Feb. has always been good on the Fl. side . When the season ended on Jan. 25th. we never knew there was a rut.

Sent you a PM

Public land hunters will always outperform private land guys on private land or public.we was raised and taught his to hunt!!!!!!period
You really learn to hunt on public land...,....,. Not in clubs where deer are everywhere easily
Hunting clubs and private lands you have fun and kill chit easily all the time but at a cost.really that simple
Unfortunately it cost money to do anything in this day and age

I’ve been in two different clubs where the deer were so pressured and nocturnal I had rather pay money to hunt public land than ever set foot on those properties again for free.

Pinch points or natural funnels between bedding and food sources, is what worked for me when I hunted Wolf Creek back in the day. Some of the areas by bedding I couldn’t see 50 yds. Always go where others won’t go, but be prepared to work your tail off to get one out . Speaking of hunting scrapes, bucks normally circle scrapes the check them from downwind. If I am hunting scrapes I like to hunt with a cross wind, I don’t care much for wind in my face. I prefer the crosswind

RedCoat, glad to see you are still at it. We exchanged a few PM's at the end of last season. This is my 3rd season and I've bagged one buck and two does so far all on public. I'll tell you what has helped me this season.

*Always mark any deer you see on your hunting app (Onx or Huntstand) and what direction it was traveling. This lead me to being withing 20 yards of the biggest buck I've ever encountered while hunting. I missed, but that is a different story.

*Go back and look at the map of your sightings and think "There was a reason this deer crossed at this spot". Look for saddles, low spots, funnels, etc....The revisit the area and you'll probably start to see what is happening in that area. Deer are browsers and they are almost always on the move, that is about the only advantage we got.

*Clear cuts. If I can find a place where they cross and get 80-100 yards off of it, I've noticed I'm invisible if I'm still or behind a tree or in a pop up. I had a doe come within 40 yards just staring at me in my pop up (was a buck only day). She looked at me a lot, but I never moved and she just found me interesting to look at, but was never scared.

*Clear cuts again, when you find that place that they cross it will be usually a low spot or a few yards off it.

*Consider seeing a deer on a sit almost as much as a success as harvesting one. That is future knowledge that will lead to a kill. I took one doe off observations from the end of last seaon. I noticed does would go up a draw to eat later in the season. A buck I got was noticing a doe crossing early in the season during a buck only hunt the 1st time I sat on a clear cut. Came back to sit on it later and a buck popped out.

*Last but not least, I've personally seen all my activity between 8AM and Noon. I don't bother getting up at 3AM, I just try to get to my parking spot around fist light and take my time walking in. I think the idea of bumping them in the dark is a little overblown for us Public Land hunters. I've literally walked through somewhere and 20 mintues later seen a deer walk through there and hang out. They are still going where they need to go and if your wearing scent proof boots and walking on a road or clear cut it doesn't seem to leave any real scent that alarms them. Walking through brush and stuff might be different if your scent is sticking to branches.

*Eliminate bad habits like looking at your phone for long stretches. I force myself to look up every 30 seconds if I am checking mesages. It only takes a minute and you can spend 10 minutes with your head buried in your phone before you realize it. I know I've missed deer doing that.

This. And it’s a problem that gets worse, not better, in those areas due to statewide unlimited doe rules designed to manage high deer populations. If you hunt an area where you only see 2 or 3 deer all season, you are probably going to try to shoot every deer you see, as are your neighbors, meaning even less deer next year and the coyotes having to hunt fawns more aggressively. They need to seriously study where the deer population is low and ban doe killing in those areas for 5 years or so.

Deer populations are like rich and poor people with compounding wealth. The high population areas with a large base of deer stay high even if you kill a lot of deer. And the low population areas, just like most people in poverty, stay low because they can’t ever get ahead long enough to start building anything.

Perdido is tough hunting. If you’re bow hunting I would try going further north

If you are interested in getting some more information about a couple of the bow only areas, shoot me a PM

We bought a new piece of property. Ive hunted there 10 times, i guess. Ive saw one deer. Joseph has hunted there 5 times i guess, has seen deer every time but one. Icant quite figure this one out. He is 8x more likely to see deer there than i am.

On thing that sunk at the end of last season was does and bucks might as well be different species. Yes does lead to bucks but the bucks are so much more reclusive, cautious and on the move. I would sum it as the does are ladies in the store browsing and the bucks are the guy running in to get something and get out. Every buck I have seen in the wild was not lalligagging around and extreme aware. I guess the does play the numbers game by traveling in groups so they let their guard down a little more.

I’d start fishing

It's not just traveling in groups there are flat out more does alive than bucks. A 2.5 year buck that walks into multiple green fields in AL is automatically dead. A similar doe could live 5+ years. The more reclusive bucks pass on their genes. Bucks in AL have selective pressure to be elusive and nocturnal.

I try to get at least somewhat to where I want to go ahead of sunrise. If it's a full moon and moon is overhead I can hang a stand. Either way, I like being in the woods before sunrise. There's a lot of deer activity at first light.

Rubber boots. I'm 50/50 on this. If I have a really bad hike in I don't wear them. They do make a difference. Was recently in a stand and my wind was great - I wore normal hiking boots. A doe and yearling were walking by. Hit the trail I walked in on and obviously smelled where my boots touched the ground. It was like they hit a brick wall. Doe starts searching for me. Stomping, head bobbing. Looks right at me in my treestand. I know my wind is good 100%. Eventually she chills out and they hang around an hour and a half under/near my stand.

There are a lot of stories on here of people missing deer on their phones. Don't be a guy with that story. When looking at my phone I have a plan on how to quickly put it away.

Great thread! Maybe one day I'll be successful on Public land too. Oh and I have that book as well. Time to break it back out. Enjoyed everyone's advice.

Thick and nasty OR swamps always produced for me on public land or a lease. Most people feel the need to see 100yds... Least likely places like near property entrances are often good spot, human nature tells most hunters to "go deep" and bucks aren't dumb, they simply go to secluded spots.

This. A shorter really shitty walk to the spot is usually better than an easy long walk through open woods. When you're deep think about how much it's going to suck to drag the deer out. If it's going to really really suck, and there's fresh sign, you may be in a decent spot.

Stick with it man - I didn't really have anyone to teach me how to hunt either. Learned from books, forums, and just getting out there. My family has shot deer forever but it was mostly over greenfields/fields - what I now sometimes call harvesting deer. There's a big difference between HARVESTING and HUNTING whitetails.

There's nothing more rewarding from a whitetail hunting perspective than getting back into some public, finding sign, and getting on deer, at least to me.

26 hunts and 3 deer seen I'd say find somewhere else to hunt. You'd have stumbled on more than that just by dumb luck I'd think