I am a Maryland resident. Public land is available but it is not like you’d have in western NC or any of the national forests. It’s much smaller management areas and they have gotten very crowded over the last few years. It used to be that they were treated as an invasive and they would just count as part of the whitetail bag limit. Starting last year, you now need to purchase a regular sika deer tag. The season for sika and whitetail still remain the same, so there’s no need to track separate dates. However, most of the public land requires a separate permit to hunt and has season dates that do not correspond with the Maryland general season (that is for whitetail and sika). One thing to consider with them is that they are generally nocturnal, so they’re a bit more of a challenge to hunt.