Western tactics for whitetails

I've always hunted public land for most of my hunting. With the exception for a few private plots around my house that I could hunt after school or work when I was younger. Most of my hunting was done in the Allegheny National forest. Then I moved to NC where you either join a hunt club or I go to Pisgah National forest. It's a lot rougher terrain than Allegheny but its still fun. This past deer season I did my first "backpack " hunt and loved it. I did a turkey backpack hunt for opening day and have another planned for up in Pa the first week of May with my cousin After a couple days of hunting with my dad out of the cabin I've hunted since I was 12. I still have a few spots around the house that I can go and hang a tree stand and hunt the last few hours of daylight if I want to but I love the big woods and now the ability to really get off the beaten path and hopefully find that big guy that hasn't seen anyone in a long time, if ever.

I hunt western whitetails every year. A shower once a week, hunt the wind, and have pretty good luck. I've killed a handful of P&Y bucks and have seen many.

Best to date is a public land 204 NT, and a few 150s. I love hunting them, can be frustrating

I shot this buck at 6000ish feet. I would of never hunted whitetails that high in N.Idaho but I had him on trail camera in my elk spot.

I live in the Adirondacks and do most of my deer hunting on large tracts of public land. Good sized, steep mountains and low deer densities. I do sometimes hunt from a spike camp, I put on a lot of miles and being able to pack out meat certainly lets you take advantage of the tremendous amount of remote country we have here. However, the idea of glassing for game here is laughable. My favorite way to hunt here, is to track on snow. There's just no better way to spend your time efficiently, actually knowing that your hard work is getting you closer to a buck. I enjoyed reading this thread. I know that my kind of hunting is alive and well here in the northeast, but it's good to hear about backcountry Whitetail hunters in other parts of the east!

The only whitetails we have where I live are along the Arkansas River. It's 8000ft.

Spot and stalk hunting is the only way I've ever hunted. Pick a hilltop, go up, sit and glass for game. Find something you like & plan out a stalk. I hunt near the Southern AZ/Mexico border and there is some tough terrain in some places that its quicker and easier to get to versus taking my truck. I take out my atv from camp and ride in a good ways south. Park the bike and hike about 2-3 miles to the spot I want to set up and glass from.

This August/September will be the first time I will be sitting water during the archery hunt. Found some good spots with water and regular sign of deer coming in. Hopefully it pays off. It will be hot out there, but the only thing I'm worried about are the snakes! I hate those things!

In case you missed this, I took this article in the spirit of this thread, so be sure and give Torin a chance and read his article:


Torin Miller (screen name tam9492) lives in one of the most heavily hunted states in the U.S., Pennsylvania. Torin longs to do it right in the public-land big woods and has recently discovered that East or West, anyone can find adventure if they're willing to work for it.

So please welcome Torin to Rokslide and check out his article here

Big-Woods Whitetail: Seeking Eastern Adventure

That's a cool story.

It depends where a person is located but there is a surprising amount of public land in the Midwest and East that simply gets written off because its tough to get into. And some really cool old bucks live in those places.......

I'm in Mo (same as the OP). I never been afraid to "steal" tactics from other types of hunting. As someone who has hunted public land in Mo as well as private. My biggest suggestion would be to hunt (the public) during the weekdays vs weekends. I have been in some areas as far away as I could get from a road system, only to get some dude walking by in white tennis shoes walking by. Even the private land I hunt is connected to public, we get people cruising thru all the time even though it posted no hunting.

I play the conditions mostly. We hunt all woods and have stand locations thru out the property. The dried leaves on the ground floor make a stalk difficult in quiet conditions, but in windy conditions you can do it. The second issue is visibility We hunt woods not fields, just don't have them where we are. Visibility can be 30 to 150 yards, probably averages closer to 50 yards. I'll never forget when I was a teen I was hunting with one of my buddy's dad. He was a good ole boy and a good hunter. I was trying to walk thru the leaves as quietly as possible and still making too much noise. He turned and looked at me as if to say WTF. When he saw I was really trying to be quiet, he just said "you don't need to be quiet, you can't be in these leaves. Just walk like a deer they make noise too." He kind of showed me shuffle your feet, stopping for short periods. To this day when a deer walks by (If its not a shooter) I try to watch/listen to how it walks so I can mimic it.

I have probably wandered off topic - sorry. I guess my message is Western, Eastern, Midwestern tactics, don't be afraid to use what will or can work for the situation. Terrain, distance can change, it all comes down to taking the shot and effectively taking the animal at what ever distance you are comfortable. It wouldn't be feasible for me to pack in to a remote location in Missouri and pack it out, it would probably kill me dragging a big deer out several miles of hills with a cart (no motor vehicles on public land).

Man, I have been there too. You think "nobody's going to work this hard" and all of a sudden this dude pops up.
I had a guy walk under my tree last year at about 11:00 and then was able to kill a buck at 2:00 though! I thought the day was a write off and was just staying up there out of principle and all of a sudden here he was!
Sometimes it seems like I kill deer and turkeys mostly on days when everything is going wrong. I guess maybe that serves as a reminder to me that success is less my skill and more just being out there when they decide to show up.