On my way to vote this morning I seen a little forked nose down working it hard
Only opportunity I considered was a 120ish 4x4 standing with a doe. He was 450yds off the road and it would've been easy enough to step into the ditch and shoot him. However, my 9yr old daughter was along and I thought she'd enjoy a stalk and a much closer opportunity, so, I drove down the road 1/2Mi and got to a spot I was sure I could put a stalk on and get to under 200yds. We'd taken a bit of time making sure kiddo had the right clothes etc and unfortunately, someone else decided to try and shoot him from the road and the deer ran in the opposite direction from us. That's all part of public land hunting. I'm only disappointed that it would have been a cool experience for kiddo, the size of the deer wasn't of any significance.
I saw 2.5-3.5yr old deer chasing does, didn't see anything bigger or with any age to them running does this weekend on public or private land.
Thats the whole bad thing about public land, you spot something first, do a stragedy to get closer, along comes rambo who thinks they can nail the thing at 400+ yards, ruins your day...smh. Kinda in the same situation, farmer I got to know, that I hunted his land BEFORE he turned into plots...guess what...everybody and their dog knows about and opening weekend I counted at least 6 trucks including mine and spotted one guy walking, I was sitting at a well site at on the edge of the plots, he saw me sitting there, so he kneels down and start glassing me with his binos.....lol......thats the bad thing about plots is all I have to say, I'm looking for private land to hunt as I speak.