Unique opportunity in the Midwest

[Treeratslayer]

I hunt private land in SW Wisconsin but know of a few places that would be okay to hunt. They are not big chunks of woods but people get deer there every year. There will be some people in there but if you were to avoid weekends it may not be bad. It would mostly be wooded areas. Also there is MFL and FCL land that is open to hunting I believe unless the programs ended.

Being that I’ll be attending this as a housewife, avoiding weekends should be easy.


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[Szwampdonkey]

The trick to hunting public in Wisconsin is hunting next to private and wait for them to pass through.

Sorry, that worked like 8 years ago. Do this now and youll be hunting with a few other guys, guys from private leaving illegal stands on the public and "claiming" the area, AND dealing with anti hunter landowners yelling at you that youre on private land, not allowed to hunt there for x number of reasons, or tell you theyre calling the cops. Once all that fails they will just take to walking their dog right along their property line every day right at prime time. Ask me how i know. Its just become a massive headache not worth my time anymore.

An added bonus, your deer will end up on their land and they will deny you access to retrieve it. WI law doesnt allow you any other way to retrieve a deer off private other than the landowner granting you permission. You really think they are going to do that when they hate that you are there hunting in the first place?

Its sad but the ONLY way to effectively and enjoyably hunt southern WI anymore is to hunt private, which is almost impossible to get knock on door access so youre looking at leasing. The overwhelmingly majority of the nice bucks everyone reads about are coming off private. It just is what it is.

If the OP is willing to fork over cash he can find some great hunting in Southern WI but he better start looking cause those leases go quick and often are locked up by the same group for years. But that would be my advice for hunting Southern WI having watched it evolve over the decades.

 

[Szwampdonkey]

Appreciate the advice! I can shoot 110s here at home, not that I’m much of a horn chaser, but if I’m going to all this trouble, he better be nicer than what I have outside right now!


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If you truly want to hunt some nice WI bucks look into leasing if youre able. I know there are a few websites that specialize in WI leases as ive looked into them a few times myself. Me though, i just cant bring myself to pay to hunt so ive never gone that route in the end but i definitely have thought about it.

Either way, good luck man. I hope you find some great public honey hole somewhere. If i were you id start building preference points for Iowa. I think thats the route im going as its not too far a drive for me. I think limiting how many are accessing public land is an excellent strategy for keeping everyone who wants to hunt whitetails on public land happy. The only caveat is you cant hunt it every year.

 

[TSAMP]

If you truly want to hunt some nice WI bucks look into leasing if youre able. I know there are a few websites that specialize in WI leases as ive looked into them a few times myself. Me though, i just cant bring myself to pay to hunt so ive never gone that route in the end but i definitely have thought about it.

Either way, good luck man. I hope you find some great public honey hole somewhere. If i were you id start building preference points for Iowa. I think thats the route im going as its not too far a drive for me. I think limiting how many are accessing public land is an excellent strategy for keeping everyone who wants to hunt whitetails on public land happy. The only caveat is you cant hunt it every year.

Not to poke a hole in your plan. But trust me, NE iowa public is filled with WI plates. So plan to drive further .

 

[Szwampdonkey]

Not to poke a hole in your plan. But trust me, NE iowa public is filled with WI plates. So plan to drive further .

Lol, trust me im not surprised. After hunting southern WI since the 80s im just now sort of where the OP is, musing where to expand out to hunt. Maybe ill decide its not worth and keep doing what im doing again next year idk? I do however love small game so maybe ill focus on hunting deer the opening week or so of archery because catching the deer with their pants down is a strategy that still works and then focus on small game and pheasant after that.

At least for now in WI it appears almost no one hunts small game anymore. Plenty of game and no one hunting said game makes for a good time imo.

 

[Lytro]

Do this now and youll be hunting with a few other guys, guys from private leaving illegal stands on the public and "claiming" the area

This sounds like a win to me if there are already stands out and they're not being used. I've never had an issue with hunting out of other people's stands they leave on public. Lol

 

[Szwampdonkey]

This sounds like a win to me if there are already stands out and they're not being used. I've never had an issue with hunting out of other people's stands they leave on public. Lol

Ha, ive definitely contemplated that at times trust me. Would beat hauling one in and out a mile and half every hunt! lol

 

[Kurts86]

With Iowa and most of the Midwest I would always look west rather than East, in most cases it means fewer people.

Most of Wisconsin you can’t really get away from populations of people by driving and as mentioned it’s mostly small parcels. I have some experience there and it’s hard scrappy hunting.

Illinois is not hard to get a NR archery tag but it is a “draw” and it’s expensive but your options are limited in the NW side of the state with public land. I spent a decade hunting there and have no desire to go back.

Nebraska has gotten more restrictive with NR tags but if you want an archery whitetail tag for the eastern part of the state it’s not any harder to get than Illinois. There are decent walk-in areas in Eastern Nebraska and the deer and turkeys populations are less down than the west part of the state. Nebraska is a lot worse than a decade ago but most of the internet chatter is with regard to cheap/available mule deer tags in Nebraska rather than eastern whitetails.

