer Passion regularly know that I hunt often on public land. Here in Canada we call it Crown Land. The general consensus among hunters is that hunting on public land is nothing short of a nightmare. Yes it can be though to compete with many other hunters and spooky deer but it is not all bad either.

Here are a few examples of the good and bad based on the personal experience I gathered over the years.

Let’s start with the good points first.

1. You can sleep a few hours longer. Every other hunter is in the woods before first light until about 8:00am to 9:00am then they go home and don’t come back until late afternoon. Deer know about this human habit and adjust their movement patterns accordingly. If you get an hour before the other hunters go home to your stand you catch deer moving about.
2. Rather than scouting for deer sign scout for human sign. Figure out what the other hunters do and where they set up their stands and then look for the escape routes the deer use. The escape routes are where you want to set up and wait until the other hunters start pushing deer your way. Also look for the places other hunters avoid. Things like flooded timber, marshes, small woodlots, tickets and other “unlikely” places, because that is where the deer go when the pressure starts to build.
3. Talk to the farmers in the area because they have pretty good grasp on what the deer are doing and where they go once the hunter invasion begins.
4. No matter where you live in North America there is public hunting land within one hour drive of your home and you don’t have to pay an access fee or take out a second mortgage to pay for the lease.
5. Despite what you hear to the contrary, there are mature bucks on public land. I've shot quite a few nice bucks where nobody expected to see big bucks. They are there you just have to hunt them very different then you would on private land. 

Now let’s examine a few of the not so good points.

1. You will have to compete with lots of other hunters and that can make a little uncomfortable as far as safety is concerned. On public land I wear a hunter orange vest and hat on my way to and from the stand during bowhunting season. During the firearm season I wear even more hunter orange for the duration of the hunt and regardless if it is the law or not. Having been shot at ones I can assure it is not a nice feeling.
2. If you hunt from a treestand don’t leave it on the tree. Even if the stand is chained and bolted to the tree is can, and often will be, stolen. Over the years I had two stands stolen that I thought were adequately secured to the tree with chains and padlocks. It seems treestand thieves arrive equipped with bolt-cutters and ladders. I thought just taking the climbing stick down would be sufficient to secure the stand in addition to chain and padlock. I was sadly mistaken.
3. There is always the chance that your “hotspot” is also the “hotspot” of five other hunters. It happened a few times to me that I climbed into my stand and not much later heard hunters climbing into trees to either side of me.

Ask Othmar: Hunting Deer on a Small Property

© By Othmar Vohringer

Q. I have permission to hunt on about 40-acre property in a suburb. It is a small block consisting mainly of hardwoods and a small open grassy area. It’s got houses on two sides and a highway on the other end. I’ve never hunted such a small place in close proximity to houses and people but I’ve seen lots of deer in that area. My question is how do I hunt these deer without putting too much pressure on them?


A. Don’t worry about pressuring these deer too much. Suburban deer are used to seeing and hearing people close up everyday. In other words, suburban deer are accustomed to humans, vehicles and human noise.

To hunt these deer successfully forget everything you have ever read, heard or seen about hunting tactics. You even can forget everything about human odour control. Forget about sneaking in before daylight.

Instead try to match your coming and going to the activity of the people living around the area, children going to school, people going and coming from work and so on. That’s what the deer are used to and if you try to sneak around they will know you’re different and get scared.

Match your movement to what the deer are used too.

Leave all your calls, rattling antlers and scent at home. Just find the active trails leading in and out of the woodlot and hang stands accordingly.

I have killed a nice buck on a small 30-acre property just sitting behind a tree near an active trail intersection. I shot the deer about 50 yards next to a schoolyard. The deer didn’t mind the noise from the children because they were used to it. I used the time when the children went to school to walk into my stand. A half hour later the buck walked down the trail right in front of my arrow. Don't rely on your normal hunting tactics on small lots. It will cost you deer.

Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Tags: Hunting On A Small Property, Deer Hunting tips, Ask Othmar, Suburban Deer

Ask Othmar: Cattle and Deer

By Othmar Vohringer

Question: "Is it true that deer do not like to be around cattle?"

