In this blog we want to cover a vast difference that we have noticed between public land deer and private land deer. In our cases we have had multiple encounters with both private and public land deer. Being my first year on public land we tried to get as deep as possible, away from other hunters, as we did. Thinking the deer would be less pressured. It didn’t take long for us to figure out that these public land deer know what’s up.
One little reach for the bow and she gone
Public Land Deer
On this specific encounter on November 10th, this doe had just came around a berm and was met face to face with us. Before this footage, she had blown maybe 25 times. Us thinking the worst, there is absolutely no way she had our wind. About 10 minutes later she showed where this footage takes off. Behind her was a small 9 point, and then the public land mega that we have come to know as Magnum P.I. At the start of this clip this doe is 38 yards. If she had continued into the opening and both bucks ensued, game over on a GIANT! She seemingly hops in the creek and the big boy follows. Not getting our wind 100%, was it our small movement??
This doe had come right out, worked through the pinch we were playing and when she cleared the brush, immediately picked us off. We have great back cover and we were not planning on shooting this doe, so all that was going on in the tree was turning the camera on and filming which required almost no movement. She for sure knew to be looking up in the trees.
Private Land Deer
As with some of the deer on public being fawns or 1.5 year old deer they were smart. We hunted our private piece very hard during our rut-cation with encounters on the same age structure of deer. Deer would see us or at least look up and never busted or blew. Same scenario as public land, 2 hunters in a tree trying to film and such but yet did not seem to care too much about us.
Our private piece had not been hunted for the previous 5 years before we were allowed permission last year. Last year trying to figure out how deer move through the property we did not even take a doe off of the place as were were trophy hunting there, and had seen some very big old mature does. This doe came in with another average doe, and a fawn, walking right across an open CRP field right to us. They came into 24 yards and the big doe took an arrow. The other 2 deer hung around for a couple minutes and then kind of bounced off while the doe I shot crashed in 45 yards.
Conclusion
Hunters getting it done on public land, I now have a new respect for. The deer on those parcels are more educated about a hunter being in a tree and absolutely do not stick around long with little to no movement in that tree.
This week’s blog is brought to you by Veteran Innovative Products Hog Log
