Father and Son trying to hunt Ohio fall 2012

[teej79]

My dad and I are from Pennsylvania and are trying to hunt Ohio's archery season this fall for the first time since it's my last semester in college and I'll have more time than normal I had some questions:

1) We are going to start scouting in the middle of February when I can get time, we hunted Shenango Wildlife last season, saw deer but nothing special and it was extended gun season, the only 2 days we hunted public Ohio land last year. What I was wondering is we are looking at scouting either Dillon(spelling?) State Forest or Blue Rocks, hunting archery only. Has anyone on here had a preference for either of the two places, heard better stories from one than the other? I'm just trying to get opinions, we will probably be able to get up once a month starting in February until the first day of archery to scout, which isn't a lot of time to scout so which ever location is more easily scoutable is also a consideration.

2) I was also wondering if there is any where out there where I could possibly find any farmers willing to allow me and my dad to hunt on their property or if there is an agreement between the game commission and some farmers which allow hunters to hunt on their property.

We aren't looking for monsters, just bigger deer than we have here in Pa, it's my last semester in college and I'm not sure where I'll be after school so I was hoping I could make this fall a good one. I'd really appreciate it if anyone could point me in a direction as to which game lands is better or how to get in contact with farmers to obtain permission to hunt.

[gonehun10]

Your best bet is to by a map book for the county you want to hunt, take a day, start driving around , and knock on some doors.

[teej79]

Alright I was going to try to do that, we're looking at Muskingum, Conshocton, and Licking, most likely going to hunt Muskingum, that's where we were this fall. How to you go about picking private property to hunt on? In PA not too many private land owners are that welcoming to hunters so I've kind of shied away from asking people. How would you go about asking a land owner for permission? And I feel it's going to be hard to pick a property to ask since it's going to be late winter when we will get there to scout and a lot of the antlers will be dropped, I guess I could go by body size and number of deer. I figured just find some back roads and glass the fields in the evening and see which area has the most deer then go from there.

Does anyone have a preference of those three counties?

[Ohio farms]

You might want to check out the Ohio Power Co. area south of Cambridge. Huge tract of land to hunt on. You need to send in for a free lifetime permit first, but it's a great place. Use to be a strip mine operation, but it was reclaimed and the pits were stocked with fish. Worth checking out if the private land does not work out.

[kellory]

Contact ODNR and ask for maps of huntable areas. It will list all parks, state lands, and places like Meade who have large tracts of land open to hunting. You could also look for game reserves, large parks, State parks, and ask the neighbors of the parks for right to hunt thier land adjasent to the parks. Treat the parks as a breeding population, and hunt the edge. If you can't hunt the park itself, no one else can either, so no hunters too close to you, no hunting pressure on the deer, Just make sure the area is legal to hunt. if in doubt, check with ODNR. All the large huntable parks have maps and puplications you can pick up, or request by phone, and ODNR will mail them to you. The main complex for ODNR is on morse rd. about a mile east of Karl rd. south side of the street. They are an excelent resource, and I would suggest them as a first stop.

[teej79]

I've actually heard about someone hunting the strip mines from the power company, they killed a pretty nice one off that property also. I appreciate all the advice, I'm trying to make this trip a good one, getting all my research done first, we dropped $800 a piece last fall in Muskingum and say a 3 pt 6 pt a couple does and maybe 100" 8pt, it was fun, I mean all hunting is fun but it wasn't ideal. The guy was real nice just don't want to drop money on that if I can just go and scout on my own more often this year.

I'll definitely contact the ODNR, I never thought about looking for parks and finding areas adjacent to it, good idea I will look more into that.

Thank you guys for all your help, if you have any more pointers just keep them coming. I'll let you know if I get any progress, kind of difficult to do this and write my thesis for school also but I'm devoted to having a good season in Ohio this year.

[mhouck06]

Im from PA and have hunted archery in Ohio for the past three years.. Once you start looking, its pretty easy to find some good public land. We havent bothered with getting permission on private land because we have done so well on public land. The they offer are pretty detailed so I would make sure you get some, they are a great help. Since you are going in archery, I would plan to hunt the first or second week in November, that has seemed to be the best time for us. It seems the rut activity we see out there is far better that what we see around home. Make it worth your while and sit all day, we harvested two ohio bucks this year out of 4 of us and both were shot around lunch time. Just pack right and sit back and enjoy the day. If you have the time, go for a week.. little weekend hunts never seemed to work out for us. Its alot of time and effort to drive out there for a weekend, try to get some good hunting in and then head home. Earlier in the season is ok... but we like to maximize our time in the woods and you have a great chance of seeing deer all day in those first two weeks of November. Earlier in the season is more typical, morning and evening movents of deer.. We still sit all day, but the midday sightings are very minimal. If you are going out of state to hunt, why leave the stand for a couple hours to go eat lunch and then walk back in and get all sweaty and risk messing things up.. Another thing about hunting out of state you need to look into is what you are going to do with the deer if you get one.. We have two butchers where we hunt that usually can get the deer done pretty quick in archery season. Its good to have that planned out ahead of time or you may be stuck hangin your deer from a tree to cut it up or rushing back home to get it taken care of.

Also the trespassing laws are very strict compared to PA... so def know where you are.. if you read the game book when you get your license, you will get the idea, but it seems like you pretty much need written premission for any private property you step foot on, (posted or not)... so we tend to stay as far away as possible, because if you hit a deer and it goes onto private property, we never wanted to go through the hassle of tracking down the land owner and asking permission.

We also run into a decent amount of in state and out of state hunters, a lot of guys use climbers.. so when you are scouting.. keep that in mind.. you may find a killer spot, but someone else could know of that spot and be there when you get there, so always have backup places to go. It takes alot of preperation to have a nice enjoyable out of state hunt, especially for archery... but it sounds like you are on the right track.. Good luck

[SwampLife]

Get away from the state line, go deep and get a cart.

There are huge deer in PA though...

[teej79]

So we are looking into hunting Dillon, I was wondering if anyone has had any luck there, or advice there (other than the usual that it gets packed with hunters and to go deep). I see there are 3 areas there, and 1 and three are fairly small it seems, area 2 being the largest, would anyone recommend one area over the other?

All I've heard about dillon is it has good deer but in the pre-rut and rut it gets slammed with ppl, and they say to look deep in to find the deer, however it seems like a fairly small area, well not small but accessible because it's long and thin, it looks to be only 1.5-2 miles wide at the widest, however it's fairly long. Could anyone give me any advice on Dillon?

Thanks!

[RedBud]

You may want to look at Wayne National Forest. It is a large area in SE Ohio. I hunt there every year and like it for both deer and turkey.