My Answer: Yes and no. I've hunted in areas where the deer didn't mind sharing the land with cattle. In fact I hunted on a property where the deer mingled with cattle and we always had to make sure that no cow was in the line of sight when we shot a deer.

When I moved to British Columbia I found a place that had a large deer population. Every time i scouted the area I saw lots of deer. Then when bowhunting season opened I didn't see a single deer. On the way out of the area I saw a herd of free ranging cattle but it didn't dawn at me that these cattle had anything to do with the vanishing deer until the day when the rancher herded the cows to a different place. Within two days of the cattle gone the deer came back.

I never have found an answer why in some areas deer and cattle seem to get along and in other areas deer move away when cattle are present. The only reasonable conclusion I can come up with is that perhaps in some areas food is plentiful available for both, while in others cattle may be in competition with the deer.

The only thing I can say for sure is that you need to observe deer and how they behave around cattle. Do they stay in the area or move off? And then adjust your tactics according to your observations.

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Othmar Vohringer Outdoors

Deer Hunting Tips, Ask Othmar, Deer and Cattle

Ask Othmar : Hunting Cornfields

© By Othmar Vohringer

Hi Othmar. A few friends and I have permission to hunt a farm. It’s the perfect piece of whitetail deer habitat with a small river bottom, hardwood ridges, pastures and several corn and bean fields. The farmer gave us permission to set up anywhere on his property except near the livestock and equipment barns and his house of course. In addition we only have permission to bowhunt, no firearms, not even slug guns or muzzleloader.

The problem I'am having is how to hunt cornfields. I've never hunted cornfields before. I could hunt the hardwood ridges but from what I observed it seems that most deer stay in the cornfields so I would like to give it a try. How do you go about hunting cornfields?

Ken from Illinois

Hunting cornfields can be a very productive way to kill a big buck. There are several options to hunt a cornfield and they all depend on the condition of the fields. What I mean by that, it depends if the corn is still standing or has been cut.

A standing cornfield is food and shelter to deer and thus they spend a lot of time in there, but not all of their time. If deer spend most of their time in the standing cornfield it can be though to hunt. The easiest way is to figure out where the deer move in and out of the field. Try to observe deer movement from a distance with a pair of good binoculars. Also check the hardwood ridge tops for available mast crop such as oaks. If there are oaks dropping then I am convinced the deer will travel from the field to the ridge top to feed on the oaks. Your job will be to figure out at what time the deer head to the oaks.

If the deer feed on the oaks during legal shooting light set up somewhere along the route the deer take from the field to the ridge top. Where that somewhere is will be revealed through scouting. It should be a narrow spot where several trails merge and funnel deer through a narrow gap past your stand.

Should your scouting reveal that the deer spend all the time, during legal shooting light, in the standing cornfield then you have no other option but to go after them. In my article Cirnfield Bucks I describe how to hunt bucks inside a cornfield.

If the cornfield is cut the game plan changes because the cover is gone. However, a cut cornfield is a deer magnet. Deer love a cut corn or bean field because they do not have to work the corn or bean out of the husk. The food is readily “pre-processed” available to them. Think of easy food intake without having to work for it. If the field has just been cut you will find that deer are difficult to pattern for a day or two. Don’t worry about it. It all will go back to normal again as soon as the deer figured out a new bedding to feeding travel pattern after their familiar pattern has suddenly been disturbed. Deer are masters at adapting to new situations.

Again, scout from a distance where and at what time the deer travel to and from the cut field. When the new travel pattern emerges find the travel routes the deer take from their bedding areas to the field and hang stands accordingly. My preference is to hang stands always a bit back in the woods where several trails merge into one, as opposed to directly at the food source. It's hard, if not downright impossible, to kill a deer with a bow directly at the food source. I recommend, as always, to hang several stands to accommodate different wind directions and entry/exit routes for you.

If anybody would like to add anything to this tip feel free and do so in the comment sections. The season has just started and if you get one with the bow let me know. Good luck and have a great time out there.

Othmar Vohringer Outdoors
Founding Member of Outdoor Bloggers Summit

To see more Questions & Answers read “Ask Othmar”

Tags: Bowhunting, Cornfields, Early Bowhunting Season