Pressure after gun season

Hunting public land during firearms season is a dream on archery-only land.
Everyone's usually out gun hunting so you have the whole place to yourself practically.
I hunt until the end (Mid-January) but I haven't been on public land during the late season in years. Does pressure usually wind down or does it stay pretty steady?
I haven't had a chance to hunt the last couple weeks, but on my drives by several of the public spots I hunt there doesn't seem to be a decrease in the number of trucks in the lot (morning and evening).

msaskins wrote:Hunting public land during firearms season is a dream on archery-only land.
Everyone's usually out gun hunting so you have the whole place to yourself practically.

Once again, I couldn't agree with you more! Check it out.

Yes, down here the pressure does drop off when gun season begins. Which has its pros and cons. I like having a few hunters out and about because they push deer back to me with their movement, but it's also nice to know that I have a vast amount of acrage to myself.

Where you're at, does it pick up again a few weeks after gun season closes?
I've talked with other guys that have virtually no hunters out after Mid-December on the public land they hunt.
Here . . . I don't see it. Looks like everyone picked up right where they left off before Nov. 22
In most counties of Missouri it's impossible to "tag out". You can get 2 bucks with bow and you can keep killing does as long as you want to keep buying additional antlerless tags. I'm just curious to see how die-hard these guys are. I wonder how many will still be out early January.
One year I hunted public land on Christmas Day just because I knew there wouldn't be anyone out . . .

Down here in LA, the hunting pressure after the modern firearm season is over is nill. But the damage is done....our gun season is so lengthy that the deer on public lands have gone underground by the time the orange army has pulled up camp.

Our season begins with bow on Oct. 15th-Jan. 31st. Then gun season begins Nov. 15th-Jan. 31st. So we have gun pressure through the end of the season.

Wow.
Our gun portion opens mid-November and lasts 2 weeks max.
This year it was only about 1.5 weeks with an extended doe-only week in certain counties.
You guys have got a lot to contend with - The gun guys here show up like locusts then vanish just as quick . . .

The pressure in Iowa is next to nothing during late season on the public. The mornings you can just about guarantee nobody will be there and in the evenings you may run into a person sitting on a field edge. I usually sit back in the timber inbetween the bedding area and food and catch them inbetween so I usually have no pressure around me.

Our gun season runs from the 1st weekend of December until the 3rd weekend of December. Our bow season ends January 10th and I have found those last 10 days are the best time to hit it. The deer are on pins and needles the first week after gun season but it seems to calm down after that.

I hunt both Illinois and Missouri and typically the lots empty out come December. The remaining hunters are usually the same guys throughout the rest of the season. Some of the best hunting I have had has been in late December, food patterns and daylight movement, best of both worlds.

Here it sounds like what some of you guys are posting. Early bowseason you have the rune of the place to yourself almost. Mid October, November you start seeing the guys pour in, then gun season, woosh, they are gone. After that, the pressure dies down quite a bit, and it`s always the same three trucks, die hards like me.

Because of this, I hunt the general open firearms areas and smaller tracts of public land early on,then try and switch to larger plots during the rut.

When the guns start going off, I`ll head to bow only areas and pretty much nobody home.. Of course, I`ll switch up sometimes and hunt our little piece of private with the black powder gun ( I even broke down and took the shotgun out there this year, it`s been an off season for me).

But when the Late season gets here,our bow only areas stay fairly unpressured.Of course, I try and slip in a few late season hunts, but we have a lot of bucks dropping in late December and January, so many times I find myself indulging myself with a duck hunt or two in the marsh instead of deer hunting.

One of the best times to hunt here in the U.P. of Michigan is the late season after rifle and muzzleloader. What is even better is that during the late bow season, crossbows cannot be used. It seems most hunters are gearing up for ice fishing or other outdoor activities. The deer start to migrate in areas giving a chance for some on the ground action.

I love hunting the late season. On my way home this morning from work I stopped by the place I hunt and only 3 people out. None of them were deer hunting 2 tree rats hunter's and a duck hunter.