Missouri is OTC (for now) and has decent options. The reality is northern missouri has the best deer and the least public land in the state but MDC areas tend to be the most intensively managed state public lands of nearly any state. It’s been 15 years since I’ve deer hunted public land in Missouri so I don’t have a read on pressure these days but presumably it’s increased significantly. Northern Missouri on a hunting lease would be your best bet IMO.

I would say NE or MO would be my choices and I’ve hunted or lived in almost every state listed here. Every state listed here has great hunts and horrible ones.

Where you have access to private land matters more than anything for midwest whitetails.

 

[The_Jim]

If you have access to private in Nebraska, you could have some solid hunting. I don’t think our nr archery tags are a draw(better check me on that), they’re just capped at 3,000. Muzzleloader capped at 1,000. Both aren’t good for mule deer in the mdca units. As long as you get one right when the sales open you should be good.

 

[Forestryguy]

As for small game MeatEater is working on ruining the also. The Bear Grease guys keep highlighting squirrel hunting and cooking. It will only be a matter of time till we are paying leases to hunt squirrels.

NE Iowa is over run by WI guys every year. I worked for the Iowa DNR for awhile and you couldn't go 100 yds, some years, on an access road without a WI license plate parked on the side.

 

[SandyCreek]

NW/NC Iowa was over run with WI plates bird hunting this year. Theres not much public land left anywhere that isnt hammered dog shit these days

 

[Luked]

Just came home this past week from a hunt in N MO. It was the worst hunt I have had so far.
Place was just hammered the first part of the season. Wouldnt want to guess how many carcass i found.
Think I managed 6 miles a day back and forth to camp and saw 5 deer in 6 days.
Found all kinds of sign and fresh sign as well but I think the are was jsut hunted so hard that everything there is moving at night.
This was all public ground also.

 

[Treeratslayer]

If you truly want to hunt some nice WI bucks look into leasing if youre able. I know there are a few websites that specialize in WI leases as ive looked into them a few times myself. Me though, i just cant bring myself to pay to hunt so ive never gone that route in the end but i definitely have thought about it.

Either way, good luck man. I hope you find some great public honey hole somewhere. If i were you id start building preference points for Iowa. I think thats the route im going as its not too far a drive for me. I think limiting how many are accessing public land is an excellent strategy for keeping everyone who wants to hunt whitetails on public land happy. The only caveat is you cant hunt it every year.

Yeah I’m not willing to lease. I’ll go to another state or just be mad the whole time while I’m hunting over pressured land. I’m too cheap and stubborn for that lol


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[Treeratslayer]

With Iowa and most of the Midwest I would always look west rather than East, in most cases it means fewer people.

Most of Wisconsin you can’t really get away from populations of people by driving and as mentioned it’s mostly small parcels. I have some experience there and it’s hard scrappy hunting.

Illinois is not hard to get a NR archery tag but it is a “draw” and it’s expensive but your options are limited in the NW side of the state with public land. I spent a decade hunting there and have no desire to go back.

Nebraska has gotten more restrictive with NR tags but if you want an archery whitetail tag for the eastern part of the state it’s not any harder to get than Illinois. There are decent walk-in areas in Eastern Nebraska and the deer and turkeys populations are less down than the west part of the state. Nebraska is a lot worse than a decade ago but most of the internet chatter is with regard to cheap/available mule deer tags in Nebraska rather than eastern whitetails.

Missouri is OTC (for now) and has decent options. The reality is northern missouri has the best deer and the least public land in the state but MDC areas tend to be the most intensively managed state public lands of nearly any state. It’s been 15 years since I’ve deer hunted public land in Missouri so I don’t have a read on pressure these days but presumably it’s increased significantly. Northern Missouri on a hunting lease would be your best bet IMO.

I would say NE or MO would be my choices and I’ve hunted or lived in almost every state listed here. Every state listed here has great hunts and horrible ones.

Where you have access to private land matters more than anything for midwest whitetails.

Great input. Appreciate the honestly


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[NRA4LIFE]

Just came home this past week from a hunt in N MO. It was the worst hunt I have had so far.
Place was just hammered the first part of the season. Wouldnt want to guess how many carcass i found.
Think I managed 6 miles a day back and forth to camp and saw 5 deer in 6 days.
Found all kinds of sign and fresh sign as well but I think the are was jsut hunted so hard that everything there is moving at night.
This was all public ground also.

Our hunt was a bit strange this year. This was on private near the Clarence Cannon Dam during the general season. I did manage to get 3, but all were before 7:00 AM. Did not see a single deer after about that time and we did not see a single deer on our afternoon hunts the whole week. Tons and tons of sign but like you, they were moving at night or real early and that was it. This has been a trend the last few years since they allowed crossbows during archery. They also opened up a 3 day doe rifle season in early October. Not too wild about either of these.

 

[Luked]

I dont mind the extended Doe seasons as we need the removal of them.
I do not like the crossbow thing in archery season. I still think that they should have left that the way it was years ago and it took a special permit to use one during the archery season.