Bowhunting Public Land — It’s Not a Competition

Thanks to social media and YouTube, whitetail bowhunters are inundated — especially during fall — with images and videos of fellow archers killing big bucks. It’s easy to fall into the trap of comparing your own hunting success to those you see online. I know because I must guard against it every year. Thankfully, I’m old and experienced enough to be comfortable in my own skin — and with my own unpunched tags.

Readers like you might assume I spend numerous days, or even weeks, traveling the country bowhunting heavily managed private property, likely with the help of outfitters, in search of magnum bucks. Nope. In fact, it’s the opposite.

Each whitetail season, I spend half of my time on heavily hunted Wisconsin public land. Is it tremendous property? No. Is it very good? No. Is it better than average? No.

You’re probably asking yourself, “Why is he wasting his time on marginal public ground; doesn’t he want to kill big bucks?”

Sure I do, but more important is hunting with family and friends. When I bowhunt Wisconsin, I stay with my dad, and while we own a little private ground (decent but not great), it’s simply more convenient to bowhunt nearby public ground, too.

Here’s the scenario: We put in a few small food plots on our private property, and it’s smart to limit our whitetail intrusions to afternoons only. We spend half our time (mornings typically) on public property within a short drive.

In Wisconsin I can buy an over-the-counter nonresident archery deer tag, and with it I can tag two antlerless deer and one buck. But I don’t. Looking back through the decades, it’s uncommon for me to kill a buck. On average, I kill one buck every 5 years. And while I’ve seen some big ones through the years, I’m very happy to get a shot at a 2.5-year-old buck with a rack scoring 110 to 120 Pope and Young points. (Yes, this is Wisconsin, but you’re wrong if you think every county is overrun with giants.)

Most years in Wisconsin I kill one doe. You read that correctly. Most deer seasons the big shot editor of Bowhunting World spends half his time on heavily hunted public ground and shoots a single doe.

But here’s the headline: Because of degree of difficulty, a doe I kill on public brings me more satisfaction than tagging a 160-inch buck on an outfitted trip to Big Buck County USA.

This bow season, discover what brings you the most satisfaction — and don’t worry about comparing your results to those of other hunters.