By John E. Phillips
 If you already know you’ll need land to hunt next season, start searching for it now. Once you find that land, then you can scout for deer and turkey sign, as well as pick up sheds to let you know the size of deer on the land. This spring you can prepare green fields, cut shooting lanes and put up tree stands.
Decide Who Knows About Land: The search for a place to hunt generally begins with your friends and local sporting-goods dealer. Then you need to decide who knows about the most land and the most people, including:
• Sheriff's deputies and conservation officers.
• Bankers in any rural county and many urban areas. Many landowners have borrowed money from the banker to plant crops, improve their lands, fence their properties, buy feed for cattle or buy additional land. Because the banker must get to know people very well before he loans them money, more than likely he knows their attitudes about hunting and hunters.
• The newspaper man/lady who delivers the daily paper to rural communities. He often will observe deer crossing the road and going from their feeding to their bedding areas.
• The rural letter carrier/mailman, who may see deer as he travels his route.
• The rural barber, who knows the men of the community.
Go to College: When alumni die, they'll often leave portions of their lands to the colleges they’ve attended. Go to the land department of a college or university, and look at the possibilities of leasing land to hunt. Although you may not find large blocks of woodlands contiguous to each other, you may pinpoint several small tracts available for lease.
Check Out the Military: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages some of the best river-bottom hardwood land in this nation. This government entity also owns small easements of land, measuring 20 to 40 acres, on many major waterways throughout the nation. For more information, contact the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at http://www.usace.army.mil/howdoi/where.html#maps. Too, many military bases around the country have thousands of acres open to public hunting for civilians.
Think About Large Corporations: Power companies in many states have large land holdings along major reservoirs and lakes that they've helped to create to generate power. Oftentimes by checking with the land office of power companies, timber companies, coal companies and large industrial companies, you may discover lands you can lease or hunt by purchasing a permit.
Consider Wildlife Refuges: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has thousands of acres in over 400-wildlife refuges under federal protection. To learn the location of wildlife refuges you can hunt as well as get free maps, consult www.fws.gov/refuges.
Don't Forget the U.S. Forest Service: The U.S. Forest Service has millions of acres open to the hunter. To receive maps of lands located in your state under jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service and open to the public for hunting, visit http://www.google.com/maps and find direct links to federal lands across the nation that permit public hunting.
Check Out State Lands: Almost every state owns some hunting lands, although they may receive intense hunting pressure. You must understand several principles for finding deer on public-hunting lands.
• Move as far as you can from public-access areas.
• Go into the woods two to three hours before daylight to reach your hunting area.
• Continue to hunt until the last minute of legal shooting time. Know how to use a compass and a map as well as a hand-held GPS receiver.
• Don't tell anyone where you hunt on public lands.
• Don't leave any signs in the woods to indicate where you've hunted.
Study Maps: When you lose your hunting land and need to locate new land, consult these places for available maps. You also may find nearby camping sites. You can find topo maps at:
• U. S. Geological Survey, which has mapped the entire United States, has topographical maps to scale available that contain line and symbol representations of natural terrain and man-made structures. These maps will aid a hunter in determining where roads, rivers, firebreaks and property lines are on a specific piece of property. www.usgs.gov/pubprod/
Although topos are a man-made representation of land, aerial photos picture the real thing. Aerial photos show little-used roads and trails, the vegetation in wildlife pockets and the plant density in travel corridors. To use the National Aerial Photography Program (NAPP), you’ll need detailed information, including the state, county, township and section number if possible. http://edc.usgs.gov/guides/napp.html
Many local libraries also have sets of topographical maps available as well as order forms and indexes for the maps. Also the library near the place where you plan to hunt may contain maps of that county that are not accessible in other parts of the state.
The National Cartographic Information Center is part of the U. S. Geological Survey and is the main source for maps that are produced or distributed by federal agencies, as well as by commercial publishers. Call 817-509-3200, or visit http://www.ncgc.nrcs.usda.gov/
• Map Express, 800-627-0039, www.mapexp.com
• My Topo, 877-587-9004, www.mytopo.com
• TopoZone, www.topozone.com
• DeLorme Mapping, 800-561-5105, http://www.delorme.com/
This company has published full-color state atlases, including topographic maps, road detail and jeep trails. DeLorme also has completed its Topo USA on CD-Rom, which gives you seamless, topographic coverage of all 50 states, includes geographic features like mountains, rivers and canyons and gives you a 3-D aerial view of an entire country. You also can print out these detailed topo maps. |
