![]() ![]() Shane Allen travels from Kentucky each year to hunt with a muzzleloader in the Wayne National Forest in southeast Ohio. Some really good bucks come out of these areas each year, and if you work hard to find an out-of-the way nugget of good, unpressured habitat, you can expect to see some bucks in the 130 range and possibly up to 150. Hunting pressure can be high in some areas, but because of the sheer size of the area and the immense number of broken up public hunting properties in sizes from half a square mile to a couple dozen square miles, hunters can find a place to hunt without competition. The areas are characterized by hills covered in oak and hickory forests where nice bucks like to run the ridges and valleys where they chase does through the brushy lowland. You can see the potential here just by understanding how often bucks like to bed in cover then move out into the crops and hayfields to feed. Some of the private lands are forested and some of which are farmland. Its 244,000 acres (yes you read that right) is fragmented into hundreds of small properties bordered by private lands. The Wayne National Forest in Southeast Ohio doesn’t fit that description at all. When you think of a National Forest, you might think of huge blocks of uninterrupted timber and difficult big woods hunting. His stand was nearly two miles from the nearest road. He took this representative buck on WIHA land in Kansas. The author loves to find out of-the-way places to hunt. You must apply in the spring but drawing odds are nearly 100% in most zones. Kansas is proud of their nonresident deer tags, hunting privileges will set you back nearly $500. ![]() Kansas department of Wildlife and Parks offers maps of the areas, and produces a printed booklet each year with maps showing the WIHA areas. Look for creek bottoms, shelterbelts and wooded areas near crop fields to find the bucks. It takes some investigative work, mostly through satellite photography online, but you can find some excellent deer hunting that’s open to the public just show up and start hunting. WIHA properties change some from year to year, but most years, about 100,000 acres are enrolled. WIHA is a program whereby landowners can enroll their land and receive a small payment for allowing the public to hunt. The Walk In Hunting Access (WIHA) program in Kansas is primarily geared at upland bird hunting, and most of the land is more suitable to quail and pheasants than to deer, but the amount of excellent deer habitat enrolled in this program is quite remarkable when you really dig into it. So here is my top ten in no particular order. Each offers different scenery and a different experience. Some of these are well-known destinations, others not so much. I’ve narrowed down ten of my top destinations for a DIY road trip whitetail hunt. You might be surprised that I have included them here, but I don’t mind if I see you out there, I’ll just have to try to outwork you. I’ve bowhunted whitetails in more than a dozen states and I have some places I just can’t wait to get back to. These ten destinations offer great public land hunting and a chance to bring home something to make your taxidermist happy.Įveryone who travels to hunt whitetails seems to have a favorite place to go.
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